electronic pianos the way to record mp3's?

[pianistimo]

duh.  i'm finally coming around to see that maybe i need an electronic keyboard to record myself.  now, which one does the job best (mp3 format) and can i buy it for a good price at costco?  we have membership there.  it has to have 88 keys.  pedals.  plug ins.  what else should i look for - within a sort of budget?  what things do you look for for decent recording capabilities?

[bench warmer]

I think that for a lesser outlay of money (especially if you already have a nice sounding acoustic piano), you can get yourself a "ZOOM H4" stereo recorder that will record either in WAV or MP3 format. Somewhere around $275.

If you are willing, you can go to Amazon.com, make your purchase there for 275, but sign-up for their Credit Card and they'll knock off another $30. Shipping around $6.

Do a Google search for reviews also. It's  only about the size of a hard-case for reading glasses.  It's an impressive machine.

[nicco]

I have just bought the perfect gadget for recording one self and others. It records both in wav and mp3, is super portable and very easy to use. The quality is superb, and becomes even better if you buy external microphones. (There is an internal microphone also). In many ways its the perfect tool for us musicians.

https://www.edirol.net/products/en/R-09/

[pianistimo]

thanks guys!  i will look into both.  the edirol at 24 bits will record at 44 hz which is real time, right?  will the other one do this too?  how much is the edirol?

i forgot - the only problem is that i'm playing for this musical at school and also need a portable keyboard by monday.  first, they ask me to play piano.  then, they ask if can bring a keyboard?  hmm.  and, i'll only have access to the stage piano two weeks ahead of time (which is usually ok) but practices with the children have to be without a piano?  or with CD.  sometimes i think people are lunatics when it comes to choir practices.  but, then - it's been a while since i've had 30 kindergarteners all gathered around to do anything.  anyways, i have all this music i've been practicing and just found out last night - no piano.  well that really rocks my ship.

if i just let everything go to **in a handbasket - i'll just do as you all say - and let the choir practice with a CD.  though you can't slow a CD down or do any sort of repeats during a practice without precious time wasted. 

now, for digital pianos - i've been looking at these:
Yamaha YPG525
YPG625  = more expensive - but better sound?
and Kurzweil (which i have no idea the price - maybe a used one or floor model for $1,230?)

does anyone have one of these.  do you like it?  can you make a decent recording in real time? 

[bench warmer]

Yes, the Zoom-H4 is real-time. You can even put it in 4-track mode and accompany yourself on 2 tracks while listening (with earphones) simultaneously  to the other 2 tracks. I guess you could listen also thru an amplifier while recording the other 2 track but that might start a chaos theory feedback loop.

OK, now you enlighten Me.
I know that digital keyboards have a MIDI output, pass-thru and input, but I didn't know you could record MP3 directly from their system. Is this a capability I'm unaware of?

[pianistimo]

i thought you bypass all this by directly hooking up some kind of cord to the computer.  but, hey - i'm not a computer genius - my husband is.  also, he is 'into' recording - but never seems to have the time lately to get a system set up. 

so, are you implying that i buy the digital and the zoom-H4?  it would be necessary still?

i apologize ahead of time for stupidity.  i really know nothing about how to get an mp3 in real-time - excepting the advice here.

[bench warmer]

Both recorders mentioned above will record directly to mp3's.

Digital pianos (as far as I know) output MIDI files and you need a $40 cable to interface to your computer to do it.

That's my knowledge base. If anyone else knows about digitals going directly to mp3's now your chance to enlighten!

[Bob]

Do your homework and shop around.  These aren't quick buys.

Digital pianos

Recordering devices


Not having a piano for a school thing doesn't surprise me.  It's THEIR show though.  Don't go too far out of your way -- certainly not spending a grand to get a portable piano quick.  Shop around for that for sure.  There are tons of threads on here about them.  Someone else at the school WILL have a keyboard of some type they will borrow.  Have the music teacher in charge of the project track one down for you. 


.mp3 is a format for audio.     .wav is another format.    I don't know for sure what the format is for a regular CD (redbook  maybe?)  Does anyone know?

I'm not an audio expert.  Like the pixels for pictures, dots per inch, dpi, music has its own kind of "resolution."  I'm fuzzy on it exactly.  There's something like "16-bit" and then the 44.1 numbers.  I think the bit number refers to the size of chunks of information -- When it's digital, it's just chunks of information.  The other number is the speed of the recording -- I think.  It's something like that.

