Help with Piano Recording

[lrsamuel]

I need some help. I finally built my home studio, and started working with my first official client. It's kind of exciting for me. For one of the songs, we are recording a live piano in a church. I'm using a stereo pair of Rode NT5s connected to an MBox 2, which is connected to my powerbook. I set NT5s up in XY configuration and tried different positions. The sound I like was with them set right at the back end of the piano pointing towards the hammers with some auralex foam behind the mic to cut down on "some" of the reflections. The sound is Awesome. However, it picks up a significant amount of the knocking of the pedal and some of the sound of the damper head moving off the string (slightly). The piano is on hardwood floors. Are there any tips you can give me to help me out? I can't loose my first job

 

[TheBear]

you dont have to do xy positioning. but if you wanna keep it like that cool. it may be just me but i think having those sounds from the dampener and such would be kind of cool to keep in. but maybe position the mics a lil farther away form the piano and maybe position one mic more to the left for all the low end strings and the other mic closer to the right near the high end strings (looking at the piano with the keys infront of you). i hope that helps at all.

 

[BobRogers]

Try browsing the Acoustic Forum here. There have been several long recent threads on recording piano. Admittedly most of them have been classical, where there is an aesthetic preference for more room sound. So, for instance, some have used space omnis placed several feet from the piano. But there have been lots of suggestions for positioning, and sdcs in xy are common - other positions are closer to the curve in the side and even under the soundboard.

Pedal and damper noise is always a problem, but it can be minimized with proper maintenance. How old is the piano? When were the pedals last worked on?