Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Improving quality of audio when recording?

I posted this on the recital thread, but guess everyone doesn't read that, so here it is, on it's own thread!

"as for the recording, I know I got to sort that out, I'm using the iphone 4, which I'm sure records in high quality, I think it may be a combination of things ie: piano's out of tune, (gonna get this sorted, maybe a christmas present for me off someone lol), the piano is in a really small room, does that make a difference?, and my muddy pedalling lol, working on that aswell.

I see some people "normalise" their recordings in audacity, does that help the quality in sound? I'm gonna have a go at this next time!

Any tips or suggestions for me would be much appreciated"

"Normalise" removes the dynamics, doesn't do anything for sound quality. People use normalise so as to achieve more volume without clipping.

Post a sample of your recording for analysis.

Wayne, I am in the middle of recording/composition at the moment as you know..
Have you tried the digital Piano into Pianoteq via usb yet?
As pianoteq is a stand alone VST, it can record directly in with the recorder at the top of the page, try the circa 1800 Bechstein..

If you really are looking to seriously get a good recording from your acoustic piano, this is notoriously difficult, microphone placement will make many huge differences, as will the small room.

For mic placement, ideally three would help for the bass middle and treble areas of the piano , then mixing to get the best effect...(Pianoteq uses five mics for this purpose and they are movable , again to get the desired effect.)

If there is echo off the stone walls in the small room, then one thing you could do would be to hang some heavy drapes up to soak up the sound, and stop it bouncing off the walls.

With money constraints, and the smallness of the room, somethings will have to be a compromise, However, I do not think a phone of any description is high up on the list of recording devices!

Perfection is never going to happen no matter what, but if you want as near as you can get to it, two hours in a recording studio with a decent piano will not be as expensive as decent mics!!!

hope this helps.

I'll just post my last recital vid, that's where the comments on poor recording came from.

Rossy, is it just me, (I can be very stupid at times) but when I use the usb midi to my laptop I can only play single notes, no chords, no 2 hands, is there something I don't know?

Wayne if thats your phone that is doing the pics as well as sound, then its down at the bass end of the piano, and will pick up the bass as predominant, then the muddy the mid, then struggle with the treble, and add all that is being bounced off the walls.....

I know you will lose the pics, but open the lid of the piano, put something soft like a cloth on top (so the phone doesnt vibrate on the lid whilst recording) and place the phone in the middle of the piano.... try that...

If that doesnt improve the sound, I would suggest a phone may not be good at all..

but try...

I'll give that a try Rossy thnx

Wayne, that is a very strange problem indeed, You should be able to play chords with both hands via the midi/laptop.
single notes? I am!! Something is obviously wrong, try turning up th buffer on asio4all to see if thats where the problem lies...jsut a guess but could it be a dodgey usb lead?

I would definately ask over on the DP forums, those guys are good at troubleshooting....

oh, glad I asked lol, will do a video of the set up then, and see if anyone can help! Meanwhile, I just tried a little recording as you suggested, gonna listen to it now, see if the sounds any better!

Right, I opened piano lid and took front panel off and placed the phone where the sheet music goes. I don't know if it sounds any better or not?

Wayne, I actually meant the top, the lid at the top that folds back on a hinge...lol.

lol, ok, will try again!

Wayne, it already sounds better with the front panel off.

If you are in for it, you can try removing ALL panels on the front and then take the piano from the wall and rotate it off the wall so that the sound does not hit the wall.

Can you play something staccato without pedal? It is impossible to hear what is your room sound with so much pedal.

A good tuning will also help a lot I think.

I done it exactly as Rossy suggested this time......

Wouter79, I'm hoping to get it tuned as a christmas pressie I will try your suggestion tomorow, as It's 9.33pm here now and our neighbour has a new baby, don't want to upset them lol

I have to agree with wouter on the point of tuning Wayne, thing is, as you are trying to find the right balance of using your pedal (somewhere between all pedal and no pedal for the sake of arguament!) a piano out of tune will sound worse when the pedal is used , in particular in the sustaining of the notes that are out of tune badly, next to notes that are not too bad.... Only by virtue of the out of tune notes lasting longer when pedalled, and disharmonising with other notes...

what a good christmass pressie.
excellent.

Did you ever think of buying a proper microphone?

Do you have Apple ? It comes with garageband where you can "lift" the sound.

I think Wayne has Indeed thought about this.
He might have even looked at some in the shops.
Or even in catalogues.
But his wallet has been welded shut.

Ebay Wayne Ebay...lol.

Wayne, the Zoom H1 is about a hundred bucks and should give you better sound than your iPhone. Add that to your list for Santa.