Recording piano + vocals

[edouard]

Hello everyone,

Its good to be back on piano forum after a long break !
My question is as follows: does anyone have experience of recording a singer + accompanist.
I'm about to record some Britten 'cabaret' songs and Grieg songs with a singer - and I'm not really sure what miking arrangement to use. Piano solo I can do - but with a voice I'm not sure. Any experiences?

best wishes,

edward

[Torp]

Eduoard,

Much of what you're asking is going to depend on what you are working with for recording equipment.

What kind of room(s) do you have available to record in?
What microphones do you have?
What kind of piano?
What kind of voice does the singer have? Any aspects of that voice you want to expand/diminish?

More importantly for all of this, you need to ask yourself what you're looking for in a finished product.  Are you looking for professional level finished CDs?  Or are looking for a way to record yourselves for analytical purposes.

By the way, the art of recording can be as difficult as the art of piano playing, and, more importantly, just as subjective.  The reason I say this is that, just like piano, the RIGHT technique is the technique that gives you the sound you want (even if everyone else tells you it's wrong).

Tell me some more of your thoughts and I'll see if I can help with some more specific information.

Jef

[edouard]

Sorry I wasn't specific enough!

I already have

a Rode NT3 which is usually use for the piano
a Mackie mixer which goes directly into a Tascam CD Writer -

the piano is either a steinway baby grand (small room) or a bosendorfer grand (small hall). Voice is soprano.

Obviously, it is not studio quality but it should sound as professional as possible :-)

edward

[Torp]

OK,

Here are your technical challenges at this point:

Rode's are generally a fairly 'forward or bright' sounding mic.
Mackie mixers are generally fairly 'bright' as well.
If you only have one mic, it will be virtually impossible to record the piano and singer together and get satisfactory sound for both.

So,
Do you have any additional recording equipment?
Do you have a budget for any more recording equipment?
Do you have access to any you can borrow?
Does the Tascam CD writer have the ability to playback a previously recorded track while simultaneously recording another track?
Does the Tascam have the ability to record more than one track at a time?

Let's assume, for now, that the answer to all of the above is no.  Here's what I would do.

Find a good sounding room.  Your options may be limited to whatever room the two above-mentioned pianos are in.  Pick the piano/room/voice combination that sounds the best when recorded.  You'll have to experiment.  The recorded sound you'll get will be a combination of instrument, singer, room acoustics, and mic placement.

Since you only have one mic, the ability to achieve a sense of 'space' will be limited, but not impossible.  Your primary concern is going to be balancing the output from the piano and the singer.  Since you'll be running this through one channel on the board and into one channel on the CD writer, relative volume between piano and voice will be determined completely by their relative distances to the microphone (We won't get into the actual physics of that just yet).  Actual volume will also depend on the abilities of the singer and player to ajdust their volumes while playing.

At first thought, I would have the singer stand directly in front of the open portion of the piano.  If you were looking at the piano from the audience, I would have the singer standing to the right of where the hammers hit the strings.  Or, in other words, at about the point where the 'tail' of the piano narrows.  This should allow the majority of the piano sound to come by.  It should create more of a point source for the combined sound of the piano and vocal.  It should allow the singer to adjust their output in relation to the piano and vice versa.

Now, you'll need to play with mic placement.  This will be very dependent on the room.  The farther away from the instruments, the more sound from the room you'll get.  The closer you get, the more likely you will have issues trying to balance the sound from the piano and the vocal.  Experiment and take notes (the note taking is so you can duplicate the setup when you get right and have to come back another day).  Make a diagram of the room including placement of all the instruments and mics.

You basically have four variables to control, the room, the piano, the vocal, and the mic.  The relationship between these makes all the difference.  Until you get pretty proficient at understanding how these variable interact with each other try to only change one variable at a time.

I'm sure this has raised more questions.  Let me know what else I can do to help.

Jef