Under The Board
Finally, there is the soundboard trick. I always had a bad attitude about mic’ing the soundboard from underneath.
We were forced do it for Ralph Sharon with Tony Bennett, with flat transducers, and I was not a fan. Dead, dull, distant, way “500-ish” – yuck.
Anyway, I got this Glenn Gould video, where a French TV film crew followed him around for recording sessions and interviews.
During one of the sequences, someone had slapped a mic underneath the piano on the soundboard, with impressive results. We tried it live, and after a few false starts, got good results with a Neumann 105 – go figure. Probably any decent condenser will work down there.
To establish the correct position, you get underneath the piano, and tap the soundboard on the high side until you hear a balanced tone – not too high, not too low. Place the mic on a short boom, and get it as close as possible to that spot, avoiding contact with the piano.
You will get a dark, woody sound, less linear than the 421 position, but very warm. And very out of sight – good for video or “theatuh.”
When you add this underneath soundboard mic to an existing mix that is edgy due to feedback hacks, you will reclaim some real piano sound with no feedback penalty.
Forms Of Perfection
So, we have (belatedly) finished our piano journey – except for the best option. I had to run out of class to hit a sound check at the Civic Opera House here in Chicago. Best room in town, even better than the Auditorium Theatre.
Anyway, we had four 4-ways a side and a Midas desk in the house – worked for me. As we had a VERY SERIOUS ARTIST, that is, someone who didn’t like sound no good, there were no monitors and the crew had been getting heat about having just one 421 aimed at the lid.
I forget whether George Winston was barefoot or not, but there was a rug by the piano and the vibe was total Northern California purity, like don’t mess with my energy, man…etc. My transition from a room of rowdy 20 year-olds to a developing war zone centered around the whims of (another, like me) aging hippie was not working for my nervous system.
So rather than fight with Winston, I figured I’d out-California him. I ran up to the fourth balcony and listened with the 421 up in the rig. I had the guys mute the thing, and there was still enough piano, even for a sold-out 3,000-plus room.
He expressed massive relief verging on gratitude for this decision. The show was reminiscent of that John Cage piece where nobody plays anything – my cue was to turn on his yak mic in between songs – yawn.
Some would say the Winston show was perfection – the room ruled and there was no need for people or equipment of our sort. Perfection for me was the night Zevon, when asked if he needed more, said no way, or when Waits called me over and asked me, with his head characteristically tilted to the side, if this was a “good monitor, or something?”
Those guys had high count mic loads, yet the norm was the one mic thing. By way of clarification…
Jack Alexander is an associate professor and director of the Live and Installed Sound Program in the Department of Audio Arts & Acoustics at Columbia College Chicago.