Things like the usual editors - SoundForge, audition etc have a generator built in - but in the absence - record the hiss between FM radio stations - it will do for this. Whatever you use to edit/record on should let you create the test recording. I think that with the specialist work on the instrument you can rule that out then - I was thinking the opposite, maybe a worn out but nice sounding beast!

If it can produce this range it should be perfectly possible to record it. The files you have are flacs, capable of really good quality - but what format did you record to? wav? Was there a file conversion that has gone wrong somehow? If one of them has more bit depth, and has been reduced to fit the other? To be honest, that's a total guess because my understanding is that with floating point, this doesn't happen - but maybe there is a setting that is doing the conversion - badly? Those OKMs I'm not really sure of. My experiments years before with binaural were not the best. I had a dummy head which was OK, but really needed headphone to make the stereo sound field work. On speakers it was pretty odd. Another test would be to try to record a continuous tone that started inaudible and increased at a steady rate - with one microphone left and another right, and see on a stereo side by side meter the two levels rising - they should track together. If one is performing badly against the other it should be obvious.

Going back to the OKMs - be aware that the lapels of a jacket are nowhere near going to work as a boundary, as in an infinite plane that has the microphone as part of it. If the mics are more than a few mm away from the surface, they operate in a non-boundary mode, and of course, fabric is a great absorber of high frequencies. You also cannot move because you rotate the stereo field. I strongly recommend that you fix the mic position. The actual technique should reflect the sound you want. A semi-distant position with either Blumlein fig-8 or XY generally works best in nice sounding rooms, but in a troublesome or less, er, pleasant sounding room, a cheat with close mics, positioned by experimentation with the piano in question and then balanced and blended with some good quality reverb plug-ins may well be the best. My colleague's C3 records best close miked simply because like yours, his room has hard surfaces - his with carpet, but still not nice sounding. We record his piano close in - and use a rather quaint digital Yamaha reverb unit from the 80s - their very first attempt at acoustical modelling, and in this case, we use the one excellent programme - Munich Cathedral, which blended in low sounds great.

If you oversaturate a microphone, overload it, if you will - the resultant sound is just rough. There is non-linearity when the levels go up to close to maximum, but this can easily be tested as the culprit by recording from an increased distance - in verse square law works for you so a doubling of the distance has a much bigger impact on record levels. Of course the room content increases, but it will let you test dynamic range.

Her is something additional that might actually help:

So, this is a recording I've made with the internal microphones of the Tascam DR44-WL. Hopefully you can deduce some more information from this recording. Instead of finishing just with the chord, I've left it dangling for quite a while, which also made me realize that more than a minute of sustain is quite something for an instrument of that age.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mBfLncvsKraWwX6608Jj_ndsBjm2D66C

The recordings with the DR44-WL are all 16Bit at 44.1kHz. Conversion to flac via Linux command line with highest possible compression ratio; the original .wav is 21MB, the resulting .flac is 4.5MB.

The OKMs have a very specific use case for me and as such they have been of incredible service for more than 30(!) years. Taping classical piano recitals is something you don't want to do with visible gear, so back in the 80s together with a WM-D3 this was precisely what I needed. The resulting recordings by now have kind of a historical dimension; I taped pianists like Horowitz, Richter, Arrau, Michelangeli and in some cases the recordings are the only existing ones, such as this one from 1987:

When placed carefully, they reproduce a really superb piano sound, such as in this case with Russian pianist Igor Zhukov and a piano prepared by one of the best technicians in the world: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1heKuLniowM21wIMoNGXCSpOY81OhqTDU

Recording is from 1996 with the OKMs and a Sony DAT TCD-D8. Please enjoy, it's gorgeous.

I've taken the tracks to my studio and while I'm not sure what the result actually mean, there are a few things that stand out that might be indicative of a problem your end.

The recording of the recital with the applause at the end first. Your old standard to perhaps use as a guide?

I tried listening in both Sound Forge and Cubase, to get access to different tools. The recital recording has a very solid stereo image that follows the pianist quite closely, and it is balanced to the centre, which I always think is the aim - centre keyboard = centre of the image. The pianist's perspective, which is of course wrecked for the audience, who don't get this with the usual piano placement. This recording has a swing about the centre, and the field when viewed looks quite typical. I'm never sure what is wrong with some I see, but usually something in the sound leads me to the stereoscope meters. The dynamics are also quite pronounced, but in a realistic manner. The unwanted mechanical noises are absent to the best of my ability to detect them.

