Upright Piano Mic Shootout 1/5 - Dynamic Mics: Shure SM58, EV RE20, Shure SM57, Beyer M260

The first of five videos highlighting some findings from our recent upright piano mic tests. This test is dynamic mics, to enable us to know which is the best mic pair to use when we need some isolation, or for live recordings.

Chapters:
0:00 - Our Love Is Here To Stay (Gershwin) - jazz/swing
02:00 - What Kind Of Fool Am I (Newley/Bricusse) - jazz/ballad

Mics on test, all pairs:
Shure SM58
EV RE20 / PL20
Shure SM57
Beyer M260 (original) ribbon dynamic

No big surprises with this test, the RE20s are very low end heavy / warm, so much so we had to use the low cut switch, but it sounded good once we did this. The SM58 has more mid range punch, the SM57 sounded a bit thin. The Beyer M260 (original, not the later version with the boosted higher frequencies) sounded fantastic, warm without being too heavy, definitely our go-to dynamics for piano.

These are the raw recordings from a single take, no EQ or sound treatment, just level adjustment to try to get similar peaks.

To stop any pair benefiting from a better pre, we put the left mics through the four channels of the UA 4-710 and the right mics through the Saffire Pro 40.

Videos to follow: SDCs, Ribbons, Combos, and a full song using the final chosen combination mic set up for our 1970s Yamaha U3 studio upright. Please subscribe to get notifications when they are published.