Ric, The Earthworks mics are great and will be the most precise...but probably not recommended if you want to do it cheaply. If your intention is only to record some examples of pretty good quality, you don't have to spend that much. If you want truly excellent quality, get them. A recording made with your built-in laptop microphone will probably sound closer to hearing the piano over the telephone than just about any external mic you can get. Boundary mics are good if you will always have something to put them on. Also, check out the miniature omni condenser mics from core-sound.com. They can handle the high SPL of a piano very well. You can always find places to clip them inside the piano for a dry sound, affected little by the room you are in (helpful if you just want the sound of the piano or maybe a dry jazz piano sound, but not a good technique for classical or other music). As far as mic positioning goes, you will have to experiment. Any recording engineer will tell you that the science of mic placement only gets you so far, and beyond that you have to use your ears. Sometimes moving the mics a couple of inches will change the sound dramatically. Michael G.'s suggestion for placement is a good starting point. Sometimes I find that moving them to the right of the curve, toward the bass strings (still about 6 feet away), gives a more balanced sound. Sometimes the dampers and the room are both so noisy that you'll have to mic from underneath the soundboard...as a last resort, IMO. All of this advice would be different if you were talking about recording classical music complete with the reverb of the room, fully developed sound, etc., but for what I think you are wanting to do (just record the sound of a piano for others to hear and help diagnose problems) this should work well. Also, check out Audacity for pretty good free audio editing software. Start, like Doug said, with a good sample rate (44.1khz is CD quality) and compress to mp3 later for posting to the list. I hope that's helpful. Take care, Brandon Robertson
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