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As someone who may wish to record your piano recital music to a CD at home, or at your venue of choice, you will find you have a number of options available to you.

For the purposes of this article, I will assume that you have already taken care of your recording equipment, and already have the recording either as a prepared CD or at least, in MP3 or WAV format. These are the two most common formats for storing audio that has been recorded.

Once you have the recording files ready, meaning they have been edited, and mixed the way you like the final sound to be, you are ready to commence the production of your CDs.

Before you think I am going to suggest you start to copy CD after CD at home, let me tell you that you can relax. There are online services available that allow you to upload your CD to their facility, and once there, you an order CDs at your leisure, from one, to essentially, any number you choose. The greatest benefit of these facilities is that you need not spend copious mounts of time copying CDs at home, which from personal experience can take hours and hours. In addition, you will find that you do not need to ware out your CD burner as well.

This process is only viable if you are expecting to make more than a few CDs, but assuming that is the case, your next step is to create the artwork for your CD cover as well as CD print. I have found the best software for this is Paint, which is available with most Windows based computers using Microsoft. My method involves taking the image I like best, sometimes available from photo stocks online, available for a very reasonable price like a dollar or two (but please read the licence agreements carefully). Once you have chosen your ideal photo, and loaded it onto your computer, import that photo into your Paint program. I always advise using a photo with some ‘unused’ space, where you can superimpose some text of your own, to create the title and so on. This is the reason I like Paint, as this can be done quite easily. Once I am happy with my completed photo and title, I then save the image.

Now to the actual uploading of your CD to a commercial facility that is fully automated. I have found one of the best services is that of Kunaki.com. They provide a service where you can download their software for free, which then guides you through creating an account, and then uploading your CD and images you have created. For this to work, you need to ensure you have software on your computer than can produce a final CD, and once you have that, you then upload that, as well as the images and other information you may like, like copyright details, and recording information. You are even able to have the system create an internationally recognised bar code for your product.

As a side note, please note that I do not have any connection with the service I am mentioning above. I simply recommend and use their service, because it works, and has never failed me before. Once your CD is uploaded, you are then able to log in, and order as many as you like, for a very nominal price, and the CD will be delivered to any address in the world, in a box, shrink wrapped, and professional looking. This method allows you to not have to hold stocks, or worry about running out, if you should be fortunate enough to have a massive demand for your product.

I would always recommend that you ensure that you test your uploaded CD yourself, by ordering one for yourself, as I have been caught out before, where I once had a spelling error, and had not noticed it online, but only after I had ordered about seventy discs. That is a mistake I prefer you to not make yourself.

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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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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