There is a standard bit number and other number for CD recording quality.  I think it's 16 bit, 44.1.  Something like that.  Technology keeps improving, so you can actually get higher quality than those CD standards now -- but you won't be able to play that back on a standard CD player. 

mp3 is another file format.  I think it's just lower quality.  Stuff is taking out of a CD quality (16-bit, 44.1 format) to make the mp3 take up less space.  Less space means it's easier to pass along through the internet -- less download time.  With consumer level stuff (cassette tape quality) it's not so noticeable that the quality isn't there with the mp3.

I haven't heard of any keyboard recording an mp3 directly.  It wouldn't surprise me though.  But then again -- You know the format will change when technology improves.  I see older keyboards that required special "double high density, blah, blah" disks -- Disks that aren't made anymore. 

I wouldn't get a keyboard just because it can record to mp3, esp since mp3 isn't a high quality format.  If it could record straight to a standard CD....  or a standard CD, maybe CD-RW, that you could record on over and over... that might be useful.

mp3 formats can also come in different quality settings from what I understand.  kilobytes per second  kb/s   To make it more confusing.


Samson Zoom H4 -- A lot of criticism about the difficulty of the user interface.  Lots of menus to scroll through to do simple things.  It can record another track though -- so you could mix and record something over your original track.

Edirol R09 -- Complaints about having to open the battery compartment to upload to the computer or change the SD card.  But the user interface is supposed to be very friendly and easy to use.

Sony also has some new portable recorder out that's over a thousand dollars.  Ouch.


I've heard of a lot of problems recording to a computer, straight to a hard disk.  It's a computer.  Audio takes up a lot of space to process and store.  Problems are inevitable.  But things get better all the time.

I vote for standalone recording over computers.


I have heard good things about the Alesis Masterlink and Superscope system.  But that involves getting a microphone and preamp too.  More shhhhtuff.  More money, more complicated... but more quality then too.



"Real time" is a specific word for recording.  It means the actual time passing of the recording.  (Bob's brain is running down)  As opposed to editting stuff with a piano roll view, or notation view -- there is no time there.  Or slowing things down -- twice as slow, twice as fast.  It's not the .... I can't think.   (Bob gives up)   Anyone have a better definition?  It's either the actual regular time of the recording -- or it refers to recording or making changes in time, regular actual time as opposed to altering things on a piano roll, notation view, or with numbers -- those don't have any time.

If you've got MIDI ports on a keyboard, and the cable and interface for the computer, you still need to have some kind of software on the computer -- So the computer understands the MIDI signals coming into it.  And actually -- MIDI is just information, not sound.  1's and 0's.  If that's going into your computer, you record just information -- information the keyboard uses to create actual sound -- You still need the keyboard to create the actual sound even if you record MIDI information on the computer. 

MIDI is information.  Sound files are actual sound -- and actual sound files take up a lot more space than a little bitty MIDI file.

If you've got a headphone jack for the keyboard -- You can get a little male-to-male end stereo cord to go from the headphones OUT to the microphone IN on the computer.  Then you could use Windows Recorder (some name like that, it's the little tape player in Windows, all Windows has it I think) to record.  I think that Windows recorder has a 60 second limit, but I've heard there's a way around that.  That will record something, but the quality may not be the highest -- It's the computer sound card that the sound goes through.  There are other recorder software out there though -- free probably, I could see that.  And of course there are audio recording software programs that allow editting and things.  If you record that way -- keyboard to computer -- you need to crank up the keyboard volume as much as possible and get the settings on the computer set right -- to get the high volume, without frying the computer though.  I think the Windows recorder makes .wav files so that's what you'd end up with.  I don't know if .wav files are what a CD player uses.  I know there are programs that will convert .wav files to .mp3 and other formats too I think.  Free probably.

Or, if it's not a keyboard, you could just plug a microphone into the computer.  But quality will probably be an issue again.  If you want to play around with things, take a pair of headphones, plug those into the microphone input, adjust the volume, and record.  Headphones can act as a crude microphone.  But again, quality may not be the greatest.

