It seems as though our days of self-recording (Zoom Q3) are over and we have to learn all about professional recording for summer music camps and college prescreenings. Our son is a junior in high school and has gone to Interlochen the last three summers. This summer he is moving on to another level. His piano teacher (college professor) says that recording expectations have gone up dramatically, but he doesn't have any feedback on what that level is or where to have a professional recording done (except at the university using students and no special grand piano miking).

My question is whether anyone can give me a professional recording 101 overview. Live audition versus sending in a recording. Cost. Live recording of a concert versus a perfect (?) studio recording. Audio versus video. What are the editing requirements/limitations? How much can you piece/edit the recordings for different opportunities. Do all places spell it out exactly, or are some things supposed to be common knowledge?

Our son always does at least as well in concerts/competitions as he does at home, and he always does well at all of the auditions he has done. I like the idea of professional recording because it requires different skills (and more technical perfection) than live concerts. He has a great attitude about live performances, but doesn't have the knowledge/patience (?) to get a perfect recording. We don't even know what that level is for something like a top level summer music festival or a college/conservatory prescreening. In case it matters, he has just performed a Bach P&F, Beethoven sonata Op.10, No.3 (1st mvt), Chopin Ballade No. 2, and the Argentinian Dances by Ginastera. He is also in a group working on Brahms piano quintet.

Well... Things are difficult at a higher level!

In order to grab a GOOD recording you need access to a GOOD piano, which is also (btw) tuned)...

Then you need a pair of good mics, a good preamp, and a computer to hook everything up.

Then you need software in order to capture everything, mix everything, master everything, montage everything...

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My experience with professional recordings is that the best case scenario is to find a concert hall for hire, grab it for a few hours and get all the takes from there... Find your way into 2-3 cameras and videotape everything.

Then mix/match/montage/master/export...

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I'll give you an example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG1_I5QXNkE

Around the summer and until the end of 2012 I composed a series of duets.

At some point I found a pianist with whom we worked very well together, so we started rehearsing. The idea was to get in my studio and record everything digitally (using sampled piano).

Then I thought that the music is too good to be left only on a digital piano and not recorded as good as possible. So I found this place you see in the video, that was for rent, for cheaps and the price included the audio engineer and mics and equipment, etc. BUT NO treatment of the sound.

Then I thought that since I had a nice place, I could find a couple of cameras and make some decent videos out of it. I found three cameras, but sadly the third one produced some dodgy material, so I've not used it yet.

So, we booked, we went and grabbed everything. Around 28 GBs of data for 2 hours of audio and video.

Being a composer, producer, etc, with my own studio means that I edited the audio as best as I could (wish we had another 12 hours in the hall, but...), and then I did the mastering. I found the parts of the video that corresponded in the audio and started montaging. Given that I know nothing about video editing, I think that the result is decent, but the sound is very good (in my opinion of course)...

End of story...

Not sure if it helps, but I the one thing I'm sure of is that the pianist needs to deal with his/her performance while recording and NOTHING else. A person cannot deal with multiple issues (what the cameras are getting, the audio, the mics, etc). Other people need to take care of that...

That's a lot of questions. I will give a few hints, I guess one could write a book on each of these topics

>Live recording of a concert versus a perfect (?) studio recording.

* live concert gives more noise and disturbing noise from audience
* live concert usually is un-cut while studio recordings can cut out mistakes
* live concert usually one thinks of a larger room and that may give not the required acoustics
* live concert usually has restrictions on where lights and mics can be placed.
* live concert usually is 1 take only.
* with studio recording the wishes are all determined beforehand and everything is chosen for the best recording. As many takes as it takes.

>Audio versus video.

It's not 'versus'. It's audio only versus audio + video.
I think for audition they would really like to see video as well, to see how one presents oneself and to give more input on technique.

>What are the editing requirements/limitations?

What type of 'editing' are you talking about? Putting together multiple shots with a single audio? Stitching two takes after another? Fixing up small errors? Replacing entire parts of audio? Synchronising audio and video after an edit?

>He has a great attitude about live performances, but doesn't have the knowledge/patience (?) to get a perfect recording.

Life recordings hardly ever are perfect. If he wants a perfect recording I suggest you find a good studio that can do this. He should be prepared for multiple takes. That said, I doubt whether they really want a perfect, fixed up studio recording for an audition??

