Stereo Pair for a Baby Grand

I vote "other". Google "ribbon madness....some comparisons".

It's a rare day I'll pull out condenser for piano anymore.....and I've got condensers that I like way more than your potential choices.  (My opinion of course.)

BTW, my pics for piano would be (probably in order, but depends on song and piano)

1. MJoly modded 205's (Killer desert island ribbons)
2. Coles 4038 - a classic, and great for ambient, open, and non-congested solo piano
3. I'd like to try the Samar VL37. They are probably good on pno....



If you were going to MAKE me use a condenser.....KM84 would be my only logical choice.

It would depend on the piano wouldn't it Bill? I've heard M 57's piano and it's on the mellow/ darkish side. Not sure ribbons are what I'd reach for first on that one but they would work. Wht not send those NT 5's to Joly and let him pimp them out? Or better still, Shannon. He can make them sound like whatever you want. Mic wizard that one.

Nope.  It's my #1 choice, and significantly UNDER your budget by quite a bit I think.  I think by the time you buy the mics and have em modded you might be in around $700-800 or so with shock mounts.  And they are a desert island mic for me.

Ribbons typically don't have enough upper mid and top end to cut a dense mix without lots of processing but they have beautiful natural bloom and warmth. That's why I like them (in a beautiful room) back away a few feet and condensers inside to blend to taste. Shannon's mods are the reason I fell in love with condensers again and I wouldn't hesitate to put some of my modded pencils in any piano application. Bill, you need to give Shannon a try there.

I believe i paid under a grand for my PAIR of Samar modded Alctron RM8b's(apex 205's) including the mics, Mark installed his torroid tranny's, 1.? ribbon(i believe 1.5 or 1.8, cant remember), his custom designed diffuser plates, the mics are just spectacular sounding, the high end extension is just unheard in other ribbon mics.

Samar VL37 pair, or his mod (ask his suggestion) of some cheaper type. VL37 will have better top extension than most ribbons, I rarely have to add any with EQ. I've used blumlein pair of Samar BEHIND the performer with my Kimball upright lots of times, and the clients always love it. I realize this is DEFCON territory, sell something.

I suspect *what* we record and personal preference has a lot more to do with out choices than the mic itself.  I'm not recording country music usually, and have a lot more "open space" than most country records - often with an orchestral underpinning.  I can't remember the last time I recorded a pno with lacquered hammers.  I'm rarely worried about "cutting thru a mix" and much more concerned with how the tone sings.  

I'd love to try ANY of Shannon's mics, but am not sure I could afford them.     All that said, I still prefer ribbons over SDC's and I have a bunch of really great ones - KM84's, Old C451E/EB's, Gefells, etc..  For me personally, a KM184 would probably be the last mic I'd pull, and yet, it's the choice of others here.

Just going to bring up the thread over at GS that had the blind KM84 vs. KM184 testing where everyone was choosing one of the tracks as their favorite and determining that it MUST be the KM84.. Until the OP revealed that the most popular track was actually the KM184..

Then all the armchair engineers started backtracking on their choices, making excuses for their decision, and ultimately the thread ended up with something like half the responses deleted.. IIRC, there were some big names putting their "vast experience" to the test claiming to know without a doubt that the thread favorite MUST have been the KM84..  To the point of someone questioning if the files had been mixed up during upload..

It just goes to show that expectation can drive opinions, and vice-versa.

I know I answered your question directly, but I also wanted to ask:

What's the problem with your current setup?

Do you have a specific issue, or are you just expecting that your setup isn't good enough based on reading forum threads?

I don't know your location, but if you have any chance of borrowing/renting some different mics and preamps, that would be your best bet. You might be surprised how well your setup holds up, or then again, it might pale in comparison..

I record all kinds of music here from soundtrack stuff to vanity records. Lots of piano parts. Most of it is Ravenscroft 275 or I go to Addiction studio and record Jonathan Cain's piano if the tracks need it. I'd imagine it isn't all that easy to keep busy recording piano focused music these days.

So none of you guys are of the mindset that the omni Earthworks mics would be a good fit? You can close mic without the proximity effect. Good on/off axis pickup so they will pickup the piano well without getting wonky.

I had a pair and didn't really get along with them.  They are also noisy mics due to the type of capsule they use.

Ok, gotcha.

If it were me, since the piano is darker, I'd go for a SDC simply because they don't accentuate lows so much and can be much more even sounding when placed closer to a source.

I've never heard the NT5 mics, so I can't say if they're all that different from other SDCs.  I just know that my KM184's into my 1272 preamps are a thing of beauty.

Maybe you should try some different preamps first, just to see how things change.  I know a lot of mics will sound different through different input impedances and input structures like transistors vs. transformers, etc.