Recording myself - What to get ?

[dmc]

Looking for recomendations for a small portable recording device.  Preferably to CD so I can load to my computer.  Also, where is a good place to position this for an upright ?  I'm a former guitar player and I've done some home recording to my PC but not with piano.

[thalberg]

Do you have an iPod?  For sixty bucks you can get a microphone for it and record directly on to the iPod.  Can you upload to the computer then?  I don't know.  I have one but I always just leave my recordings on it.  Sound quality is better than I thought it would be.  I love iPods and anything apple makes. 

[dnephi]

That sounds interesting.  Can you get me a link?

Daniel

[dmc]

Do you have an iPod?  For sixty bucks you can get a microphone for it and record directly on to the iPod.  Can you upload to the computer then? 

As a matter of fact I do.  Not sure if iPods offer the option have the capability to interface with a PC outside of iTunes though.  I'll have to look into that.  If not, I know there are other iPod clones that simply function as another drive from which you can copy files back & forth.  Thanks for the tip !

[quantum]

http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,27453.0.html

[rc]

Also, where is a good place to position this for an upright ?

A little bit of wisdom I picked up from a mic clinic - use your ear.  An instrument can sound quite different at various spots (depending on the instrument, the room, it's relation to the room...).  Get somebody to play your piano while you walk around it and listen to the sound quality at various places in the room, there will be some spots that are clearly better and it's not always what you expect.

Other factors you could experiment with would be with the lid up or down, or taking the front off (so you can see the strings and guts of the piano vibrating freely).

[epf]

Another consideration would be the Zoom H4 or H2 recorders. They will record in .WAV or .MP3 format (wav is preferable) and then you can upload to the computer via USB. The H4 has stereo recording via two built-in mics or you can use external mics, the H2 has FOUR built in mics but you cannot use external mics. Both are small, hand-held devices.

I have the H4 and I'm very happy with it!

Ed