recording digital piano

i've been lining in my digital piano directly to my soundcard, but the sound quality i'm getting is pretty horrible. i have a roland fp-3 and a soundblaster live soundcard. is this a problem with my sound card or my method or what? any advice?

I think when you record on your computer using a digital piano, it puts it in midi format. So when you listen to what you just recorded, you hear the midi samples from your pc. Which are, of course, of lesser quality. (You haven't paid as much for your soundcard than for your piano, didn't you? )

You should get soundfonts...SB Live supports them. I once found a great soundfont of a Steinway piano, but it was pretty big (25 meg( *big* :that's if, like me, you still on dial-up))

Hope this will help. -Francis

I'm interested in recording my digital harpsichord for uploading on the internet. I would prefer to do recording from a seperate recorder. Which format would be best? DAT? MP3? I'd like to record at the instrument, then take the tape,disc, to the computer to record onto the hard drive with my musicmatch program. Please make suggestions.

One of the most amazing pianos I have heard recorded in Cubase is the VST plug in The Grand that is just made for that purpose of trying to have a perfect sounding recorded piano track. It is a hugh sample with a lot of tweaks available on 3 CDs, I think it is like 200 dollars.
http://www.steinberg.net/products/ae/plugins/thegrand/ index.phtml?id=... 508&sid=04942166

I usually record my Alesis via Cakewalk and a MIDI cable first. Then, when I get ready to mix down the audio tracks, I disconnect the Alesis' speakers and use the 'Y' cable that goes directly to the soundcard. There are also issues that are directly related to, and unique to Soundblaster cards. Look around on the Net and you should be able to find more info on those issues. You can do a search on Google for, 'Roland FP-3 Soundblaster tutorial,' (or FAQ) and it should bring up some useful links. Here's one: http://www.jjonline.com/microSites/digital/ midiTutorial09.php

All The Best,

.wma or mp3 seems to be the audio format of choice, Mark. .WMA files tend to hog more bytes, but the quality is better than an MP3, which (as I understand it) is a much more compressed format. I've never heard of a DAT file. .WMA files will play through Windows Media Player, but won't run on a MAC. MP3 will play on any machine that has an MP3 player configured. (i.e. musicmatch, real audio, ultra player, etc.)

Cheers,

Well, did you ever record yourself with a normal tape recorder or something? You'll be amazed how different it sounds when you're not playing, but only listening. And use the same amplifier/loudspeaker combination when listening to the recording as when you listen to the digital. Most PC speakers I've heard are crap.

Otherwise: Line out of digital to Line in of SB (not the Mic In!). If the volume is set too high, you can get clipping, which sounds terrible. If your Volume is much too low, you don't have a good resolution, which might be audible. Record in 16Bit, not 8Bit. I don't think this is an issue anymore, but with older SBs, you could not record and play with 16Bit at the same time, so you had to switch off the playing somewhere to record in 16Bit. Switch off all other recording sources other than Line in (somewhere in the Mixer application, I guess).

If nothing helps, try to record from a CD Player to see if it works at all.

Bye, Christof

If you want to do some editing, one shouldn't record in mp3. It throws away things that one cannot hear, which gives a very efficient comperession. But if you mix different tracks, you might want this information back. So IMO, one should better use .wav (which is a very common format, .wma is mainly Windows, and not all people use Windows...). Stereo 44kHz/16bit .wav needs about 180kB per Second, that's around 10MB per minute. Should not be a problem on most computers these days.

Bye, Christof

Hmm, I don't think it's being converted to Midi, because the expression range is retained, and it sounds like my digital piano except it's really tinny and distorted. And I'm having the same problem with my electric cello, which i'm *sure* isn't being converted to midi.

I might try it, but I use effects pedals on my piano/harpsichord a lot of the time, and I'd be missing that. And I want to record live into a software recording program(i use Logic and/or Ableton); i think it would be annoying if i had to record the piano track outside of that program.

Would this be midi though(as opposed to the default voice of my digital piano)? I've been avoiding midi for a while; maybe It's my only choice, though.

I've recorded onto a friend's 4-track, and it souded pretty good, but the problem for me, is getting the sound into my comp to be mixed, edited, etc.

Hmm, well, once I've lined-in and am playing, I can hear the digital piano coming through my computer speakers. Once recorded, I get about the same sound quality as what I hear live. I'm almost positive that i'm doing something wrong, and that I might have to connect my piano through an amp and then to the computer or something, as I've heard digital piano recordings recorded in cakewalk(etc.) which sound great.