Letters From Crown Mic Users; Figure 1. Some suggested mic placements for PZMs on a piano lid.; Mic - Page 3

  
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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)