Recording classical music on piano - professional level

[Tomás Matos]

Hi everyone!

(Very first post here so please go easy on me! Also, congratulations on the community here created!)

I am a classical pianist and I have no knowledge whatsoever on how to do any recordings, either on sound recording or sound production.

My idea is that with the globalisation through internet, the time will come where the artists will have to be responsible for producing their own recordings (either by paying someone to do it, or for them to do it themselves) in order to release albums and try to get noticed, and for this the recording in itself need to be of a very high level.

I’d like to ask for advice on how to be able to produce my own recordings. My piano is a Bluthner concert grand from 1931 completely restored a couple of years ago ( with a very light, somewhat bright and warm sound), and I also have a soundmixer Yamaha mg12/4fx (no idea of how good it is). Which microphone(s), sound editing software, or anything really you advice for a setting like this?

Thank you very much in advance for any replies to this! Looking forward to hearing from you all!

[Chet Leeway]

Attached to this forum there is a whole host of articles and even videos from the magazine. This is not a bad place to start:

https://www.soundonsound.com/search/all ... rd%20piano

This article will probably be particularly useful, unless you have your own little concert hall: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... rand-piano

[Drew Stephenson]

Hi Tomás, welcome to the forum.
Chet's post above is a good place to start, as is doing a general search in the forum as we've had plenty of posts asking similar questions.
Before you start looking at microphones and kit though, I'd give the following some thought.
When talking about the importance of various aspects of recording on the final output, the list of importance is generally something like this:
The material,
The performance,
The room (also referred to as 'the acoustic'),
The microphone positioning,
The microphone type,
Then any other technical stuff like pre-amps or other gubbins.

Assuming you're choosing your material carefully and giving your best performance, the key next thing is where you're planning on recording. You've got a nice piano that (presumably) you're happy with the sound of, but classical piano is a very unforgiving format. If you don't have a good sounding room then that's the first thing you'll need to look at addressing because a typical domestic setting just won't cut it at the top level.
That might mean hiring a rehearsal space / studio - in which case you might be better sticking to performance and just getting a basic view of the recording and production process from a hired-in engineer (certainly for a first attempt).
Then you can consider how far down the rabbit hole you want to go from a position of a bit of knowledge.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Welcome to SOS forums. There's another thread currently on here about recording classical piano, but that's already three pages long and has gone off on various non-technical tangents....

This subject is, essentially, one of the simplest recording challenges at a technical level, yet one of the hardest from a sound quality point of view.

Technically, all you need is a stereo recorder of some kind, a couple of mics of some type, and adequate mounting hardware to position the mics as required. Connect mics to recorder, place mics somewhere suitable, press record. Job done! Easy peasy...

The challenge, though, is in placing the mics somewhere suitable, and whole books could be (and probably have been) written on that topic!

Like all recording work, the most important things are the performance, the instrument and the room acoustics. If the performance is lacking, or the instrument sounds poor, there's really no point recording it. If those two aspects are near perfection then everything depends on the room acoustics, and here it must be remembered that microphones capture sound in a very different way to our ears. A nice piano in the front room might sound lovely when you practice, but on a recording it may well sound like a piano in a front room... and no amount of added reverb or other processing will make it sound like a professional recording in a good studio or concert hall.

Naturally, there are ways and means of polishing things to a degree, but there needs to be a sense of realism here, too.

Choice of mics depends to some degree on the repertoire and style which will imply different miking techniques purely through fashion and expected sound character. But as a general rule, typical classical music favours relatively distant mic placement usually with omni-directional mics — and thus relies even more on good room acoustics. Most recording engineers would probably opt for capacitor mics of one sort or another, many preferring pencil-type mics (SDCs), while others might use larger side-firing (LDCs).

I'd recommend starting with a stereo set of Rode NT55s which are good sounding mics and come with both cardioid and omni capsules, allowing you to experiment with a wide variety of miking styles. You'll also need a mic stand capable of going quite tall, a stereo bar at least 30cm in width, and a couple of XLR mic cables. Your Yamaha mixer will be able to amplify the mics adequately and feed you recorder or computer... or you could buy a dedicated stereo recorder like the Zoom F3 or Sound Devices MixPre 3 which are both standalone recorders of very high quality (and you an later transfer the files to your computer for editing etc).

Omni mics in this application are typically placed 20-30cm apart, facing the piano (or pointing straight upwards of pointing sounds too bright), and could be placed anywhere on an arc running from the keyboard to the piano tail, about 1-3 metres out, and at any height from just above the frame to 3 metres or so...

