LO1: Piano Recording Attempt 2

The recordings taken from our last recording session contained a lot of unwanted noise such as squeaky pedals and rattling parts from within the piano. Also, my client and performer, William Healy, wasn’t too happy with his performance. And so, we decided to give it a second attempt. I first recorded the piano with a single Rode NT1-A microphone placed behind the piano, positioned low down and centre. This time, I recorded the piano with a pair of AKG C414s, both behind the piano on the left and right sides. They were placed a bit higher than last time to avoid picking up the mechanical noises at the bottom of the piano. The piano was also moved to the centre of the room so that it wasn’t too close to any walls. This was to help reduce the pickup of reverb.

Healy informed me that he’s been planning on featuring another artist’s song in the credits of the animation. And so, he wants the piano we record to end just before the credits. However, I requested that we record some of these short takes and some longer takes that could play over the credits just in case his guest artist was to pull out of the project at the last second. Overall, the recording process went well. We got some really good takes and, with the new microphone placement, we managed to avoid recording any unwanted noise.

LO3: Recording in Stereo

During our first recording attempt, I recorded the piano in mono without putting any thought into it. However, after further thought, I decided to record the piano in stereo during our second attempt. I wanted the song to be treated as somewhat diegetic and non-diegetic.

I got the idea from a particular scene in the movie Gangster Squad (available to watch in the video above). Within this scene, a group of men are about to raid a bar while a musical performance is taking place on the stage. The music seems diegetic as it is coming from a known source within the scene. However, it is also non-diegetic in the sense that the tonal and dimensional properties of the music don’t change as the camera transitions between each shot, placing the viewers in different areas of the room. Instead, the music is treated more like a non-diegetic background song.

I wanted to treat my piano recording similarly within the animation I was working on. I wanted it to seem diegetic and fitting with the scene, yet recorded and mixed like a non-diegetic background piece. Hence why I decided to record in stereo rather than mono.

References

Gangster Squad (2013) [Primary observation] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPsXWKMwfV8