electronics replacing pianos?

[Geoff Sykes]

Got me thinking about acoustics, which is actually very Zen. Not the
thinking. The acoustics.
 
A musical instrument, with the possible exception of brass, is not a single
point sound source. Add to that the environment in which it is performing
and you have a real 3D aural experience. A microphone, on the other hand, is
a single point device. (Binaural, or dummy-head, recording is an entirely
different matter. And since, by design, binaural recordings are intended to
be reproduced through headphones I don't think they belong in this
discussion.)
 
Let's pretend that a piano is just an extremely large variation on an
acoustic guitar. Now let's talk about the acoustic guitar. The sound that
comes out of the guitar is not just from the strings any more than it is in
a piano. The body is both a resonate cavity and an amplifier. The sound,
therefore, comes from so many places: the hole, front and real sound-boards,
and even the neck to some extent. Add to that the environment in which it is
being played and you now you have to think about the reflections of that
sound coming off the floor, ceiling and walls. What are those surfaces made
of? How far away are they? You just cannot capture that entire audio picture
with one, or even two or three microphones. Single point recording devices
are only capturing the sound as it exists at their placement. On the other
hand we, as listeners, are hearing the entire three dimensional environment.

 
So, you mic an instrument up close and you get documentation of a single
point of sound coming off that instrument. You then run that recording
through whatever electronics and a speaker and you still only have reference
to that original single point source. OK, so you record that instrument with
a number of mics, placing some of them out in the room. You now have your
original close mic reference plus some added room. You now have a decent
recording of that instrument, but you also now have a decent recording of
that room. In other words, it is still not a recording of the sound that the
instrument is actually producing. If you play that recording back into the
same room in which it was recorded you are now adding the recorded sound of
that space back into that same space allowing it to interact with it a
second time.
 
Now, grow that acoustic guitar into a piano. With this increase in size the
complexity of the object producing sound in the environment just grows right
along with it. Not to mention the increase in complexity of the sound waves
coming off it's many surfaces.
 
The only thing that will ever sound like a real live three dimensional piano
in a given space is going to be a real live three dimensional piano in a
given space. Anything else, no matter how good the recording, is just an
incomplete reproduction. And without the technology to both capture that
three dimensional object in three dimensions, and then reproduce it in a
similar three dimensional way, the best we can hope for is stereo, which is
missing a lot more than just one dimension. 
 
Part of what I'm saying here is why, in my opinion, an electronic piano may
never sound like a real piano. Part of what I'm saying is in answer to
Alan's questions as to why they, piano's, are so hard to record. Coming from
years of experience as a recording engineer I would like to suggest to
anyone wanting to record a piano, or any instrument for that matter, to
first understand what that instrument is supposed to sound like. While it is
being played, move around the instrument and see how your perception of the
sound changes as you move. Once you find a position where you like the sound
of the instrument, put up a couple of high quality mics, right there. Then
go back into the control room and listen to that sound flat, with no eq and
no reverb. If you have decent monitors it should sound pretty darn close to
what you heard out in the studio. If not, before you go changing things in
the control room, start moving the mics around in small amounts until you
are satisfied. Remember, what you do in the control room should be viewed as
frosting, or perhaps polishing. Bad micing cannot be corrected by eq. 
 
Let me follow up by saying that what I suggest up above is for recording a
solo performance only. Different micing techniques are necessary for
different types of music and the number of musicians in the room at the
time. Also the make up of instruments. A solo acoustic instrument clear up
to a full orchestra in a decent hall can frequently be recorded very nicely
with a stereo pair. Piano, bass and drums will likely take six or seven
mics. But knowing what each instrument, or combination of instruments,
sounds like in that environment is still the most important place to start.
 
Gee, I must be up to at least a nickel by now.
 
-- Geoff Sykes

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of reggaepass at aol.com
Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 5:21 AM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: electronics replacing pianos?


 ..and the piano seems to be one of the hardest instruments to faithfully
reproduce through recording, if not the hardest.  Any thoughts as to why
that is?
 
Alan Eder
 
 
-----Original Message-----

 What they ultimately proved is that no matter how good the recording and
the playback systems,

there is always some extra lows and some extra highs and some extra nuance

that just plain won't record or playback. I think the same holds true for

even the high-end sampled electronic pianos today. They do sound pretty darn

good, but they don't really sound real. And I don't think that they will be

able to reproduce a real enough sound from an electronic device anytime soon

enough for it to effect many of us. 


-- Geoff Sykes

-- Assoc. Los Angeles






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