In your OKM recording, there are what sound like 'cuff-link' noises, fabric noises (I think - a sort of swish) and the stereo image is all over the place. This doesn't make itself very obvious in the recording, but I close my eyes and can detect shifts in the stereo image, so I look on the meter and it's visible - and in this case, there is a favouring of the lower part of the keyboard. I still like this recording technique the least.

The Omni more closely reflects the type of sound in the recital recording - which interestingly I did not detect the audience until they clapped!

Your new recording with the sustained end note shows that there is dynamic range capability. It also reveals some technical issues I think. The sustained note would normally be specially static. The instrument just decays. Obviously, the length of the strings determines that some will decay more quickly - but the image should stay fixed, perhaps with some tiny room anomalies in a space with large RT60 value, but you have a small space, so I expected stability. The recording shows the left and right decay varies - the meters fluttering and the stereoscope moving, which is odd. As if the two channels are not tracking together?

The one thing you may have not noticed is that there is virtually nothing above 10K in ANY of the recordings. In fact, the energy is mostly below 4-5K, and tails off rapidly above this. A gentle slope downwards from just over 4K, with it almost gone by 6-7K, and missing above that. I changed the scale to check, and it's below the level my meters can show. The fact that the old recording and the new ones both have this suggests something other than your limited dynamics. The recorder and it's internal microphones often are commented on for being a bit bright - in your case, there is no HF response? Something is adrift here. Can you check this? Do you have any other recording device to use as comparison? Even an iPhone maybe? Something you can use to analyse what is going on? Could you record that piano decay on two devices - recorder and phone, sync them up and route to L and R and then see how the decay and frequency response differs. The sustain recording shows that the piano has a greater dynamic range than you thought perhaps, and you successfully captured it, even though the noise floor was evident. This didn't seem to decay 'weirdly', but was quite natural apart from the left/right flutter. Why was the original recording lacking dynamics that were recorded later? I'm left wondering if you just overplayed the quieter passages and ran out of steam? Seems unlikely, but the decay recording rather removes the piano and recording device from any blame of not being able to cope with dynamics, which only leaves the player. Could this have anything to do with the loss of the HF end? As you play louder, I assume the piano produces more overtones, so if the recorder/microphone system does not capture it, maybe this is what makes you hear it as lack of dynamics? Maybe?

I don't know why I haven't noticed this thread before as recording classical piano is my speciality......

I always use omnis for recording a grand piano as a directional mic. rolls off too early and you miss the bottom end.

I normally use the Gefell M221 and have also used Sennheiser MKH 20 or 8020 and also have some omnis in the Neumann KM-D series.

As the OP was talking about B!!!!!!!r mics, I think the budget is very low - if this is the case, then the only mic. I would look at is the Line Audio OM1 as this is an excellent omni at a very small price that has a quality far above its price range.

I don't suppose the limiter in the recorder is engaged, is it?

Sorry for taking so long to reply; lots of things going on in my life right now.

I have pondered your excellent remarks and done some re-listening and further experimentation. By now I am confident that the culprit is the internal microphone preamps of the Tascam DR44-WL. While the recorder itself may have a huge dynamic range, I believe that the miniaturization of analog components inside the recorder simply makes it impossible to deal with the dynmic range of a piano and semi-professional microphones.

As a first step to verify my opinion I bough a cheap Steinberg UR22-MK2 preamplifier with an inbuilt ADC that outputs to USB, feeding a laptop computer running Linux and Audacity as recording software. I also played around with microphone positioning and found the ORTF (200mm apart) set up a really interesting thing. I stumbled upon it with this recording that I really enjoyed, both piano-wise and in terms of mixture between direct sound and ambience:

So, here are three different versions of the piece that by now all of you will have come to love-hate:

Røde NT5 with cardioid capsules about 1.2m from the piano
https://drive.google.com/open?id=17kHdfELLmRBQiSGdOaRczbuXAjioLovX

Røde NT5 with NT45 capsules about 2m from the piano in ORTF set up:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1d6R6O-svxsCjEJgIFGNtNOq9HX97Z1HF

Røde NT5 with NT45 capsules about 1.2m from the piano in ORTF set up:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Kem9OvXjly0un81VDj0IkKGRtfYqgVuF

I feel it's a distinct improvement over the previous attempts. I loved the total simplicity of setting up the Steinberg UR22; it was really just plugging USB into the laptop, switching to the right inputs on the pulseaudio-manager and hit record in audacity. Now, the Steinberg is a really cheap piece of equipment, clocking in at roughly 140 USD. I'd like to know whether there is something significantly better in terms of preamp dynamics/resolution and quality of the AD-converters with the same ease of use in terms of drivers for Linux. If you say there isn't, I'll probably just keep it as it is, but TBQH I can't really see me using the DR44-WL anymore for my homerecordings.