The piano's sound character (and stereo image) changes significantly as the mics are moved, with the tail area generally being more weighty than the side... but everything depends on the room acoustics and the precise design and construction of the piano — they all sound different and need different mic positions.

There are a lot of articles and videos on how to record piano in the SOS archives. Much relates to pop-music recording styles, but there's also a fair bit on classical approaches too.

Happy to discuss further questions on gear and techniques...

[jimjazzdad]

[...]Like all recording work, the most important things are the performance, the instrument and the room acoustics. If the performance is lacking, or the instrument sounds poor, there's really no point recording it. If those two aspects are near perfection then everything depends on the room acoustics, and here it must be remembered that microphones capture sound in a very different way to our ears. A nice piano in the front room might sound lovely when you practice, but on a recording it may well sound like a piano in a front room... and no amount of added reverb or other processing will make it sound like a professional recording in a good studio or concert hall.[...]

^^^
This is so true!

Practice recording on whatever you want but when the time comes to do a professional level recording of classical music on piano, you must use an excellent concert grand piano is a great acoustic space, captured with top-notch mics, correctly placed after some experimentation. Why? because this is how the professional recordings are made. You (the OP) may have a great piano and the skills as a concert pianist, but do you have a great acoustic space and how long are your prepared to spend learning the recording craft? It may be most efficacious for you to hire a venue with an excellent piano - a church, a recital hall, etc, - and have a location recording engineer do the capture for you. It is very difficult for a performer to concentrate on the art of the performance and the technology of a good recording at the same time.

PS: If you do want to try your hand at recording, the Yamaha mixer you mention will be of little use. At a minimum, budget for something like a Sound Devices MixPre-3 and a couple of decent microphones, such as those from Line Audio.

[RichardT]

I remember the first time I heard a piano being recorded standing inside the recital room with the instrument, and then immediately afterwards heard the playback. This was with top-notch Neumann mics, a professional recordist, very good Genelec monitors and a room specially designed for piano recitals.

The recording sounded nothing like the performance. The truth is, because our ears are so good at integrating sound from all directions, building up a 3-dimensional picture and subtracting some of the room effects - provided we’re in it - hearing a stereo playback just cannot compare.

Be prepared for that if you do your own recording! I’m just adding to the chorus of people saying it’s a difficult job to do without experience and as a beginner you won’t realistically be able to achieve professional levels.

But it’s a worthwhile skill to develop, and even imperfect recordings can be very rewarding.

[The Elf]

My idea is that with the globalisation through internet, the time will come where the artists will have to be responsible for producing their own recordings (either by paying someone to do it, or for them to do it themselves)...

That ship set sail long, long ago...

[Drew Stephenson]

Not withstanding what the Elf said above, even if you do go down a hire-the-pros route, it can be useful to have an understanding of the fundamentals of both the recording process and analysing the recorded sound. This can help speed up the conversation and clarity around the session.

[tea for two]

Hi Tomás

Is there a Church with an in tune Grand Piano which for a few hours you could request, or a local University auditorium lecture theatre with an in tune Grand Piano for a few hours over the weekend arranging with university admin staff.
Bearing in mind location of Church : well away from anywhere busy, any traffic, any road works.
Such a space with an in tune Grand Piano even recording with a handheld recorder with built in mics may well give you a recording you are enamoured with although not the professional level.

There was a thread fairly recently on SoS forum where a Church Pipe Organ was recorded with a handheld Zoom H4 with its built in microphones : the ambience of the Church, the Pipe Organ sound, the performance made the Zoom H4 punch well above its weight.

I was at the Royal Academy of Music in London where a Pianist was practising for a recital in the nearly empty auditorium, just the Pianist and myself there.
Now this would be a location to record in.

We've had Pianos in the family residence.
Were the World Class recording engineers on SoS forum to turn up with $£KK worth Coles, Gefells, Josephsons, Nuemanns, Schoeps microphones; $£KK worth Nagra, Sononsax, Sound Devices, Zaxcom pro recorders :
it would still sound as recorded in a standard Victorian living room.

[Tomás Matos]

Thank you very much for all your replies!

The links were very helpful, thank you Chet!

