Olafur Arnalds’ Piano Recording Techniques

A little bit about recording... Recording piano today for my Life in a Fishbowl score.I have modified my 1903 Bechstein by putting felt between the hammers and the strings to achieve a super soft and airy sound. Then I record using a pair of KM84 and a single U47 in between them. The mics are extremely close to the strings to capture every little fragile detail.

Ólafur, do you also use an overhead mic and then mix them all, or do you just use close-mic'ing? Also, do you separate each mic's recorded track using EQ, or just combine them? Fascinating stuff.

For this project i'm only doing closeup, but often add another stereo pair a little bit further away.

They get individually EQ'd and then all the mics go on a bus which i send through outboard EQs and some compression to glue it all together.