I look forward to hearing your opinions; you have all been extremely helpful!

The size of components has no impact on the performance of a circuit that can be quantified. In fact, it's pretty standard practice for the prototypes of new circuit designs use different types of components to the production runs - you cannot experiment with circuit mounted devices - for the experimenting stages you need discreet solderable components so you can try substitutions and do the measurements. Once the design. is finalised, the transition to the final PCB design, with the tiny space-saving components is transparent.

Its only in RF designs that the physical layout can have an impact on things like tuned circuits, with the tiny devices meaning closer parallel tracks which have impact on how the tuned circuits match.

I'm sure there is a difference in the sound, but it will almost certainly be the design of the circuit, not the components that are playing the part in this.

In the video clip image - I'm intrigued as to why the piano is not central - one of the microphones is entirely pointing at nothing?

This should go down as one of the trickiest listening tests ever. I found it IMPOSSIBLE to judge based on listening to them sequentially, so what I have done is download these files.
Op11-1-Cardioid-ORTF1
Op11-1-cardioid
Op11-1-internal
Op11-1-Omni-ORTF-1
Op11-1-Omni-ORTF-2
Op11-1-omni

I have placed them one above the other in Cubase 9.5 Pro and been able to switch between them as it plays. However, I found the one I preferred in the beginning section to NOT be the one I preferred in the louder section, so cannot come up with an ideal, only best compromise. Looping just a short section of the quiet and loud sections allowed the simplest and I hope most critical listening.

Quiet Section impressions
Op11-1-Cardioid-ORTF-1 A bit thin, emphasis on right hand, not too much room sound
Op11-1-cardioid Warmer, but left hand more prominent, and right hand a little metallic
Op11-1-internal quite dry and clinical, but balanced - no noise I could detect
Op11-1-Omni-ORTF-1 warmer, a little boomy at the bottom - maybe the room?
Op11-1-Omni-ORTF-2 blurred - the room intrudes - a small rustling just before 7 secs??
Op11-1-omni warm but right hand defined better

Louder Section
Op11-1-Cardioid-ORTF1 image moved left a bit? weird?
Op11-1-cardioid warm but the repeated low note really intrudes
Op11-1-internal sounded pretty unpleasant on the really loud notes over emphasised left right shifts
Op11-1-Omni-ORTF-1 warm but manged the right hand better - the left hand just a bit too much?
Op11-1-Omni-ORTF-2 the highest notes seem to cut through a little better
Op11-1-omni cleaner right hand, some resonances in left hand.

Which ones did I prefer? For realism, as if I had been in the room, I think I'd go for Op11-1-Cardioid-ORTF-1, the old recording. I liked Op11-1-Omni-ORTF-2 and switching between those two - the room just got bigger. Worst for me was the Op11-1-internal which just sounded 'wrong' - tonally weakest, and if I had to say why, I'd probably go with the mics - I don't believe it's the electronics just what they're fed with, or maybe it was just an unlucky placement.

If it was me - I'd pick one of the two I liked, then experiment with placement to maximise the good characteristics and reduce the slight annoyances.

I have also concluded that this is all down to personal preference and NOT anything technical at all. I liked some, didn't like others. While typing this, I've been listening to it all over and over - and if I have to have a winner, its Op11-1-Omni-ORTF-2, based on the entire piece.
Paul

paulears, post: 459495, member: 47782 wrote: The size of components has no impact on the performance of a circuit that can be quantified. In fact, it's pretty standard practice for the prototypes of new circuit designs use different types of components to the production runs - you cannot experiment with circuit mounted devices - for the experimenting stages you need discreet solderable components so you can try substitutions and do the measurements. Once the design. is finalised, the transition to the final PCB design, with the tiny space-saving components is transparent.

Its only in RF designs that the physical layout can have an impact on things like tuned circuits, with the tiny devices meaning closer parallel tracks which have impact on how the tuned circuits match.

