Ribbon Mic Summit

Aug 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Gino Robair

           
 

Ten top engineers share their favorite techniques.

Ribbons and Keys

Ainlay's use of the stereo Royer extends to the piano. “I use the stereo Royer with a pair of condenser microphones inside the piano. I'll put the ribbon microphone where the curve of the piano is, a couple of inches down from the lid, and just outside the lid. This gives me a nice stereo spread of the piano. I mix that in with the two microphones that are inside the piano, and it fills it out wonderfully.”

Churchyard also uses condenser mics on a piano, but with a mono ribbon added to fill in the sound. “I'll mic the piano high and low with a pair of condensers, such as U 67s or U 47s. Then I'll put a Royer or an RCA 44 sitting above the piano, on the outside looking in, in the space between the lid and body of the piano. Maybe I'll add some compression to that, kind of squash it up a bit, and then mix that in with the condenser mics.”

But Churchyard notes that you have to determine the use and placement of ribbon mics on a piano on a song-by-song basis. “You have to be a little bit flexible with the ribbons. Sometimes they work great on their own, and sometimes they work better in tandem with something else. On an album I worked on recently, I put two U 67 tube condensers inside the piano, and then right next to them I put Royer R-122s and mixed that sound in with the condensers to add some body and thickness to the sound.”

FIG. 7: To get a strong center image while using the Blumlein configuration that results from using a stereo pair of figure-8 mics, Hogarth suggests adding an additional figure-8 mic to fill in the area between the two front stereo lobes.

Hogarth agrees that ribbon mics warm up a piano sound. “For really gorgeous, open sections of music, a lot of times I'll place the stereo mic just outside the edge of the lid, taking a picture of the whole piano. That's a mic I can bring in and blend. I've been doing that on a lot of instruments: using it as an ambience mic, but close enough that there's detail. Then I blend that microphone in with the close mics for three-dimensionality, because it's a Blumlein pair, looking side to side, back to back.

Chiccarelli says that he likes ribbon mics on some of the more modern, bright pianos. “Everybody goes for the big, large-diaphragm, sparkly condenser, hi-fi piano thing. But sometimes, especially in a rock or pop track, it can be more competition. You usually have bright acoustic guitars, or bright electric guitars, then you're putting a bright piano on things. I found that a pair of Coles tends to be a great remedy. Depending on the piano, the player, and the playing intensity, you just have to fiddle with the proximity to the strings, because it's a figure-8 microphone and you're picking up a lot more reflections off the lid of the piano than you would with a cardioid microphone.

“Sometimes I'll put a pair close up over the middle of the piano,” adds Chiccarelli. “But I tend to like the separate string thing. It's a little punchier and wider. Sometimes with a bunch of big rock guitars, where you want the piano to be sort of in there and supportive, you don't need any more top end; you need that really warm, rich middle. I'll often use the older ribbons: an RCA 74 Junior Velocity works great as a mono mic in the piano. (I recently tried the Avantone CR-14 ribbon. It's very smooth and worked great in this application.) Sometimes I'll just use it alone with a lot of compression. Or sometimes I'll use it in combination with a pair of large-diaphragm condensers to get that warm, lower middle that I'm sometimes missing with the high-end/low-end piano approach. The older ribbons seem to fill in the blanks with the condensers.”

“With a Blumlein pair, the one place the mics aren't looking at is the actual center,” explains Hogarth. “So a lot of times, I'll place another microphone right underneath the stereo ribbon mic, in another figure-8 pattern. Then you get, if you draw it as a diagram, two Xs — front and back — and a figure-8 in front. Although you're not getting the true sides, you're covering every other angle [see Fig. 7].”

But he warns that you have to be careful about using a ribbon mic on a piano in a rock 'n' roll context, because to cut through a busy mix, the piano needs to be brighter than you would prefer it on its own. “You might listen to the piano soloed up and think, ‘Man, that's too bright.’ Then you put it in the track and go, ‘Wow, that needs to be a little brighter,’ because a piano sounds so huge. So I find that ribbon mics tend to be a little too big on piano for rock 'n' roll.”