When I record my piano I listen via headphones to the sound of the mics. With the hood open (to the standard 45 degrees) I point the mics at spots on the hood that appears to be the "reflection" spots off the lower and upper strings. If you listen carefully to your cans, you can hear "sweet spots" where the sound of the piano is "better." Sometimes, especially when the piano isn't solo but is part of an ensemble I cop out and use my Yamaha s80 keyboard straight into my digital hard disc recorder (a Roland VS...) As Frank Zappa said about using a string synthesizer keyboard: "In a hockey rink you can't hear the difference between the synthesizer and a real string section anyway." (That's a paraphrase, btw.)

Jay

[This message has been edited by JMS (edited April 22, 2004).]