I'm sure there is a difference in the sound, but it will almost certainly be the design of the circuit, not the components that are playing the part in this.

The type of components and the layout are part of the design. I've related before in these forums how in one of my contract designs I carefully specified that the output feedback resistor had to be three discrete (not "discreet"!) axial-leaded resistors in series rather than a single surface-mount (SMT) resistor. This was because the resistance-voltage curve of the SMT parts was sufficient to introduce distortion at higher output levels. Sure enough, when the finished products came back from the factory in the Far East, the three discrete resistors had been lumped into a single SMT part, and the performance dropped from very good to average.

BTW, designers do work at the surface-mount level, even for prototypes. During a development phase of a project I can spend a fair proportion of my days working down a microscope. Soldering devices with half-millimeter pin spacing takes a little skill and practice.

Interesting - I have never been organised enough to keep the separation required to swap and change - ending up with unidentifiable parts I can't then categorically say is the right bit!

I suspect age and cutting-edginess dulls my ability to comprehend. I shall have to do some reading up to comprehend the electrical differences between an SMT component and 3 separate series connected individual resistors. I guess I'm looking for differences in resistance as voltage changes? Measurable differences I presume rather than theoretical? I take my hat off to you for having the ears for this. I'm positive that I could never hear the differences in combinations of resistors. As the designer, you deserve your designs being followed to the letter. I'm just having trouble imagining what I'd actually be listening for, and how my knowledge that passive components like resistors are not at audio frequencies anything other than resistive? Probably best as a new topic, rather than derail this one, but I'm just having real trouble understanding this one.

paulears, post: 459506, member: 47782 wrote: Probably best as a new topic, rather than derail this one.

Agreed - maybe we'll come back to that in a more appropriate thread.

Regarding the piano recordings: what was not said about the ORTF samples is whether the capsules were the NT45-C or the NT45-O. The C would be correct for ORTF, but (as John Willett also mentioned), omni (-O) capsules usually give a much better overall feel to a grand piano recording, largely due to the extra octave on the bass. If using one of the standard named configurations with omnis for this type of recording, spaced A-B works better than a near-coincident mounting such as ORTF.

In my experience of piano recording, you don't necessarily get the best sound from an instrument just by putting up a standard configuration in a pre-selected position. You need to experiment, either with moving a standard configuration around to find a position that captures a good sound from both the instrument and the stage acoustics, or else by going non-standard with the configuration and positioning microphones to get the best from the instrument while reducing any unpleasant reflections or other sounds from the venue acoustics.

Regarding the Atsuko Kinoshita video, I'm sorry to say I did not personally find it particularly convincing. This was at both the performance level and the quality of the recorded sound, even taking into account the caption implying that she was playing an 1853 Bechstein.

Boswell, post: 459507, member: 29034 wrote:
In my experience of piano recording, you don't necessarily get the best sound from an instrument just by putting up a standard configuration in a pre-selected position. You need to experiment, either with moving a standard configuration around to find a position that captures a good sound from both the instrument and the stage acoustics, or else by going non-standard with the configuration and positioning microphones to get the best from the instrument while reducing any unpleasant reflections or other sounds from the venue acoustics.

I agree with this.

Although my standard starting positioning is normally a 20cm spaced pair of omnis (Gefell M221 or Sennheiswr MKH 20 are normally my first choices) at about 2m high and 2m from the piano - I will listen first and vary the positioning.

The best position will differe as to the piano, the room, the pianist and teh work being played.

I've had the pleasure and honor to be present at Frederic Rzewski's recent Frankfurt recital and he allowed me to record the recital.

So, I made a video recording with my OnePlus 5, taped the OKM down to the floor and fed them into the DR-05 Tascam.

And my pair of Røde NT45 Omni directly fed into the DR-44WL with 50m of symmetric XLR in between. The Rødes were put into an ORTF-like configuration, spaced 40cm apart, 2m away from the piano and about 180cm in height.

