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Piano is a notoriously difficult instrument even for regular music production, just because of its broad frequency range and harmonics are a pain to deal with.

Piano is a notoriously difficult instrument even for regular music production, just because of its broad frequency range and harmonics are a pain to deal with. So kudos for zoom for at least making it sound palatable. I do wish there are more examples for other types of instruments or even voices. Guess i'll have to try it out myself.

klodolph 6y ago
> Piano is a notoriously difficult instrument even for regular music production… Er, sort of. I think there’s some incorrect information in this comment. Piano is an acoustic instrument, and to record an acoustic instrument well, you generally need to have a decent instrument in a good acoustic space with good microphone placement. For most people, getting all three is quite hard. Microphone placement for piano ain’t exactly easy but it’s not really harder than, say, guitar or violin. The hard part is that you inevitably capture a lot of ambiance from the room. With a room that sounds bad or with poor mic placement you’re going to get an inferior piano sound. What makes, for example, guitar easier is really just the fact that if you have any decent room somewhere, you can fit somebody with a guitar into it. It’s small & portable. You still need a good instrument, a good room, and good mic placement but you don’t need to have the guitar permanently set up. The frequency range of a piano & its harmonics are not especially difficult to tame in music production. There are some instruments that are kind of “easier” in a sense, like vocals, electric guitar, or electric bass—but I don’t think the differences are all that stark. The main difference is that you are much more likely to use only a single microphone for these instruments rather than multiple mics, and you’re more likely use multiple mics for piano / acoustic guitar / violin / etc. If there’s one common instrument that requires the most effort in music production I’ll say that it’s the humble drum kit, hands down. If you’re in a home studio, the drum kit might spur you to add more channels, make you work harder setting up the instrument and mics, and make you do more work with acoustic treatment.

klodolph 6y ago

> Piano is a notoriously difficult instrument even for regular music production… Er, sort of. I think there’s some incorrect information in this comment. Piano is an acoustic instrument, and to record an acoustic instrument well, you generally need to have a decent instrument in a good acoustic space with good microphone placement. For most people, getting all three is quite hard. Microphone placement for piano ain’t exactly easy but it’s not really harder than, say, guitar or violin. The hard part is that you inevitably capture a lot of ambiance from the room. With a room that sounds bad or with poor mic placement you’re going to get an inferior piano sound. What makes, for example, guitar easier is really just the fact that if you have any decent room somewhere, you can fit somebody with a guitar into it. It’s small & portable. You still need a good instrument, a good room, and good mic placement but you don’t need to have the guitar permanently set up. The frequency range of a piano & its harmonics are not especially difficult to tame in music production. There are some instruments that are kind of “easier” in a sense, like vocals, electric guitar, or electric bass—but I don’t think the differences are all that stark. The main difference is that you are much more likely to use only a single microphone for these instruments rather than multiple mics, and you’re more likely use multiple mics for piano / acoustic guitar / violin / etc. If there’s one common instrument that requires the most effort in music production I’ll say that it’s the humble drum kit, hands down. If you’re in a home studio, the drum kit might spur you to add more channels, make you work harder setting up the instrument and mics, and make you do more work with acoustic treatment.