Turin, Italy (February 13, 2024)—Pianist and composer Andrea Manzoni and composer, producer and film director Giorgio Ferrero used an array of Audix microphones to extract otherworldly sounds from an upright piano for their collaboration, Self-Portrait.
Manzoni is a composer, producer, pianist, and performer who blurs the boundaries between multiple music genres into an emerging “crossover” style. He has recorded and collaborated with Andrea Bocelli and Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris and performed around the world. Ferrero is an Italian award-winning composer, director and photographer who runs the multidisciplinary creative studio MYBOSSWAS where Self-Portrait was recorded.
Manzoni’s thoroughly modern composition called for the piano to played, scraped and struck in unconventional ways. “We played and tortured the studio’s piano in a way that only we could do…because it’s my studio and it’s my piano,” Ferreri says.
The high sensitivity and detailed reproduction provided by the Audix microphones played a pivotal role in capturing a diverse range of perspectives and sounds from the piano, which were then fed through vintage processing gear and Ferrero’s DAW, where he filtered, looped and manipulated the performance in real-time to create the finished product.
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“The Audix microphones were more than essential in translating the layers of sounds and music inherent in the composition,” Ferrero comments. “They enabled us to discover details that we didn’t know we’d find. It’s almost as if they were additional performers on the piece.”
A matched pair of SCX25A large condenser microphones designed for piano miking were placed next to the piano’s felts, a key position for shaping the work’s sound. The remaining microphones could be considered creatively placed and led to the unique nature of the recording. A pair of Audix A231 large diaphragm condenser vocal microphones, positioned up high and processed through boutique tube gear, imparted a retro/lo-fi vibe. The PDX720 professional dynamic studio microphone lay near Manzoni’s feet and played a crucial role in capturing the percussive side of the composition—from foot taps and stomps to depressions of the piano’s pedals. The ADX60 boundary condenser microphone served as a versatile jack-of-all-trades, while a pair of SCX1 professional studio condenser microphones placed in an adjacent room provided the ethereal ambient sound.
The duo say that they found the experience of creating Self-Portrait so inspiring, that they plan it to be the first piece on a forthcoming album due to be released later this year.