This is the OP5 video (yes, I cut the pianist's head off) with its audio track replaced by the Røde recording:

I have taken quite some insights from this recital recording:

* At age 80, Frederic Rzewski still is an incredible pianist
* His 36 variations on "The People United Will Never Be Defeated" is one of a handful of true masterworks of 20th century piano music
* The Tascam DR-44WL works well and does no misrepresent dynamics
* The Rødes are awesome
* ORTF is a set up that I really like for capturing the perfect balance between hall atmosphere and direct piano sound
* 40cm spacing for ORTF in a larger hall is too far apart, the mid-range oscillates in direction. 20cm will be better next time
* The Bechstein D 282 is one of the most beautiful pianos I have ever played
* My room as it was is not a good place to do recordings other than placing the mics right above the strings.
* Putting a thick rug under the piano made all the difference for future experiments in recordings and to my playing pleasure

Thanks for all your valuable input. Without it, the Rzewski recital would never have been captured this beautifully.

I was glad you mentioned the mid-range back and forth. I read that second - doing a blind listen and was thinking in my head about the stereo field, trying to see if there was much stereo image from the piano when there clearly was from the audience. Then I noticed little clusters off notes that seemed to shift left and right as his playing moved through a short span of notes. Never heard that before. His playing for his age is amazing - and the dynamics pretty wild in places. I love the piano's tone through to maybe f, or ff - but the really loud bits make it kind of harden up - described too me once as fit compression when it becomes very 'hard' an uncompliant. This was on. Steinway though. I didn't know Bechsteins did the same thing? Will that 20cm cure the problem, or will it just give a less realistic image? Don't know. Nice recording though.

Thanks for your spot-on experience of listening to the audio and getting the same thing in terms of weird mid-range oscillation impression. This is definitely a spacing thing of the ORTF set up. And the 40cm are really good in getting my own piano in a small room, but in a concert hall situation, this is not what you want.

Anyway, I am now going to tease you. This is the completely undoctored version in lossless:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Me39UuLgq7CdfkCw-0osW-OkEixpcRD8

I MUST know whether your assessment in terms of dynamics in the upper region is something that youtube might be the culprit of. Please let me know whether it might be their compression algorithms and what, if it is not, your suggestion for improvement might be.

As to Rzewski: What a delight having him heard in concert twice now (Been to Connecticut for his recital at UConn in November). He is great at age 80, but page turning for this monumental work directly influences his piano playing. With a bad page turner, this completely messes up concentration, and with turning pages himself, he loses focus on piano playing and is too busy getting the pages right. We are discussing this and there might be a good solution. We'll see.

Thank you for your willingness to lend me your ear in my whole endeavour!

I'm working in a venue at the moment so won't be in a position to listen properly until tomorrow - but I shall have a go. On a different point - one thing I have never really understood is that with a grand piano - with a left hand and a right hand spread to the instrument, why do they always do recitals side on, where any stereo image is 90 degrees rotated to the typical listener? Is it intentional, as in they tried it and liked the sound, or did it evolve purely from the visual perspective, being able to see the hands? In. orchestras it's more common to see them in different positions, but side on produces up and down stage differences in audio, that from the front get captured quite poorly sometimes?

the piano lid acts as a reflector.

Slap head moment!

paulears, post: 459950, member: 47782 wrote: Slap head moment!

It's not only the lid, it's also the soundboard. This is where most of the sound is actually produced and it makes a huge difference whether you have 2,74m or 1,60m facing the audience.

After some months of experimenting I believe that results have decently improved. Now I am using the Rødes Omnis in a 30 cm ORTF spacing and varying the distance to the piano between 1,5 and 3 meters.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ozX388jxik8QGqM6w0Xz_6_o_PW8YdFG

is one of the latest recordings. It's also the first recording with a piano that I tuned myself from scratch, helped by a beautiful Android app called PianoMeter. I am quite happy with the results.

I think it's a win! The reason? You could really hear the piano, and instead of thinking about the recording, I started to hear the little oddities of pianos - and I discounted a couple of makes, and started to concentrate on what the piano is. in the end, I came down on a Bechstein, but could be the other B? Please put me put of my misery. I think that NOT commenting on a recording is evidence that the recording is faithful. I'd be very happy with that result, and keen to use that technique again. I wonder if it will work so well on a different instrument, or if it's instrument non-specific. I've found Yamaha pianos very difficult to match with Steinway, for example - what works for one isn't so good on the other and vice-versa.

paulears, post: 461183, member: 47782 wrote: I think it's a win! The reason? You could really hear the piano, and instead of thinking about the recording, I started to hear the little oddities of pianos - and I discounted a couple of makes, and started to concentrate on what the piano is. in the end, I came down on a Bechstein, but could be the other B? Please put me put of my misery. I think that NOT commenting on a recording is evidence that the recording is faithful. I'd be very happy with that result, and keen to use that technique again. I wonder if it will work so well on a different instrument, or if it's instrument non-specific. I've found Yamaha pianos very difficult to match with Steinway, for example - what works for one isn't so good on the other and vice-versa.

