Recording a Boesendorfer 9ft Grand Piano at the Church of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Liverpool
After setting up various microphone techniques to record the pop ballad ‘Justify Me’
the final setup can be seen above. The main body of the sound was recorded using
the stereo Schoeps CMT-S 501. In order to add the highest notes
to the stereo image a Neumann KM-84 was added.
Neumann KM 84 Cardioid Small Diaphragm Condensor Mic
The Neumann KM-84 review
The Neumanns fit really well into my collection. Again, I have two and chose the older version over the newer KM 184, because it doesn’t have any top end boost, which makes it more versatile in music production in my opinion – just like my older AKG C414s. They feature the lower mids of a sound in a very warm way and have a solid transient response. Just different to the microscopic sound of the Schoeps CMC Colette.
I tend to mix up the Neumann and Schoeps in the same recoding situation, similar to using a varied choice of preamps. This provides all tones or shades of colouration that make the recording very flexible to work with during the mixdown. The KM 84 is great on snares and a killer on overheads – it takes 130dB!
