Re: Jazz quartet living room recording - part 2

dave - a common problem in lots of acoustic music. when you have
vocals that are rcorded from 6" away, it is usually not a problem to
also close mic the piano like you are doing, but when the piano is a
support instrument for other solo instruments, close micing the piano
will always make it sound like the piano is in your face with
everything els behind it - v bad. adding reverb to try and push the
piano back does not work. i have heard that some people try to push
it back by delaying the piano a few milliseconds, but i dont know if
that can work or not.

i do lots of instrumental duos, small ensembles, and audition type
recordings of piano/oboe, piano/flute, etc, and i have tried a million
setups. the only way that seems to work is to actually mic the piano
from surther wawy than your solo instruments. i generally use an ORTF
pair of SDCs about 4 feet out from the lip. this always works in the
mix, but as you mention, you dont always get the isolation you might
want (which is usually not bad, as bleed can be your friend), and you
dont get the same kind of bright clean piano sound you hear on lots of
pop records without doing some creative post work. however, the trade
off is well worth it - it is way more important that your group sound
is cohesive - that the group sounds like they are all playing inthe
same space and playing together. micing the piano too close will
always mess that up IME.

of course, the other method to getting a cohesive sound is to use a
main stereo pair on the entire ensemble, with spot mics anywhere you
think you need them. when you mix, you use about 80% main pair, and
just bring up the spots to fill in where you are light on some
instrument. good luck.

.

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