[Kaylin Gray]

I’m a vocalist with a Mac, Scarlett 2i2 audio interface & Neumann mic set-up. My pianist collaborator has been using a direct to Windows connection with Sennheister headphones & boom mic attachment. Because the piano sound isn’t great, we’d like to move to an audio interface and mic the piano for higher quality recording. Can we mic the grand piano with a pair of condenser mics into the interface to work with Farplay, or is only one piano mic workable? To mic his voice, will he then plug the headset & mic into the laptop vs the interface as that only monitors? Thanks for guidance

[David Liao]

Dear Kaylin,

FarPlay works great with a stereo pair of condenser mics connected to an audio interface (like a Scarlett 2i2)! Please have the pianist do the following:

• Use the Sennheiser boom-mic attachment’s Y-splitter and plug the green-rings end (headphones end) into the audio interface (use a 1/8″-to-1/4″ adapter).
• Download and install the audio interface’s manufacturer-supplied ASIO drivers (Focusrite’s ASIO drivers are here, for example) and check that the audio interface is set up correctly using the version of our QuickStart guide customized for Windows PCs with external audio interfaces.
• Try a test call. Do the piano mics pick up speech clearly enough? If not, plug the red-rings end (microphone end) of the Sennheiser mic attachment’s Y-splitter into the PC. Bring the audio from the audio interface and the Sennheiser mic into FarPlay at the same time using FarPlay’s Input Mixer as shown in this video tutorial where we helped another pianist get set up with their stereo pair of condensers plugged into her Scarlett 2i2 and a talkback mic plugged into her computer :).

Note: The mic plugged into the pianist’s PC will have more latency than the mics plugged into the audio interface, but this will be fine if the pianist’s voice mic is just for talking (rather than singing in sync). In this case, use the Input Mixer to mute the talkback mic while playing and singing.

Thank you,
David Liao