It's a Steinway B, serial number 60103, manufactured in Hamburg in 1887. By now it has gone through three major repairs and it has retained some of its oddities. I believe what you are looking for - and what's not there, is the typical ringing in the mid treble section and richer harmonics/overtones in the higher treble section.

There are two reasons for that. One is that the soundboard is still original. While it has been repaired in the 70s, i.e. cracks filled and screwed on to the ribs, it has lost a lot of its original tension and this is very much audible in the treble. The other reason is that the strings are 40 years old and some of them cannot be tuned properly anymore. Even a single string tone in the trebles can actually been heard with "wrong" overtones, making it impossible to give it richness and clarity by tuning.

I am still of two mind about having those strings replaced. On the one hand it certainly would have clearly audible results, but on the other hand, once you have removed the strings you simply must replace the 130 year old agraffes as well. And then you must give the capo bar a new, clean filing. And when you have already removed the strings, it would be rather stupid not to give it new dampers as well, because the work of aligning and regulating them after restringing is about the same.

And once you have the strings down it would certainly make sense to fix some of the tiny cracks in the bridge.

Taking all this together is work that needs to be done in a proper workshop by a real expert. Taking into account that I live on top floor without an elevator, we are looking at 6-8000 EUR easily - and TBQH I don't think the instrument is worth it. I can't imagine ever recovering that investment, because very few people will understand the value of an old piano like that.

So, I'll probably leave it at that, especially since I have com to really love the piano as it is. Also, on days with higher humidity, i.e. above 50%, the piano sounds even better and more beautiful. It's one of those days today, so I'll try to make another recording later.

I'm so dim! Is it the one in you avatar? I discounted Steinway for the reasons you mention, and I'm not ashamed to say that slightly 'jangly' characteristic is virtually absent. You've created a new kind of blended sound with your work. I'm a total un-expert in the piano renovation/repair and tweaking area. I didn't realise that the overtones are impacted so much by age - or maybe is that why I hear older and often unloved pianos as being a bit 'dull'. I find this really interesting. Have you thought about youtube videos of your next repair/reworking of a decent piano. I'd watch 100%. I usually hate being wrong when I've made my mind up, but this time I can see how I followed the usual clues and messed up. One to remember. Steinways CAN sound like this one.

if you ever need on stage amplification of a Yamaha C3, you can go under the soundboard, and where the left to right strut runs you can drop a mic cable down, then tape it to itself with a condenser pointing vertically up and you get a very natural sound that can with a bit of eq really work for live sound. It doesn't work on any other Yamaha model, or any of the other makes I tried it on. A Yamaha rep pointed this one out to me ten years ago, and he had no idea why it worked either. Its sounds horrible and dull on any other model of piano - but it works amazingly well on C3's.

paulears, post: 461185, member: 47782 wrote: I'm so dim! Is it the one in you avatar? I discounted Steinway for the reasons you mention, and I'm not ashamed to say that slightly 'jangly' characteristic is virtually absent. You've created a new kind of blended sound with your work. I'm a total un-expert in the piano renovation/repair and tweaking area. I didn't realise that the overtones are impacted so much by age - or maybe is that why I hear older and often unloved pianos as being a bit 'dull'. I find this really interesting. Have you thought about youtube videos of your next repair/reworking of a decent piano. I'd watch 100%. I usually hate being wrong when I've made my mind up, but this time I can see how I followed the usual clues and messed up. One to remember. Steinways CAN sound like this one.

First of all: I do not do restoration or reworking of pianos. My background is piano playing itself and I taught myself tuning a grand over the past two months. I work as project manager for Bechstein, so I am quite familiar with what working on a piano actually means, specifically in preparing a concert grand, but I leave that work to the real experts and only tune my own piano for the fun of it.

As to sound: Steel oxidizes over time and that changes the material quality of a string substantially, especially if it's a piano in heavy use (which this one was) and is tuned on a regular basis. I believe it's really the strings that make all the difference in this piano, not the soundboard. While it may be flat, it still has amazing power and sustain. I have "piano ears" and I believe that I can abstract from what I hear to what is actually the substance of the instrument. Still, I dearly love that piano and sometimes you get a glimpse into what it can sound like. I've just recorded the 2nd movement of the Prokofiev 8th sonata:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-Jmhj-MddufwLyVpfQgWQAY8jsvZt-04

I like the truly mellow sound of, especially in the very soft passages and I believe that now you can hear that it's a Steinway, albeit a very old one.