I am not doubting your word or that of your son's teacher, but this seems like a highly questionable move. I would think that many very well-qualified students would not have access to "professional recordings" whatever that might mean in the context of college/conservatory admissions and that too many might be eliminated for not being able to provide professional recordings.

I don't understand that, as a screening process, "professional" recordings are to be the norm. The major questionable element that must surface in that context is that such recordings could be heavily edited - in spite of admonitions to the contrary - in the recording studio which, to my mind, would give a totally false impression of a candidate's abilities and skills.

Are college audition boards unable to judge the quality of a candidate's performance from the reasonably good digital video recordings that are now produced in the home?

Regards,

I think recording quality matters much less than people think.

A couple years ago, a friend of mine had procrastinated a bit in making a recording for a high-profile national competition. The deadline approaching, we did the best we could - found a free 40 minutes between classes in the recital hall, ran in and recorded everything on a Zoom H1 (yes, the low-end model.)

Several other students from the school had already made professional level recordings for the competition. $10,000+ worth of microphones and recording equipment.

The Zoom H1 cost $99.

None of the students who had recorded professionally were invited to compete, but my friend was.

And he won.

I'll start with BruceD's comments. I surely don't want to make an unnecessary move. So, what is the norm for a conservatory or a top college prescreening? Do they care or not? I would think they would like to see an unedited live performance under pressure, but I'm hearing anecdotes that a professional recording is expected. I just talked with the mother of a violinist (Juilliard pre-college student) about how they had a professional recording done, but I don't know what it was for. She's already been going to Meadowmount for years. When we toured Oberlin last summer, the student guide gushed over their recording studio and how that's what all of the students used to make their summer festival recordings.

The problem is that we really don't have a "word". We're looking for it. Are professional recordings necessary, and how professional do they have to be? How perfect do they have to be. And of course, people are getting very good at hiding edits. It's hard to imaginge that you need anything professionally recorded for prescreenings when they are eventually going to judge you in a live audition. Summer festivals where there is no live audition seems to be a different animal. BUTI claims that it makes no difference whether you send in a recording (last year it was an audio-only requirement and this year they strongly urge a video one) or go to a live audition. Does this mean that the recording has to be pretty darn good? I'm not talking about the technical or musical ability of the musician, but how hard you have to work to get the best possible performance with no edits?

"None of the students who had recorded professionally were invited to compete, but my friend was."

I like to hear stories like this.

Was your friend able to pull off perfectly clean recordings with no issues, or did you just pick the best ones? We recorded a couple of my son's pieces at the church next door (good piano and acoustics ... and free), but we didn't fuss over trying to get a perfectly clean recording. It was more like a one-shot live performance, and the Ginastera has three movements. If they expect to see perfection based on a long effort, we didn't do that. He played the Beethoven three times and the Ginastera twice and picked the best ones.

I know that professional recording can't hide poor technical ability or musicality, but if you work hard enough, it will do something. Perhaps the goal is to be good enough so that the professional recording doesn't matter. However, I would like to hear more stories, even if they are anecdotal.

"Professional"...
Not going to call out names but I've seen quite a bit of amateurs call themselves professional, and I've seen people calling themselves professional using rather low end hardware. In the consumer music market, I've heard a surprisingly bad sounding (to me) recording that got used in something really big.

This might be difficult to interpret, but I think the quality of the recording should be high enough that the untrained ear (recordingwise) listening to a CD quality recording doesn't have any objections. By untrained ear, I mean people who are not experienced with recording. This is not hard to achieve, you just need a respectable set of omnidirectional mics, and a proper sound interface with XLR input (no need for external preamps). I'm no audio expert, but I own such a setup and to my ears I am getting just as good fidelity as anyone else short of people using true professional studios with set up rooms.

When you talk about editing, red flags go up for me. I would not want to judge someone's playing by an edited recording! So when you are recording for an audition or competition, a simple setup is probably best.

If you are really concerned about the sound, experiment with different placements. Make sure the piano is in good shape, well tuned and voiced. That will help with the playing, too.

Thanks for the comment about amateurs.

I remember seeing one place that required a video with a fixed camera angle and zoom level. I assume that it was to make editing in the middle of a movement harder.

