I’ve tried many combinations of microphone types, numbers and positions when recording my Stuart piano. What I have worked out (basically by trial and error) is that a fairly simple approach to recording produces a sound effectively indistinguishable from more complex (and more expensive) setups.
I have discovered Ockham’s Razor (again)…
I now record from two Behringer C-3 omnidirectional microphones placed just inside the piano – one covering the bass side and the other the treble. These are panned left and right, respectively, to provide a stereo mix. They pick up sound from both the soundboard directly and from the piano lid. I also have a Rode NTG-2 shotgun microphone placed about 4 metres away from the piano, and pointing directly at the lid. This picks up a fair amount of the room ambience and I mix this (normally at a reduced level) into the other tracks depending upon the sound I want to create. The use of more microphones, either close to or ambient to the piano, does not appear to add any significant features or quality to the results from those three microphones.
These record into a Boss BR1600 digital recorder, which provides the phantom power necessary to drive the microphones. This records at 16bit/44.1 kHz, i.e. at CD quality. I record dry, i.e. no reverb added into the raw recording. I then mix and occasionally add in appropriate reverb etc as part of the mixing process. I do not use either equalisation or compressors / limiters of any sort, unlike the practice of many commercial recording houses. This latter is why commercial recordings of the Stuart piano in many cases do not accurately represent the true sound of the instrument and therefore are not true indications of what the piano really sounds like. My music room is carpeted, so the sound is quite dry, but the advantage of that is that it picks up the pure piano sound and all of its intricacies.
This results in recordings of very good quality which to most people’s ears are indistinguishable from professional studio recordings. I have recorded the Stuart piano at Tiger Studios in Sydney with a professional 24bit/192kHz setup with very high quality (=expensive) microphones, and of course, there are differences, but I am not an audiophile and so such things are not, to me, important enough for me to ‘improve’ what is at the moment quite sufficient for my needs.
Once 24bit recorders (at least 96kHz) become a bit more mainstream I may look to upgrade, but the moment I have a very good flexible setup which is quite remarkable value for the money I spent on it.
Another good investment. Now, what do I need next?