Has the tuning slipped a little? There's a D, the octave above middle C, that from 1:06 becomes little disonnant in some combinations? Could just be me, but I think the first recording in this topic sounds cleaner. What do you think?

paulears, post: 461188, member: 47782 wrote: Has the tuning slipped a little? There's a D, the octave above middle C, that from 1:06 becomes little disonnant in some combinations? Could just be me, but I think the first recording in this topic sounds cleaner. What do you think?

The D is a tiny bit off indeed. First of all: One is never done tuning ;.). Second: the piano is in a place with permanent changes to temperature and humidity and third: I am not a piano tuner, I have only bought the tuning lever two months ago and since then I don't think I spent more than 30 hours with tuning: And fourth: This is the first time I tuned a full piano, every single note. I am happy about the result and also a little proud.

But thanks for pointing it out; it has been corrected. It strikes me as odd, however, that all 3 strings of the unison were out of tune in the same way. The unison was clean, the interval was not. Weird.

I'd not worry - I do know that piano tuning is not for me in any sense. I just don't have the feel for it - too hamfisted I'm afraid. I suppose pianos are just living things!

With my ignorant head on, is this one of those tuning things where perfect tuning is actually wrong/ I'm thinking about temperament - is this one of those tuning issues that are key related, that equal temperament is supposed to cure? I'm thinking that if certain notes are not quite at the equal temperament then they'd support a piece in one key and fight with another. I know some basics, but the notion of doing the maths, then adjusting it to technically wrong but musically right is a bit much for me.

It's a little more complicated than that, which is why I haven't even tried tuning intervals and laying a temperament. The complication also comes from inharmonicity, where speaking lengths of a string differ because of diameter, dimensioning and other factors. This is most notable in the bass section where the difference between a baby and a concert grand is most painfully audible.

I strictly stick to PianoMeter's reading which has served me well. I've become a little obsessed with unisons, crunching my ear and brain to listen to as many overtones as possible and aligning them.

But as I said before: The piano itself is a severely limiting factor: its age of strings, agraffes and its location in regard to temperature and humidity. I'll have to live with that.

Thanks for sharing - I'm fascinated by the interactions. The explanation earlier about filing the capo bar - I'd never even thought about this level of complexity. Thanks.

Here is a little update on the piano and my playing around with microphone placement.

This was done after an 8 hour session with my piano technician (who really has a love relationship with this piano - and it loves him back). He spent a whole day voicing the piano, i.e. fluffing up the felt of the hammers and re-shaping them by filing them into shape again. A vast improvement and by now I consider this piano as finished as can be and I am really happy with it:

OE1FEU, post: 462537, member: 51398 wrote: Here is a little update on the piano and my playing around with microphone placement.

This was done after an 8 hour session with my piano technician (who really has a love relationship with this piano - and it loves him back). He spent a whole day voicing the piano, i.e. fluffing up the felt of the hammers and re-shaping them by filing them into shape again. A vast improvement and by now I consider this piano as finished as can be and I am really happy with it:

great stuff!

I think it sounds really clean in the quieter passages, not blurry and dull like some old pianos do - nice job. I'd expected it to become a bit more jangly after being riffled about with, but he's done a nice job. I'm also not familiar with that piece, so thanks for sharing it.

It's a unique opportunity and I have started to make use of it. For the next couple of weeks/months due to the Corona shutdown, I have full access to a brand new Bechstein D 282 concert grand. Here is a first impression of what it sounds like. This is with Røde NT5 and omni capsules into the Steinberg interface with Yamaha preamps. Slight XY about 1,5m away from the piano center.

OE1FEU, post: 463848, member: 51398 wrote: It's a unique opportunity and I have started to make use of it. For the next couple of weeks/months due to the Corona shutdown, I have full access to a brand new Bechstein D 282 concert grand. Here is a first impression of what it sounds like. This is with Røde NT5 and omni capsules into the Steinberg interface with Yamaha preamps. Slight XY about 1,5m away from the piano center.

Nice opportunity.

The Røde NT5 with omni heads are a good choice for "mics on a budget".