I also assume that if you are submitting a recording, they expect it to be better than a live performance in terms of minor slips or missed notes. We don't have a lot of experience with that process, and it seems that a high priced recording studio with a short time limit will not help. I'm tempted to stick with our church next door where there is no cost or time limit so that our son can learn how best to produce a perfectly clean recording. He does well in live concerts, but recording seems to require a different mentality and process. With a live performance, you do your best and move on. With recording, nothing is ever good enough. Our son is treating the recording session like a live performance. It's good in that you can see that he goes for it, so to speak. He doesn't look cautious, but it's not the perfection one might expect from a typical recording studio session.

Underlying all of this seems to be a philosophical difference in teaching; whether you continually move on to new pieces or you try to perfect a smaller set for recording and competition. My son's teacher definitely falls into the former category. Our son rarely plays the same pieces for each concert or competition. His sight reading skills are quite developed. The downside is that one might not develop an appreciation for subtle details and nuances, and fall into the trap of just-in-time performance development.


However, can anyone offer advice on how they prepare for and run a recording session? How long do you go before you get to point of diminishing returns? How many pieces do you try to do in one session? How do you deal with perfection versus flair? Recording sessions might produce clean, but uninspiring recordings. Maybe once we figure these things out we can decide to hire a professional.

As my first ever semi-professional recording session was quite recent - last weekend, in fact - maybe I can recount my experiences. I had 3 weeks' notice of it, so I decided to play two pieces that I'm very familiar with (and had been memorized for a couple of years at least) but have never worked up to proper performance standard, in terms of playing for an audience or recording (though I have played them for friends and colleagues, in somewhat casual manner...). I set to work polishing them up, ironing out the occasional fluffs that never bothered me before in the fast/jumpy passages and chords, by endlessly repeating them till I was satisfied. I could also make use of the recording facility on my piano, actually a high-end digital (Roland V-Piano), to make sure.

Then came the day - in an unfamiliar venue, a piano showroom I'd never been before, and an unfamiliar piano, a new Yamaha CF6 grand. We had one hour to do it and the (single) video camera and the microphones were already in place. I warmed up on an upright (with 'practice pedal' engaged, because someone else was recording), then it was straight down to business. The piano was much more powerful and loud than I expected, partly due to its bright voicing, partly due to the acoustics. After the first (and rather nervy) take, I decided I needed to use the una corda pedal for a few sections, not just to soften the sound, but to get the sotto voce tone that I wanted - even though I never used it for those pieces when practising them at home. A couple more takes, and the recording was finished, more or less to my satisfaction. Then on to the next piece - and the same happened: I added the soft pedal for a few sections. There was a bit of time left over, so I played both pieces again, one after the other - and they were the best takes of the day! Still a bit of time left, so I was invited to add another piece. I played something I hadn't practised....a few takes, and it went into the 'can' too (though I don't think it was very good).

What I discovered during the recording session was that I was playing each take as I would for an audience - there were three people there (the owners of the piano store, two of whom were involved in the recording) who I'd never met before till that day. My nerves settled somewhat as I played each subsequent take, but it always still felt like I was giving my all each time, not like a practice run at home on my own piano. And though I thought I couldn't play any better, my last re-run of both pieces (because time permitted) turned out to be the best of the afternoon - maybe because I felt the music was already 'in the can', so I had nothing to lose by doing it one more time.

I haven't yet seen or heard the finished results. No editing is possible, so it is a matter of using the best take....

This reminds me of a story a friend of mine told me about Schnabel's recording passage. My friend heard it from Roger Sessions, who was at the recording session for the Hammerklavier Sonata. Apparently Schnabel played the sonata three times. On one of them, he nailed the fugue, but messed up other parts of the sonata worse than the one that was released. He just refused to release a recording made from the best parts of several performances.

Getting back to the original request: I think you just need to pay close attention to what is asked by the organization requesting the recording.

To me a truly "professional" recording invariably involves editing, and I have hard time believing that an admission jury wants to listen to edited recordings, never knowing what the editing has been able to cover up or gloss over. We can all play exquisitely well if we have unlimited editing in our recordings, but I seriously doubt that that is what an admissions jury is looking for.

Regards,

smh,

Just listen to the following recording, and tell me what you think about the recording quality.
Is it at an acceptable level for your expectations ?
If so, we can discuss on how it was made ?


https://www.box.com/s/0e3373160e10e4b27f8c

"I think you just need to pay close attention to what is asked by the organization requesting the recording."

Here is what the web site says for the festival he applied to:

"Audition videos (AVI, Quicktime, MPEG, Windows Media, Flash Video): (Audio only formats cannot be accepted.) String, piano, double bass, and harp applicants, please submit two contrasting pieces of any length that best represent your current level of playing."