I think that at this point the question is if the acoustic I have is good enough. I will leave a link here with a recording I did (with a handcamera from 2008, so please bear with me ), and if you’d like, please could let me know if there’s “hope” for me to be able to record in the space I have, or if it’s there’s nothing to do about it. https://youtu.be/l86SAzREq_M?si=Zswyhkf-6HEz4ipl

If not (which I understand) what are the characteristics in the room acoustic that I’m looking for that would allow me to record in it?

I will have to research the models suggested, either microphones or sound devices, so I will revisit this at a later point.

I understand that this is something that will take a lot of time, work, and trial and error, but even if I can’t make anything work out, at least I’ll have a better knowledge on the matter when the time comes for me to speak on the recording sessions with the “pros”, so even if that ship has sailed, at this point it’s still the best option that I have .

I recently moved from London to Portugal and the grand pianos here are not common at all sadly. That’s why I’m trying to see if there’s a chance for me to do something of this kind, although the suggestion to find a church is very interesting (all the suggestions here were very good) and I will try to enquire what are the possibilities, even if I have to hire a transporter to bring the piano with me.

Thank you all once again for all your replies!

[zers]

Hi Tomás

I just saw your post and also listened to the piano sound on Youtube.
It sounded very good.
I was told they also own mg12/4fx,

If I were you, I would buy two condenser mics for the mg12/4fx and connect them to the mg12/4fx, then fix them to the piano. MOTU M2 for recording and connect them to the mg12/4fx master out for recording.

When recording in stereo with only two condenser microphones, it is a good idea to record directly through the audio interface, but the most advantageous thing is that the range can be physically extended by panning through the mixer.

The reason for promoting MOTU's M2 is that it is a product in this price range that can record the highest quality sound beyond its price.

As for DAWs, most DAWs in the world only support in-tempo songs, and for products that support out-tempo (free-tempo) recording-based production, clearly, only Protools and Digital Performer exist in the world.

M2 also comes with a lite version of digital performer, but the basic production functions have been cut out so much that it can really only be used for intempo.

The Intro version of Protools cuts nothing from the basic production functions. It allows non-destructive adaptation of free tempo time signatures, can freely and forcibly cut off the middle of the count of an entire song to face the next measure, can record up to four microphones simultaneously, and can record up to eight tracks in stereo.

With that in mind, we recommend the Intro version of Protools, which is also a free DAW.

I hope you will record as much of your wonderful piano as you would like.
I pray for your consideration.

[Drew Stephenson]

I'm not sure if it's a translation issue but I think there's a lot of advice in the above post that I would steer clear of.

[RichardT]

I'm not sure if it's a translation issue but I think there's a lot of advice in the above post that I would steer clear of.

Seconded - ignore it all.

[Bob Bickerton]

Yes, Zers post is full of mis-information (I don't think it's simply a problem with translation) so please ignore that.

Hugh's post really sums up the issues, and I would support his approach.

There's a consideration to make when first diving into the 'Rabbit Hole' of recording and a question to ask yourself, before buying gear, is 'will this be useful in the medium to long term'?

The suggestion of a Zoom F3 and a pair of NT55s is excellent as they will always be useful and there would be no particular need to upgrade them in the future.

Also starting with a good system, means that you can confidence that if the recording is not sounding good, you can only blame your technique or the room acoustics!

Plenty of good articles on recording piano on this site. My preferred method, should the instrument and acoustic allow, is a spaced pair of omni SDCs positioned to taste.

Bob

[tea for two]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_gOGvU ... p=drivesdk
Photo taken from me sitting at a Bösendorfer inside a Church.
I adored this Bösendorfer, adored this dark in shadows Church. Never seen a Church like this.
I'd love to record in there with a Zoom F3 and a couple of Oktava MK012 Omni capsules.
Daytime hardly anybody went there even though it was open 3times a week 12pm till 4pm. Church was 15mins stroll from where I was staying, this was 2010.

[The Red Bladder]

Hugh's post really sums up the issues, and I would support his approach.

+1.

As luck would have it, I shall be spending all day tomorrow, recording someone banging away on our Bösendorfer Imperial and it seems that classical piano recording is experiencing something of a comeback.

Congratulations on scoring a decent piano BTW. Blüthners are famous for their clarity and warmth.

[zers]

Hi

If you just want to record live instruments easily and with high quality sound, you can buy a TASCAM portable recorder or similar, which is well worth the price.

However, the questioner asked which microphones and sound editing software to use in order to self-produce everything and produce an album, and how to become able to produce my own recordings, so I am answering the question from my own production experience. (Since that clear answer was not given.)

