SAN FRANCISCO, CA — The Neumann KM 100 and KM 180 series of small diaphragm, condenser microphones were used in a recent concert of contemporary classical music performed by the avant-garde Italian pianist Marino Formenti to capacity audiences in the Koret Auditorium of the DeYoung Museum of San Francisco. Among other pieces, Formenti performed American composer Alvin Lucier's "Music for Piano and Amplified Sonorous Vessels." "The composer was inspired by the fact that the human head is a resonant cavity with openings, much like a bottle or other vessels," explained Christine Lim, director of education and artistic administration with San Francisco Performances, the organization that organized Formenti's visit. "He wanted to get a sense of how the piano would sound if you could, in a way, get outside your head and hear those resonances anew."
With Lim's help, Formenti collected seven "belly-shaped vessels" of various sizes, from less than one gallon to several gallons, all with small, one to two-inch, openings. They arranged the vessels on pedestals around one of the performance's pianos, a seven-foot German Steinway. With the composition's score, a piano, and sonorous vessels all accounted for, only the "amplified" portion of the piece's title was wanting. "Marino had worked with an engineer in Vienna who stressed that the Neumann KM 140 and KM 184 cardioid condensers, and, depending on the vessel, KM 150 hypercardioid condensers would properly capture the resonances the composer had envisioned," said Jamie "Gadget" Kahn, sound engineer for the event.
Prior to the performances, Gadget and Formenti inserted the small Neumann microphones into the various vessels and matched the sonic characteristics of each vessel with the proper microphone and placement. Gadget recalled, "We used the hypercardioid KM 150s on the medium-sized vessels. The cardioid KM 140s sounded best on the very largest vessels." The microphones were affixed to the lips of each vessel to prevent them from touching the sides. With his remaining two KM 184s, Gadget mic'd the Steinway using a standard X-Y configuration.
"The KM 100 and KM 184 series mics are bright, open and crystal clear," said Gadget. "They were exactly what we needed to capture those same qualities in the vessels themselves."
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