To get to the volume controls on the computer -- If you have Windows XP, Start menu, control panel, sound speech and audio devices, sound and audio devices, in the popup window -- hit the advanced button.  The "master volume" window appears.  I see I have "advanced controls" checks under Options.  Maybe you can get to that master volume control just through the regular volume icon.  Under Options, click on Properties.  Then you can decide on whether you want to adjust Playback or Recording.  Check the Recording circle and you can adjust the level for the microphone -- So if you don't pick much up with a microphone (or headphone-microphones) then you can crank it up with that window.  Being careful not to power it up so much you overpower things.  From what I understand you are actually increasing the amount of electricity in the signal -- too much and you are "frying" the electronics with too much power, which of course damages them.

[quantum]

Here are some quick tidbits:

CD audio is WAV files at 44.1 kHz and 16 bit. 

44.1 kHz reffers to how many times a second audio is sampled and is reffered to as the "sample rate."  Higher is better.  This means every second, 44 thousand snapshots of the audio signal is being recorded.  DVD's accept a minimum of 48 kHz 

16 bit is referred to as the "bit depth"  This is how big a single snapshot is.  At 44.1 kHz and 16 bit, every second 44.1 k samples are being taken every second, and the size of each sample is 16 bits.  Higher is better. 

At 44/16, one minute of audio will cost approx 10 MB of disk space. 

There is a theory that goes:  divide the sample rate in half, and the resulting number is the highest frequency the recording is able to pick up.  This means at 44 kHz the highest frequency we hear is about 22 kHz.

Approximate range of human hearing is from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz

The approximate range of the piano is (thanks to the Reblitz piano tuning book):
Lowest A at 27.5 Hz
Highest C at 4186.009 Hz


mp3's work by deleting sound information at mostly higher frequencies that "supposedly" we don't need to hear.   


Clipping is the term referred to when the volume of digital audio surpasses it's upper limit.  The perceived result is usually distortion. 

Gain: can be thought of as recording volume. 

Auto Gain: Some portable recorders are programmed with auto gain to prevent clipping.  Auto Gain is usually good for conversations where the gain goes up and down, where we aim for clarity in speech.  Auto gain is NOT good for music because it removes much of the dynamic properties a musician puts into their music.  If a device has auto gain, look for an option to control gain manually. 


There is a great open source (and free) audio editor called Audacity, which can be used to record directly to your computer. 

There is also a great open source mp3 converter called Lame. 

[quantum]

So did you get this casio privia rx-310 to own, or are you just borrowing to evaluate it?

[amanfang]

Do NOT buy a digital from Costco.  They're awful.  All of them. 

[pianistimo]

thank you everyone so much.  i still want to get either the edirol or the zoom H4 - but for now (with this musical) i bought a midi keyboard and got a simple cable called 'midisport UNO' which is 1-in/1-out class-compliant USB to Midi interface.  it does the trick for the simple mp3's  - but agreed with whoever said that they are not really super high quality.

it's just - i'm not a recording person!  but, it helps to read this and try to be better informed.  thanks to everyone for taking time to explain!

here's what my purchase decision on the keyboard came down to:

#1 must have 88 keys - be weighted - sound good
#2 must be able to convert to mp3 and/or wav
#3 must be able to carry the keyboard from place to place BY MYSELF.  (with all the acoutriments)

so...guess what!  i found this really great keyboard (casio). and also bought a carrying case.  it rolls on one end like luggage.  EXTREMELY helpful.  i tried it out tonight and could manage getting it into and out of the car - but the rolling luggage type of case was super helpful. 

btw, the school doesn't have the music room open - so i can't ask any teacher for help or even rely on the music teacher to come back and open the room and roll the piano from the music room to the gym.  so...this was actually a good thing!  all the kids came at 6:00 sharp (tons of kindergarteners) and i was READY.  i had my keyboard set up and we just started warming up and then did their song.  the parents seemed relieved that the first practice wasn't a waste of time.

[rc]

I was just about to suggest that you could rent a digital piano from a music store if you're pressed for a deadline, to avoid making a rushed purchase.  Anyways, just for curiousity, here's how I record:

I record through my digital piano from time to time for learning purposes...  I plug my digital piano into a digital recorder using standard audio cables (same you'd use for your DVD player), and two adapters to make them fit to the piano.

Then I plug the recorder into the computer using a USB cable, and convert the .wav file to .mp3 using some free software I found on the net (had to get a new computer, so don't have the program ATM).

Digital piano - Technics SX-P50 ($1200 used)
Digital recorder - Boss BR-864 ($500)
+ the cables.

It gives me what I need.  I really don't like the sound of the digital piano, but for practice purposes it gets the job done.