Record a piano, how?

Hi,

I want to be able to record my piano with my notebook, in an acceptable quality, but I don't exactly know how. Does anybody ahve some advice?

Thanks a lot

with a microphone?

I've used a Sony Vaio laptop to record a baby grand with no hardware at all. They have built-in mics. If you open up sound recorder, set the quality to "CD Quality", save a file, and then record to it (and save when you're done, of course - important you do it all in that order, save high quality beFORE recording) you should be set provided the built-in microphone is decent. One I used on the Sony was actually pretty darn good. I've had people say it sounded professional. Don't know about your own Notebook. Try it, see what you get. It'll probably sound cruddy when you play it back out of the laptop, but when you play it through a set of REAL speakers you might be surprised. Like I said, give it a shot. The way I did it was set the computer on the piano case with it at half-stick. Could try to set it nearby with the cover all the way open. Just play around.

Thanks, I have a MacBook Pro, and the built-in microphone isn't the best at all... I've already tried, but the quality was awful.

Yes I'd like to record it with a microphone, (are there any other ways?).

Make sure your mic is not too close to the piano, that can seriously distrort your recording.

Are you on a budget?

Ideally, you'd get an audio interface and a pair of good condenser mic's...but I expect that's not possible.

;)

Get a decent stereo mic (with an 1/8" jack: not unlike the ECM-MS907) and record into any audio recording/editing software, like the free and useful Audacity.

...

Close everything in the room for avoid possible external noises or to make them less audible and test with the notebook's mic in different place to see from where it would get a better sound for not waste time recording a lot the piece. Since is a notebook's mic the quality won't be so great anyway.

Hem...

Budget is an issue.

"Normally" you would get a firewire audio interface, pluged (or bundled) with 1-2 preamp microphone inputs. And 1-2 microphones.

Rich people would go for Lynx aurora, or Apoggee, or other VERY expensive AD and DA converters (the machine that converts your audio input (eg. sound from a microphone) into digital signal for your computer to process and your digital signal from your computer (eg. sequencer) to your outputs and finally your monitors). These things go well above $2,000. Preamps also go pretty high, as the better the less hissing, the better signal, etc, so you are also looking for another $1,000. Microphones I don't know much and a soundcard (PCI, ePCI, or firewire, not USB).

Now there are mid range (for around $400 I reckon) audio interfaces (like those from m-audio, or emu), which also have a few inputs, and a few preamps, which makes life easier. Quality won't really be sacrificed, I say. You can get very good results, just not professional ones. Microphones, again I don't know! :D

Now, placing the mic(s).

The ideal placement, in a large hall and a grand, or even baby grand, is around 9-12 feet AWAY from the piano, in an angle to the lifted cover. This is where the sound concetrates. If you have a 2nd mic, you could very well put it rather close to the board to get the hammer noise and the pedal noise and mix the two signals, according to your taste later on, if you record in different audio tracks, or at the time, if you are set to experiment before actually recording.

Pluged in mics to your laptop, will be ok, again I don't think that with not great monitors you'll be able to pick up any difference, so this is also a possibility. Only that by changing the jacks to the 1/8th you are already loosing a bit of quality, as well and any decent mic has the big jrx (don't remember the initials now, sorry), jacks, which work great as they are.

Bothering your local music shop, finaly, is the best option really. You will spend a bit of money, as it seems, so they are FORCED to help you out. If not, thell them to gently caress off and head to a different store!

Posting some experiments with your recordings, at various positions, etc, might also give you another opinion on how it sounds. Adding reverb will also change, and since you, probably, won't have a concert hall to work with and grab the natural decay, you will need that. So do experiment, and maybe make a thread with 4-8 recordings, for people to pick, choose, etc.

Finally, do share budget ideas and kind of music you're looking to record. Pop music is recorded hugely different than classical. ;)

Good luck.

Make sure your mic is not too close to the piano, that can seriously distrort your recording.

This would only be true if you had no way to turn down the preamp volume below a clipping level.

Pianos are one of the most complicated instruments to record because you have about a bagillion options. This might be a good place to start as it has a lot of different positions listed with various pros and cons.

Essentially it's going to come down to what equipment you end up with. If you have one mic and no way to add some reverb or delay after the recording then it probably would be best to place the mic a good distance from the piano. If you have a couple mics and some plugins for effects then you'll probably get a clearer sound by trying some combination of close mic placements.

Do it like I did and befriend some tone engineer students :cool: Not only do they know how to record, they generally also have access to professional equipment.

If that's not an option or you just want to do a quick recording now and then go with what has been mentioned, depending on your budget. Mics plugged into your notebook have the disadvantage that usually you don't have a mic input in a notebook but just a line-in. So your microphone signal needs to be preamplified first, which means that you either need a microphone that has a little built-in pre-amp powered by a battery (but most don't have this) or an additional pre-amp/mixer. But in that case you'd be better off just buying an external audio interface in the first place, as Nikolas mentioned.

Then there's also the option of not using your computer at all, but using a specific recorder. This has several advantages:

- Computers can ruin a whole recording by crashing at the wrong moment.

- Computers produce fan noise and the hard disc produces noise too, so you have to place it far enough away from the mics.

- You have to carry around the computer, audio interface and microphones when you want to make the recording somewhere else. Needless to say, those don't fit in the pockets of your trousers.

That's why I bought myself a little Edirol R-09 recorder. It has quite decent built-in stereo mics (but you can also attach other mics), is small and compact (it fits in your pocket), stores on flash cards (so no hard disc noises), can save in good quality (wav, 48kHz/24bit) or in mp3 if you want to save space, and works flawlessly without ever crashing. Oh, and of course you can also use it as an excellent mp3 player if you want (the sound quality is a -lot- better than of ipods). It costs maybe 300-400$, so it isn't super-cheap and the quality is of course inferior to a professional studio recording. I still find it very good though.

There are of course also many other comparable recorders. Particularly I heard good things about the Zoom H4 recorder, which is also one of the least expensive ones.

Just about the reverb, if you have a MacBook Pro, then you'll have the Garageband application. The Apple AU MatrixReverb is very usable; any audio file you make you'll be able to apply reverb with this built in plugin using Garageband if necessary. I use Digital Performer 5 to record with, and as the DP reverbs are not great, I use the AU reverb from within DP.