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Mic
Memo
Letters From
Crown Mic
Users
PZM Piano Miking
I am a pianist, but totally new to
the recording process; my
unique situation is that I need a
very portable solution because I
have to record from a piano at a
local music school. I have a
Minidisc recorder and I wonder if
it would be possible to make a
decent recording directly into the
Minidisc using the kind of micro-
phones you've described. Could
I input two microphones into the
Minidisc player itself, or do I
need to invest in some kind of
pre-amp also?
Please offer some input if you
would about how I could mic a
piano decently (not professional
by any means) while under-
standing I am not in position to
haul around a lot of equipment.
I'd appreciate it very much.
Thank you,
Gerard Cox
Reply:
You should be able to make a
very good piano recording using
one or two PZM-185 micro-
phones and a MiniDisc recorder.
The PZM-185 is an inexpensive
Pressure Zone Microphone that
is powered by an internal battery
or phantom power. Since you
want a very portable system,
we'd recommend using the bat-
tery rather than phantom.
Figure 1 shows some suggested
places to tape a PZM mic to the
underside of the raised piano lid.
For a mono recording with one
mic, tape it in the middle of the
lid, a few inches horizontally
from the hammers. Raise the lid
on the long stick. For a stereo
recording with two mics, tape
one over the treble strings near
the hammers, and one over the
bass strings near the tail, as
shown.
Figure 1. Some suggested mic
placements for PZMs on a piano lid.
The kind of sound you will get
with this miking is up-close and
clear, with little or no room
acoustics. It might be suitable
for pop, jazz, ragtime, or folk
music. If you are recording clas-
sical music and you want to
include the room acoustics
(such as in a recital hall), you
should place the mics several
feet from the piano. Either place
them on the floor about 4 feet
apart, or mount them back-to-
back on a mic stand, aiming the
edge of the plates at the piano.
The PZM-185 has a high-fre-
quency rise for speech clarity. If
you want to flatten the response
to get a more natural sound,
obtain a microphone foam wind-
screen. Cut off a 1/4" square
about 1/8" thick and insert it into
the gap between the mic and the
plate. The thicker the foam
piece, the less high frequencies
(treble) you'll hear.
How do you connect the mics to
your MiniDisc recorder? Check
the manual that came with your
recorder. It describes the input
connectors. The recorder
should have a mic input, so you
won't need a mic preamp. Prob-
ably the mic input is a single
mini phone jack that is wired for
stereo. If so, you or an electron-
ics-savvy friend would need to
make an adapter cable (Figure
2, next page). On the mic end of
the adapter cable is a 3-pin
female XLR connector(two for
stereo). On the recorder end of
the adapter cable is a mini ste-
reo phone plug.
The mini stereo phone plug has
three terminals to connect to:
tip, ring, and sleeve. The tip ter-
minal is the small one that goes
to the tip of the phone plug. The
ring terminal is a little longer,
and goes to the ring of the
phone plug (the metal cylinder
just behind the tip). The sleeve
terminal is the longest, and it
goes to the sleeve or long cylin-
der part of the phone plug.
(continued on next page)