Have made another recording with my Kawai KS-3F upright piano. I recently invested in another B1 Condenser Microphone, i.e. I now have two B1 microphones at the back of the piano. People had advised me to have the two and there is certainly an improvement in the sound. How does it sound to you and can you suggest anything else I should do?

Hello,

that is a matter of personal taste. I would look for a narrower stereo image. For instance by placing the microphones in XY setting above the open lid of the upright piano. (Or at the back like you did but likely in large AB ?)
You should try several placements and decide yourself what is best to your ears. You could get several ideas on the sound recording forums. Did you try upright piano recording in Google?
Piano recording requires many trials for finding the best placement for the microphones.
Cheers,
Didier

Hello Didier,

Thanks for your reply. Am not sure what you meant by a narrower stereo image. Did you mean to have the mics a little closer to one another? Nevertheless I put the mics a little closer to one another and I now have them both in an upright position. I had them in a horizontal position parallel with the floor but am not sure if this is the right thing to do. I also pulled the piano out another one foot from the wall so it is now about two ft away from the wall. It now sounds quite nice when I am playing. The mics are also a little higher than before, about 3/4 up the height of the piano instead of about 2/3. Not sure if this would have made any difference.

I tried the Google search under "upright piano recordings" and saw plenty there and then started getting a little confused.

I have played a piece with the changed set up and wondering if you would have a listen and comment.
The file is at the following link. Am not sure if I am allowed to put the link in like this in this forum.

http://www.blgoddard.com/soundfiles/asn ... ec2008.mp3

Yes. It's better to my taste here. But the signal-to-noise seems lower. Very nice bird songs in the background.

The active face of the microphones should be steered to the piano. Otherwise, this may explain why the signal-to-noise ratio is low.