Where is the front of the piano as far as MIR is concerned?

[andyjh]

 Now that may sound like a silly question, until you try and answer it within MIR.

Is the front looking at the keys or is it sideways on looking into the open lid.

A piano is generally facing the audience sideways on the stage, so if you turn the piano 90 degrees in MIR to reflect that, then set the width to 2.75m (that's how long a 9ft grand piano is), but the width stretch goes the wrong way in MIR then, we need it wide across the stage, not towards the back wall.  So you have to keep the piano zero degrees so the width widens it in the right plain - but that is not the direction the piano should be facing.

At present I am assuming that the CLOSE mic is facing the open lid (sideways on),  and  PLAYER is facing the keys - but which way around was the piano with the DISTANT position?

[Dietz]

 Hi Andy,

the Volume Bar of MIR Pro's instrument Icons also serves as directivity indicator. Look at it as "the player's nose", which means that the main axis of the Icon is also the main viewing direction of the virtual player (NOT the instrument).

That said, the grand pianos are a special case anyway withon MIR Pro. They were recorded with a multi-mic setup, which means that there is no real main axis (with the exception of the Player's Perspectives). And even more obvious: A grand piano is simply too big to get it in the anechoic measurement room for gathering the instrument's directivity data; this means that in case of the pianos, the Directivity Profiles are based on educated guesses rather than on a detailed, measured frequency profile (which would be questionable anyway, due to the size of the instrument).

In other words: While other instrument-specific data like Natural Volume and Character Prestes are as detailed as they are for all other instruments, the piano's Directivity Profile should be used according to your needs and your taste. You can't do much harm, because the directivity filtering isn't as severe as in other cases.

HTH,