I myself believe that people have their own fields (performers, recording engineers, EDM, house music writers, PA field, etc.), so I'm aware of those and don't denigrate others.

First, why do you promote a DAW that supports out-tempo (free-tempo) music production to pianists and others who do not record with a metronome as their main tool?

This is because many DAWs mainly support acidization (a music-killing function that tracks a WAVE with beat information without changing pitch even if the tempo is changed), and do not support the opposite method in the first place.

For example, with Digital Performer, since its version more than 10 years ago, it has been possible to adjust the beat with the mouse without destroying the WAVE time axis at all, and it can be adapted as a conductor (host tempo information) for the entire project.

Protools has long been able to record tap tempo as a track at the same point as the conductor, a feature that Cakewalk (Sonar) has also had for a long time, but in my field of MIDI, the lack of a weighted note function (a function that allows recording to begin as soon as MIDI is input) means that the initial recording is made at a tempo determined by feel. (I am a jazz method person, so this messes up the tempo I want to tick.)

Incidentally, the weighted note function is only available in Protools, Digital Performer, and FL Studio.

This is a major disadvantage if a pianist decides to use MIDI in the composition phase. As I did for many years.

And one of the major contents of advancing a free-tempo compatible DAW is to display a music score at the same timing for a pianist's track (music) that has not been acidized.

Only those who have been involved in production for a long time can understand these things.

This is my one answer to the question, "Which sound editing software should I use?

For example, if a live instrument is recorded with two microphones and various noises or noises are introduced, it is possible to process not only the part of the frequency, but also to mute or reduce the sound, change the position, or extract only a part of the frequency and stick it on another track for another effect processing.

My answer is, "For now, record with a product that has good sound density."

Songs can also be registered and sold on integrated distribution sites.
Even if you publish music on Youtube under your own account, the copyright of your work will be authenticated.

Please make good works.

[Nazard]

Tomás, I've just watched your YouTube clip plus some other links from your website. Funnily enough, my wife and I were at Leeds Town Hall for the final of the 1990 Leeds Piano Competition when Artur Pizarro won, (another great Portugese pianist), having given a superlative performance of the Rachmaninoff 3rd Piano Concerto, with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Simon Rattle.

It's good not to go the traditional Model D way: Jorge Bolet, one of my favourite pianists, preferred Bechsteins and the Blüthner piano sound is rather pleasing.

Brendel, at one point, used to use a Revox B77 to record his own practise, so what is available today is much better, less expensive and much more portable. Anyway, I wish you good luck!

[tacitus]

Hi, and welcome from another Bluthner owner. My “old lady” is a 1934 Model 2 - 7’6” rather than the full size Model 1, but rather nice whatever. I was brought up on the “Steinway for the concert hall, Bechstein for the theatre and Bluthner for the home” mantra.

I don’t record with mine because the space isn’t wonderful and I’d need to have some of the creaks and clatters sorted out properly.

The snag with advice is that you have to choose from the extraordinary range on offer! I’m sure as a capable pianist you are perfectly able to hear what you’re getting on a recording, even if you don’t yet know how to get the exact result you’re after. That said, if you keep trying, and especially with technical help, you’ll get progress and hopefully be satisfied with your “product”. Pretty much all the advice so far has been perfectly competent within particular contexts. Top-notch recordings generally result from the heirarchy of importance Hugh laid out and most of us up our game as we get a better understanding of what affects what else in the process of recording. But it’s hard to judge the relative scale of all these interacting factors and others we haven’t mentioned yet. How do you compare the importance of better microphones against, say, getting the piano sounding better in the first place?

I’d go with Hugh’s recommendation for a pair of Rode NT55s and record directly into a Zoom F3 whenever you can. If you’re playing other pianos in other spaces, always run the recorder, take notes and pictures and compare with recordings of your piano in your home. As you progress and become more comfortable with siting your mikes, choosing omni or cardioid capsules, and being able to predict the outcome a little better, you’ll build up the experience to be able to decide if this is working to your satisfaction; Youtube and other channels will get you reactions from your potential audience.

