Recording piano performance ( audio and video )

[gilesgoat]

Ok so my bro plays the piano and "mostly as a feasibility experiment" ( that did start and progressed LONG ago ) came out with "ok how hard is to record/make a 'pro' audio/video recording of someone playing the piano ?" ..

Apparently is EXTREMELY HARD for a variety of reasons, starting from the audio, to software, to vibrations from the piano, from dynamic sound and light range and such.

So "to give a quality level to compare things to", let's take something like this :



Look at the frame rate, picture and audio quality.

The question is "what do you need to take videos like that" ?

Sounds a silly question until you actually try to "get close" to something like that and you see that with "semi common equipement" you can't get it.

So what do you need to get there ?

[Dio]

For the audio, you need to start with a good piano in the middle of a very quiet room. That's a pretty big challenge in itself.

But, if you have both of those, a pair of £100-ish condenser mics will probably do a pretty reasonable job of recording a good sound, as long as they have a decently flat response down to 50Hz or so. I'd want to try three or four separate mounting positions, but I'd start out with then spaced about a foot apart, directly behind the piano and slightly underneath.

[phattslagg]

I’d suggest doing it separately. Get the recording sorted out, and then film the video with him playing along to the recording. You can take different shots to get the different angles, and you don’t have to worry about sound quality - just make sure there are a few sequences where the fingers match the audio well enough to maintain the illusion.