"best represent".


"We can all play exquisitely well if we have unlimited editing in our recordings, but I seriously doubt that that is what an admissions jury is looking for."

I agree, but one might assume that since it is a recording, then it is the absolute best that the musician can do. There is no place to say that it took two or twenty attempts to get the recording. That's the real basis for my original question.

"... and tell me what you think about the recording quality.
Is it at an acceptable level for your expectations ?"

The recordings sound great, but I'm not the important one here. I'm interested in what a festival/college/conservatory expects.

IMO Hakki's recording is at least as good as what I've heard coming out of recording sessions at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and students who've recorded there have won some pretty big stuff.

For Youngarts, I just played through over and over until I got a clean recording...I don't think it was any more "boring" than usual. I think I did 60 (the most) takes on Liszt Transcendental Etude no.10, and a minimum of 15-20 on any piece. Now, I didn't win anything so interpret that as you will

Here is what NEC has to say:

"All undergraduate (BM, DP) and graduate (MM, GD) applicants must submit the following prescreening repertoire:
1.first movement of a Classical Sonata (e.g., music by Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, or others)
2.substantial Romantic work (e.g., music by Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Mendelssohn, or others)."


"Prescreening recordings should be audio-only files..."
"Each piece must be performed in a single, unedited take..."
"It is not necessary to submit a professionally produced recording, but the sound quality should be very good."


The conclusion I come to is that I can use my Zoom Q3, but we have to work really hard on our recording skills to get the best recording, even if it takes 25 attempts. More importantly, it means that our son can't keep moving on to new pieces. He has to bring existing pieces to a more polished level. (We just don't know what that level is.) Since he has done many pieces that fit the requirements above, then it's more a matter of quality than quantity. I'll assume that the live audition will tell them the reality of the recording. From a teaching standpoint, that would indicate a preference for learning fewer pieces better, or at least for your college audition repertoire. Are there videos (audios) that give one an idea of the level and polish required for different colleges or conservatories?

OK, let me analyze the situation for you.
What is this recording for ? For an audition, right.
Now, the alternative would be listening to your son live with your own ears.
So, do you find something unusual or weird about the above recording? Does it resemble something that you would hear live with your own ears ? Maybe.

To summarize, the judges are expecting something near to a performance that they would listen live.
That is, a video recorded from the usual concert seat position, and audio recorded with two omnidirectional microphones at a reasonable distance for capturing the room acoustics as well.
Which means, get a Zoom Q3HD or similar recorder and record from the front seat of a hall. IMO, that would suffice.
That said, was the audio portion of the above recording recorded with a Zoom device?
Well, no.

I think that there is some overthinking going on here. I really believe that the best way is the simplest, and moreover, it's what you've already tried: record with your Q3 (or buy a Q3HD or Zoom H4N if you don't need video) in the church with the nice acoustic and instrument, only record few takes and select the best. In my experience, the takes do not continue to get better after the 5th (at the very most).

You will be looked down upon by none, I'm almost certain. That method is far preferable to recording in a studio and correcting flaws: a number of places I have applied to expressly forbid it, and you would do well to treat them all that way.

If you're up for a $2,500 investment, buy yourself a pair of AKG-414 XLIIs and a Zoom H4N and go to town with them. They are truly excellent in a resonant acoustic and could last well through your son's college days. I can send you links to audio examples if you are interested in hearing how refined they are.

"For Youngarts, I just played through over and over until I got a clean recording..."

Our son was interested in the YoungArts application this year (junior) but we knew little about recording expectations and when he was invited, there was little time left and he was in the middle of working on new pieces. This has happened for concerto competition deadlines. If I had to start over, I would have pushed for recording at least a few pieces each year to have on hand. We have mostly live recordings. Some of them are very good, but perhaps not for submission purposes.

BTW, did you go to a YoungArts Week, and if so, was it worth it?

You can watch a performance of YoungArts participants here (starting at just before the 35 minute mark) to get a feel for the quality of music making there. Technically, the level appears extremely high, particularly if they only had that week to work on this chamber music (seems unlikely but it is possible). I know one of the faculty, and she is excellent.

Yes, record in one take with NO edits.



The level is, at least, with NO wrong or missing notes, proper tempo, dynamics and interpretation.