If I was recording this I would have the mics about head height (or slightly higher), about 2m back and about 20cm apart (IE: one each end of a standard stereo bar) and pointing slightly out.

I have done lots of piano recordings this way and all have been very well received.

But the room will dictate the position - feel free to move them.

I would not use omnis in XY as the result is very "mono".

John Willett, post: 463850, member: 47971 wrote: Nice opportunity.

The Røde NT5 with omni heads are a good choice for "mics on a budget".

If I was recording this I would have the mics about head height (or slightly higher), about 2m back and about 20cm apart (IE: one each end of a standard stereo bar) and pointing slightly out.

I have done lots of piano recordings this way and all have been very well received.

But the room will dictate the position - feel free to move them.

I would not use omnis in XY as the result is very "mono".

My mistake. I actually did pretty much what you recommend, i.e. I made the wrong choice of words by saying that I use XY.

It's kind of a modified ORTF with omnis and a shallower angle of about 100°, so it's only the distance that's different. I'll play with that over the next couple of days. It's an actual concert hall, albeit a small one, so more distance of the mics will probably add more 'space' to the recording. It's a bit tricky to find the right balance with a nice stereo effect where bass comes from the left and treble from the right.

But I have enough time on my hands with this, so I'll keep playing and keep you updated, also with different pieces that have a higher level of dynamic range.

That's a rather nice sounding instrument. The piece jogged a memory and I found an old midi file of it. I have no idea who produced it, but for some reason I saved it.

Often, VSTi piano synth/samples can sound nice than real instruments, but in this example, I think the real one has recorded very well. People often ask - so I picked 4 of my favourite in the computer pianos. You can compare these with your real one and be pleased with your recording. I took the midi file - signed an instrument to it and did nothing else - not even level compensation up or down as it has very wide dynamics doesn't it. A real test for a computer version.
https://www.limelight.org.uk/ravel-le-gibet-kontakt-grandeur.mp3
https://www.limelight.org.uk/ravel-le-gibet-piantoteq6-steinway.mp3
https://www.limelight.org.uk/ravel-le-gibet-kontakt-maverick.mp3
https://www.limelight.org.uk/ravel-le-gibet-kontakt-factory-grand.mp3

OE1FEU, post: 463851, member: 51398 wrote: It's a bit tricky to find the right balance

This is the back you learn.

Getting the right balance between the piano and the room.

Don't try and get the sound to how the player hears it, but how the audience hears it.

When I record I have the mics to the front in the direction where the audience would be.

The thing that constantly amazes me is the standard of pianos, once wonderful instruments, that are in British Churches. A good example was the rehearsal for a Covid cancelled event - a live recording - first section choir and organ, second section choir and piano. The organist had identified some tuning issues and how to avoid them, and the rehearsal for this went fine - then we started on the piano. Tuned in the morning, badly out by the afternoon - I wonder if it has a cracked frame? It also made the most horrible noises when pedalled - I thing the felts were hard and useless and pressing down squeaked badly. This seems very common in these churches - lovely buildings with money spent taking out pews and putting in soft seats and making 'areas' for big or small congregations - yet the pianos are terrible. Funniest one was where the piano in the rehearsal was on full stick and sounded quite nice, but then everything got moved to make a safety aisle - and it got rotated, so the pianist couldn't see the conductor. My solution, take the lid off. It's a very expensive piano - we can't do that - so down went the lid and that wrecked everything.

Finding a nice piano is always such a boost.

OE1FEU, post: 463851, member: 51398 wrote: It's kind of a modified ORTF with omnis and a shallower angle of about 100°

Angling omnis doesn't do anything. What you had was a spaced pair or AB pair. All the separation between left and right comes from level and timing differences due to relative distances.

You might want to try a baffled omni setup.

bouldersound, post: 463856, member: 38959 wrote: Angling omnis doesn't do anything. What you had was a spaced pair or AB pair. All the separation between left and right comes from level and timing differences due to relative distances.

You might want to try a baffled omni setup.

Angling omnis *does* actually do something.

Firstly - it increases the distance between the capsules, especially useful if you have a fixed stereo bar and want a wider spacing.

Secondly - most omnis get a bit directional at higher frequencies, so will accentuate this a bit.

Yes, I do agree with most of your post - but angling *does* do something. :)

And, yes, using a Jecklin or Schneider disk can be very good - though most of my own piano recordings tend to be just spaced omnis at around 20cm to 30cm spacing and works very well for me.