noisy trichords

[Dick Beaton]

Hi all..
The late Willard Simms who was head technician for Baldwin told me the best
way to "mike" a grand piano is to place the mike facing the piano from about
18 inces from the treble end.  With the lid up it acts like a big megaphone.
Since the mike is closest to the weak treble it balances out with the rest
of the piano.  Since the mike is not near the action it doesn't pick up
action noise of any kind.
For what it is worth...
Dick RPT MT
-----Original Message-----
From: bases-loaded@juno.com <bases-loaded@juno.com>
To: pianotech@ptg.org <pianotech@ptg.org>
Date: Tuesday, August 24, 1999 9:11 PM
Subject: noisy trichords


>Thanks to all of you who responded to the noisy trichord thread.  I have
>trimmed the "fingers" of the trichords before and attained small amounts
>of improvement, and always trim when installing new ones.  There were
>some great ideas on methods of doing this while the dampers are still in
>the piano, and some particularly creative ideas to further eliminate the
>whoosh when trimming alone is not enough.
>
>I still can't get it out of my head that the recording engineer should
>take some responsibility for minimizing this problem.  After all, the
>pianos sound just fine when being listened to with the "naked" ears.
>Clearly, it is the placement of the mike that is exaggerating a sound
>that is really quite unnoticeable otherwise.  Yeah, I know... wishin'
>won't make it so....
>
>Thanks again for all of your wonderful input.
>
>Mark Potter
>bases-loaded@juno.com
>