There is no doubt that audio recording has come a long way, and effectively, brought the possibility of a professional recording studio into the hands of the average person, as long as you have a reasonable laptop computer, and some disk space.
The rest can be achieved with software programs, like Audacity or Sony Audio Studio. The later does have a nominal price tag, but Audacity is free, if you are on a tight budget.
As I have read of many pianists wanting to record their own music recitals at home, without incurring the heavy costs of using a traditional recording studio, I decided to put aside some time to write about the subject. Primarily, the good news is that nowadays, the process can be accomplished with little more than a basic laptop computer and one extra piece of peripheral equipment- being a USB, large diaphragm microphone. The microphone that I best recommend is the Audio Technica USB 2020 microphone, available here.
You might well ask, how can this be done? What about the software? Certainly, you can go ‘all out’, and use some very expensive software, and I will be writing about that in future articles, but for this purpose, as long as you have a laptop, (for portability reasons) and a USB connection on it, you can load up a free program called Audacity. It is available from the internet , for no charge, and is relatively lean on the use of your computer’s memory and other resources.
Once this has been installed, you can then connect a USB large diaphragm microphone to your computer. I recommend the use of a USB microphone, as there is less difficulty in setting it up, and once plugged into a USB port, will be set up on your computer in a matter of a minute or two. Further, the audio is processed directly by your computer, rather than passing an analogue stage on your sound card. Simply put, it is easier to use, with less degradation in quality. Additionally, the larger diaphragm will ensure that a much better quality recording is achieved, when compared to a small, consumer microphone. For the above, the most expensive part is the microphone, but still very cheap in comparison to the alternatives, assuming you already have a computer. Please note these microphones will work equally well with a PC or a Mac machine.
Now that you have done the above, it is time to start to set up for the recording.
It may take a few attempts to position the microphone in the right position, but experiment a little, as the acoustics of the room will play a part, as well as the type of piano.
Ensure the roo is not tiled, with bare walls, as this will be too reflective, causing an echo. On the other hand, thick carpeting and drapes will deaden the sound to be too flat. Somewhere in the middle is ideal.
If you can, you may also open the lid of the piano, to help radiate the sound more evenly. Try a few positions of the mic, and if you like, you can also use two, to get a more balanced stereo sound effect. To start the recording simply mute the speakers, by turning the volume control to zero, to minimise feedback, or howling, and then, also ensure that you press the Record tab. The software is very intuitive, but more information is available in the help section of the software.
Once you have the sound recorded, test the playback, preferably with a set of headphones, as the speakers in a laptop normally are not too good, or clear, again, because of their size. This is a similar concept to the microphone needing a large diaphragm.
When you are happy with your recording, it is time to save the file as an MP3 or Wave file.
The wave file is already built into your Audacity software, but you will need a plug in, or small program to add to Audacity to convert to the MP3 format. This will be explained when you try to save as an MP3 format on your computer.
Once the above steps have been taken, you can then upload the file to your website, or create a CD with it, and so on.
I will write future articles on the best ways to convert your files to professional quality CD’s.
Are you able to store your piano performances for future listening? Have you been having trouble recording your piano performances , for the long term?
Not only can you record your performances, but also gain an enhanced comfort from your playing. To learn more, see the Piano Magic Touch.
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