Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Recording tools - mp3 recorder recommendations

I am an adult beginner (going into my third year), and recognize my ability to learn a piece is significantly enhanced with a recording.

Thus, I am looking for a small mp3 recorder with an external mic that I can record with.

What recommendations do you have for a mp3 recorder and mic

I would travel with this recorder, and keep them with my books.

My primary purpose: working with my teacher to record my pieces and as necessary "sections" to learn and develop my technique and memory.

Secondary purposes are traditional listening and email recordings of my daughters music work (one plays the piano and the other the bagpipes).

I suffer from dyslexia, which has some advantages (no one wants to play scramble with me, as I usually win (if they help my laying out the letters in the correct order)), but there are some disadvantages.

This tool is not to be a substitution for learning to read music, but one to assist my development.

In fact, if I have develop a memory for the tonal pattern, I can spend more time, validating my notes, articulation, dynamics and technique against the actual score.

Other notes that may interest others:

1. My wife and I are engineers.
2. We believe and encourage the arts, and see it as an important part of our children's education.
3. My youngest daughter plays the piano and I participate. (My wife works with eldest duaghter and does the bagpipe support).
4. I practice each morning for an hour. A good way to start the day. Also, as the day ends, my ability to read degrades significantly, and reading music becomes very tough. After dinner playing has to be reserved to pieces I know from memory or scales.
5. I really enjoy playing.

A interesting feature from mixing left and right, in mid song, I will seamlessly switch clef orientation, id est my left hand will play the treble (G)clef and my right hand will play the bass (F) clef.

I haven't used one myself, but I researched this a while ago and was very impressed with iRiver. I have one of their flash players, and it does line-in recording but the memory (256k) just isn't enough to do good quality stereo recording. Do, however, give the H-100 series a try - those are iRiver's hard drive mp3 player/recorders and look very impressive.

Now, for a microphone, check out sony's small stereo mic (around $100.) I've used one of these with a minidisc recorder and it works very well.

Anyway, I hope that gives you a good starting point for your search. And welcome to the forums!

Hi,
You can record directly into Adobe Audition and convert your wav files into MP3, real player, windows media audio, and many other formats. Emailing the files will require a broadband connection because of the file sizes. I usually keep student files that many students are going to use on my website so that they can download them and I don't have to keep uploading them.
Regular lesson recordings are done on a cheap cassette player that the student brings so that much less time is spent working with the technology and more on the music. We use professional recording gear in one of my studios when the student reaches the level of making their own CD.
Best of luck.

Thank you ...

Rob, you are correct in that I do not want to spend significant time in setting up the technology.

The answer maybe a better cassette recorder.

Can default values-settings be establish to create a quick and fair quality recording, when I am taking lessons?


Note the remaining discussion is written in engineer-speak. [I am a systems engineer manager for a company that provides telephone switches and broadband equipment to the large carriers, worldwide].

With respect to the download speed, yes, that will be an issue for sometime. My carrier is installing a new remote telephone access switch [in a outside cabinet] within 1000 feet of the house, and thus eliminating the limitation of loop length from the current CO. The new looplength is such that I can easily get ADSL 2+ services. As such, I am working with the Carrier Network Engineer to get highspeed equipment in, but unfortunately, I and many people are being hinder by the carriers desire to be subsidize by a government for this installation.

warning .. more information than you probably want:

It will be a new switch, with fiber already present, serving a small rural area. I know the additional cost to add the DSLAM is less than 3% of the equipment to be installed and less than1.5% of the total cost of the installation - rights, surveys, et cetera. Based on a 10% take rate [meaning, 10% of homes that could subscribe, do - this is a conservative, but real number], the projected ROI for this site is 16 months, with a several 100% payback over a 8 year life.

Oh yes, it is cheaper to order the system pre-wired with ADSL (highspeed) that having to rewire and add-in, once the switch is running.

Though, it is a small additional outlay with a fair ROI and good payback, the carrier is still wanting a PUC or other government body to fund this! Of course, my rural governments have no policy or funds [we in Canada do not have a RUS programme, like the US]. The final decision or recommendation, is not being made by the Network Engineer, Area Manager, Account Manager, or based on material availability, but by a marketing team. So I find the associate jocketing interesting, but sad.

"A interesting feature from mixing left and right, in mid song, I will seamlessly switch clef orientation, id est my left hand will play the treble (G)clef and my right hand will play the bass (F) clef."

That happens to me occasionally, and I'm not dsylexic and have been a musician for a long time. If I'm not paying close enough attention then sometimes I'll switch clefs, or parts, and will snap out of it when I realize I've got a bad fingering

Weird ....