It’s all a lot of work and I’d still say the ideal is to separate playing and recording, advice we’re all forced to ignore some, most or all of the time! Only you can make the decisions, but my premise is to start with equipment good enough to give usable results but not so expensive and high-end you’re paying lots more for performance you can’t yet capture. To take a musical analogy, starter instruments will hold you back, conservatoire level ones will let you do everything as you’re growing your skill and experience, and full-on professional ones will take you all the way. Always remembering that lots of professional players don’t necessarily have the very best instruments possible. We’d all prefer to hear the best players on sub-par instruments than sub-par players on the best. My other half has a Selmer Recital clarinet but she still doesn’t sound like a pro clarinettist on the same model. Whereas my Yanagisawa bari sax is the equal of the world’s best chain-saws!

[Arpangel]

Our piano room measures approx 20X15ft, the ceiling is 15ft high.
The piano is a 1931 5ft Bluthner, mic's are Sennheiser MKH40 X2 placed 18 inches off the strings above the hammers, one pointing at the bass, one at the top, 10 inches apart, mic cables run into the basement recording onto a Mac using Reaper. Practice is recorded straight into a Tascam DR100 MK11.
The sound is close to what it is in the room over the monitors, you cant really hear the room.
When I assisted on location recording classical piano, most of the time we used two mic rigs, an M&S pair comprising Sennheiser MKH30/40, or, a pair of Schoeps CCM2 mic's on a small stereo bar.
Examples of techniques that worked well for us, Wigmore Hall piano, M&S mic's flown above the audience about 20ft out, St Johns Smith Square, two CCM2’s on a small stereo bar placed at the foot of the piano 2ft out facing the player, in both cases pianos were Steinway D's.
We used Sound Devices recorders with mic’s plugged into home-made preamps.
We monitored on Sennheiser HD600’s, and K+H 120.
I had the pleasure of working with Mike Skeet on these gigs, his knowledge of microphones and mic placement was exceptional, he always knew where to place a mic, he seemed to have a natural instinct for it.

[Hugh Robjohns]

...you cant really hear the room...

Not entirely surprising given the close 'pop music' style of miking. Needs must, of course, and there is no right or wrong solution... but close miking like that inherently sounds very different from more distant classical miking techniques and may not be was is expected or desired for a classical repertoire.

[tea for two]

4 World Class recording engineers have posted on this thread : Bob, Hugh, The Elf, The Red Bladder.
Far more experienced persons in recording than me have posted on this thread ArpAngel, Drew, JimJazzdad, Richard, Tacitus.
I'm an amatuer.
What I'm writing is found in SoS articles, SoS forums from seasoned experienced posters.

::

please could let me know if there’s “hope” for me to be able to record in the space I have, or if it’s there’s nothing to do about it. https://youtu.be/l86SAzREq_M?si=Zswyhkf-6HEz4ipl

Listening to the video the first thing is the Hiss.
To have less hiss on your Grand Piano recordings you would want
1. Microphones that have low hiss which would be low Self Noise dBA number. A lower Self Noise number 10dBA -15dBA is quiet. Lower than 10dBA say 7dBA is even quieter.
2. Microphones with higher SNR Signal to Noise Ratio. SNR is the difference between Self Noise say hiss from a microphone and the Signal from your Piano you are recording therefore the bigger the difference the quieter. Higher SNR 80dB is pretty quiet, higher than 80dB SNR as 84dB SNR is even quieter.
3. A digital recorder with a high dBu EIN Equivalent Input Noise. EIN for a recorder is how much noise the recorder makes. 125dBu-127dBu EIN is pretty quiet for a recorder, higher EIN as 129dBu-132dBu EIN is even quieter for a recorder.

With these in mind.
A microphone with low Self Noise, high SNR,
also a microphone with 20Hz-20kHz range, 20Hz to cover the lower end frequency of a Grand Piano which is usually 26Hz-27Hz,
also a microphone with high SPL Sound Pressure Level this means when you are playing at FFF Fortississimo on your Grand Piano then the approx 130dB SPL of a Grand Piano the microphone can cope the microphone won't distort,
also a microphone with wide Dynamic Range measured in dB, so when you play quietest PPP Pianississimo on your Grand Piano then the microphone can cope.
Dynamic Range is the difference between the Self Noise of a microphone and the SPL of a microphone, so if a microphone has stated spec 14dbA Self Noise and stated spec 137dB SPL then the microphones Dynamic Range is stated 123dB.

Also as important as the numbers is the sound tone of the microphone. If a microphone has some of the best numbers yet is brittle harsh sounding then you wouldn't want to record a Grand Piano with it unless wanting a brittle harsh sound, it would be suitable more for Industrial, Punk, Thrash Metal.

