> > they will swear by internal pickups over external mikes. > >Sorry, Louis, not me. > Nor me.
It depends on the quality of the microphone as well as on the directivity of the speaker system. If you have e.g. a Schoeps CMC6+MK4 (cardioid capsule) microphone (that is a single microphone for about 1300 US-Dollar, I know them, I have two of them) or a DPA small diaphragm condenser microphone this will be the best way to go. But if you have low quality microphones, a high quality pickup system, as for example a C-Ducer CPS8 system (useable for any kind of acoustical instrument with resonance body) will do the job better. So it depends on the situation. You also should avoid placing the microphone to the resonance-whole because you will get a lot of resonances in the "lower-mid" frequency section (100-400Hz). When money is no concern, sound engineers tend to mix both systems. So I do use on grand piano two Schoeps CMC64 and two C-Ducer pickups. The advantage of the pickups is that there is no environmental noise on it and the feedback comes way later than with microphones. The advantage of the microphones are that they sound way better, but you won't get it as loud as you need it sometimes for sound reinforcement. When you have both you usually use the microphones first, and if the volume is not enough before feedback, you use the pickups additionally. Regards, Hermann To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