Yes. And please make sure that the piano is tuned and voiced very well.
If possible record on a concert size instrument. (Steinway D
Yamaha CF III, Kawai EX, or similar)

I'll agree with the overthinking in the sense that the better you are, the less important the recording is. The goal would be to play well enough to make the recording mean less.

"AKG-414 XLIIs" If I need video, can they be used with my Q3HD?

"...a number of places I have applied to expressly forbid it, and you would do well to treat them all that way."

I assume that there are technical ways to detect edits, but in the end, you will have to pass through a live audition.

I can be sure that many would argue that this is a grey area, but I would counter your observation by saying that "the best that the musician can do" surely doesn't involve "... in multiple takes." I would assume that the best a musician can do implies a single, played-through, unedited recording as in a live performance.

Regards,

They were finalists, so how and when did they get put together?

Thanks for the link. My son will like it. He has been playing in chamber groups for about 5 years.

Yes, but if it is a Q3HD. Because it has a line in port. To which you can connect a mixer's or preamps's line out.(you must connect the AKG's to a mixer or preamp with phantom power capability)
Then, it will record the audio from the line in (in sync with the video) and cancel the onboard mics.

OTOH, if you have a Q3, to my knowledge the Q3 does not have the line in port and the MIC IN is not the same thing. You can't connect a line level signal to a mic port.

"one take?"

Does anyone record with one take and send it in? I can see the requirement for no edits, but one take?

"And please make sure that the piano is tuned and voiced very well. If possible record on a concert size instrument. (Steinway D Yamaha CF III, Kawai EX, or similar)"

"tuned and voiced?"

And if you don't or can't, what will their reaction be?

One take means, a piece recorded from start to finish as a whole without ANY breaks. Just as it would be in a live audition. Of course you can record several "one takes" and choose one of them.





Here is OUR reaction to a PW member's recording.

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/2015336

You guess the judges reaction. Usually they will quit listening after 30 seconds.

+1, although would you agree that selecting the best of a few takes would be acceptable? Particularly for young pianists, as they often don't have a full recital program to record, and the first selection might have a 'still warming-up' quality to it. Multiple takes would make sure that one is settled into the process, just like a few minutes into a recital.



+100, although a couple of split notes won't put you out of the running by any means. Make it perfect in practice of course, but we come back to the idea of treating recording sessions like live performances with a retry button. Sweep and flow with some splits over cautious and no wrong notes. It amazing how the 'permission to fail' of a recording session (as opposed to the single shot of a performance) can give a recording the color and inspiration (for lack of a better word) of a live performance with a physical freedom that really makes wrong notes less likely (if you're not worrying about getting it perfect the very first time with no second try - like in performance - you body relaxes and allows the work do be done unimpeded). Definitely make sure that the recording has warmth:

• experiment with different mike distances
• big, tuned, voiced, generally evened out piano
• acoustic slightly more resonant than would be desirable for solo performance - this is why home recordings often have an 'acoustic coffin' feel.

Churches, conveniently, often provide a good solution to the latter two.



My overthinking comment was not as thoughtful as it could be, and I think you are spot on.

They cannot be plugged into the Q3HD (XLR cables), but if you bought a Zoom H4N (the least expensive usable recording device with XLR inputs) for $300 (kind of a pittance compared to the mikes themselves), you could use both Zoom devices simultaneously and sync them up in an editing program without too much fuss.

It's the principle of the thing, in my opinion. Selecting from different takes isn't falsifying your ability to perform something; it's like presenting your face with makeup, but not with surgical alteration (not the best analogy, but I think it works).



That would be great, but good preamps aren't cheap. The syncing may or may not be easier and cheaper, depending on your editing skills and software.



See my comments on takes earlier in this post. Just my opinion, but I believe it is a widely held standard that multiple takes are fine in 90% of cases. There are a few exceptions (certain competitions are more stringent), but festivals and colleges are generally less strict in this regard.

I would do the utmost to make sure that the piano is very well regulated. That matters more than the recording setup. If we take my makeup analogy, if the tuning is at all off or the voicing is subpar, it's like heading to a job interview without showering after a late night out on the town. Definitely a faux pas.



+1 on the "one take" opinion. I beg to differ with regard to the Mozart recording: there is a good deal of work for the pianist to do (despite great musical ideas), but I found the piano and recording to be near the bottom of the level I expect good recordings to be, but certainly within the limits of a "good" recording setup.

Just my $0.02, or rather $200, as I appear to have written quite a lot!