Another consideration is a microphone which when you place close to your Piano or your Piano Harp or Sound holes would not get bass boosty boomy this is known as proximity effect that is heard on Cardioid, Hyper Cardiod, Figure8 microphones when they are placed close to an instrument.
A microphone type that doesn't have proximity effect would be an Omni microphone which you could then place close.
An Omni microphone tends to have smooth off axis response lesser off axis colouration this means the Omni microphone you place near of further from your Piano it matters less which way the Omni microphone is facing with regards to your Piano.
However with an Omni if placed further away from your Piano the sound of the room is picked up far more so would want a decent sounding room.

Different World Class recording engineers use Cardioid, Hyper Cardiod, Figure8, Omni to record a Piano : so there's no hard fast rules.
They also use Large microphones and or Small microphones to record a Piano : there's no hard fast rules.
Also depends on style Classical, Pop, Rock, Metal.

::

With these in mind
Microphones in the relatively affordable range €200-€300 each would want a matched stereo pair :
an option is the mentioned Rode NT55 its specs 15dBA Self Noise pretty quiet, 79dB SNR pretty respectable, SPL 136dB excellent for Grand Piano, Dynamic Range 121dB excellent for Grand Piano, goes to 20Hz to cover 26Hz-27Hz bottom of Grand Piano.
Rode NT 55 has both Cardioid and Omni capsules so you can hear which you prefer for your Piano in the room your Piano is in by swapping it's Cardioid and Omni capsules.

Recorder in the relatively affordable range €200-€300 :
the mentioned Zoom F3.

After that it's just a matter lol of first foremost placing your Piano in the best spot in the room for the best available sound.
Thereafter placing the microphones which will require a bit of reading up on microphone arrays from SoS articles as well as a whole lot trusting your ears with regards to your Piano and the room your Piano is in :
whether you prefer placing the microphones nearer further from your Piano from hammers from Harp from lid from sound holes front from tail from middle from above.

[Arpangel]

...you cant really hear the room...

Not entirely surprising given the close 'pop music' style of miking. Needs must, of course, and there is no right or wrong solution... but close miking like that inherently sounds very different from more distant classical miking techniques and may not be was is expected or desired for a classical repertoire.

Absolutely, but if you can't get a venue, and have to record at home, close micing and a bit of good quality artificial ambience can be a reasonable compromise.

[Tomás Matos]

Thank you everyone once again for your replies! I feel quite lucky for it!

@tea for two

That picture is gorgeous! Is it possible to know in which church it was? Unfortunately in Portugal there is barely any pianos on churches, let alone grand pianos. However, in this case and if my “Home recordings” fail, I wouldn’t be against going to the UK to record after inbound a space for it. I may at that point even ask thought the contact list here if someone from this thread would be interested in collaborating (for a fee of course, the best in the area deserve to be respected as such).

Thank you very much as well for watching my video and for all the feedback! At the time I could only use the mic of the camera and as you can imagine it wasn’t great… A lot of things to think about, especially if it goes well! I believe that I will follow almost everyone’s advice, given first by Hugh about getting the Rode NT55 and the Zoom F3, and then if/ when I start understanding more of it, get a bit more creative with the setup.

@nazard

Thank you very much for listening to the recordings! I know Pizarro’s recording very well! In fact, I worked with him for 5 years. I also agree with you when you say that it’s a good thing to step away from the usual model D. In my opinion, there’s a lot more uniqueness for the pianist if you use a bluthner, bechstein, even the old Baldwin, precisely from Jorge Bolet’s.

@tacitus

Completely agree with all you wrote! I think that the first step is to have a piano that is the best state possible, almost in a dreamy way, otherwise doesn’t really matter if you have the best recording equipment in the world, because it won’t sound great. Same situation with the pianist . I will follow Hugh’s indication of order of importance/impact in a recording, and I will also do what you suggested (taking the recording equipment with me and try on different settings when possible in different pianos).

@arpangel

Thank you very much for all the detailed setting! This is incredibly helpful and I will make sure to try them!

I’d like to thank you all for the help here given! It is an honour to me to have this coming from (Citing tea for two) 4 world-class recording engineers and everyone else with such a big experience in the area. If I manage to produce this album as I’m thinking, the least I can do is send it to you as a thank you gift (which I hope you accept ). Also, if anyone is/will be in London/ Cambridge/ Hastings area in April, I’d love to meet you and have a pint or a coffee .