Idiot's guide to recording

[ada]

Hi

Apologies in advance for a tedious question but I am not very good with computers.

I would like to post something in the audition room. I have a digital piano and a computer.

I'm assuming that I need to get a digital recorder, plug that into the instrument and record.

Then I'm guessing I download the recording onto my computer and post it here.

If so

1. Do I need to buy a digital recorder, or can I plug my computer into the digi piano and record direct onto the computer?

2. Do I need special software to download sound files onto the computer? If so, what kind and where might I find it?

3. can I convert the stuff I play into a MIDI file, and if so how is that done?

I've trawled the internet for info and had a look here but I'm still confused.

Any advice appreciated, tks muchly

[Dazzer]

1) no you don't need one. All digital pianos will have an MIDI In/Out (I/O) whic you can use to connect to the computer
2a) You'll need a sequencer to take in MIDI (ie cakewalk, cubase, pro logic). Note your sound card must also support MIDI I/O. simply just connect from your Keyboard MIDI Out to your soundcards MIDI In. this will record the data, not the sound.

2b)If you're hard pressed, and have neither, you can use a regular sound recorder, and if your piano has a Audio I/O, connect it to the microphone jack and record it as regular sound, to make a WAV/MP3 etc

2c)If you're even more hard pressed, then you'll have to consider just using a mic setup.

3) look at 2a

[ada]

Thanks so much Dazzer.

Sounds straightforward but still a little confused about what a sequencer is (is it a thing? a device? is it software?) and not sure if I have the right sound card. Also not quite sure how to make a WAV or MP3 file.

But this is is a start. I think I'll just  hit the shop and do what I normally do, plead stupidity.

cheers

[Dazzer]

you might be looking for something like this

[quantum]

You may also want to use Audacity.  It is a open source audio editing program.  Best of all it's free.  You would use this program if you were to choose the analog audio recording options (in other words recording not using MIDI). 

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

[nilsjohan]

I would not recommend a MIDI recording for posting here in the Audition Room since the recording is likely to sound VERY different from what you actually hear while playing on your piano.
Best of all is of course an audio recording of an acoustic piano but if this is not possible for some reason the second best would be an audio recording of your digital piano. To do this you will just need to connect the audio out of your piano to the audio in of your computer's sound card and record in some software such as the Audacity as quantum suggests.
Don't forget to add some reverb, either on the piano itself or in the recording software, or your recording will sound extremely dry and artificial.

3. can I convert the stuff I play into a MIDI file, and if so how is that done?

If you make an audio recording there is no way to convert it to MIDI. If you definately need a MIDI file, follow Dazzers advice.

[ada]

Thank you all. This has been very helpful.

ada

[mckchun]

u can use RCA cable to hook up ur piano to pc (connect to "Line-in") if u want perfect quality