Making an audio CD or DVD for a piano competition??

[david456103]

HI guys!
I'm going to enter an international piano competition shortly, whose (postmark) deadline is July 30th. Since I have to make a CD or DVD for the preliminary round, I was wondering if anyone could give some advice on how to make a GOOD quality audio CD? Is there any specific equipment I should use? Oh and I have a baby grand piano at home. Should I make my recording on a grand piano, or is my piano OK? 

[oxy60]

Use the best equipment and instrument money can buy and hire a classical recording engineer. It may be cheaper to just go to a recording studio and pay for the couple of hours or so you might need. Let them have their piano tuned and use their top grade equipment.

You say you wanted this to be the best...

[quantum]

That is a very tight deadline you are working with.  Consider that producing a quality recording does take a good amount of time.  For something like an audition rec, you will probably want to do multiple takes and choose the best ones.  Remember most competitions do not allow splicing within a take.  You need to record pieces in a single uncut take.  There is also post-production work needed in putting together a presentable package to send. 

At this point in time, considering your deadline, I would recommend renting a studio + engineer, or hiring an engineer to do a field recording in your home.  If your home instrument is in relatively good tune and it responds adequately to your musical desires, then it is completely reasonable to record on it.  You would also need a decent acoustic for such recording (no pots clanging in the kitchen, no loud TV, etc.).  Keep in mind that if you live by train tracks, a noisy road, etc. you will have to work with such things.  Make sure you hire a person with an understanding of classical music recording.  It uses different techniques than pop music recording.

There are plenty of discussions on Pianostreet regarding recording a demo CD, and it is well within grasp of someone with moderate technical aptitude.  However, it is not something you can learn and put into practice within a few days and expect good results.  Like playing an instrument, recording requires skill and needs practice.  By all means read up, and ask more questions.  You could look forward to doing your own recording for your next competition. 

[oxy60]

Remember that day time in the studio is a lot cheaper than in the middle of the night. You may find the price to be very reasonable compared to assembling all that equipment.

[Bob]

Ditto.  Doesn't have to be a studio though.  Just find someone who's already set up and can make the recording right now.  


The CD or DVD probably doesn't have to be perfect.  They're just using that as a way to weed people out, and they won't weed out if it's a hallway decent recording.  They won't keep you if it's the recording side is done perfectly either.

There are people around who can make the recordings.  At this point, I'd just call or contact people who might know someone.  Essentially you need the recording done now.  Today, tomorrow, Monday at the very latest.

Although if it did something yourself.... Just go to a store that would sell it, buy a decent handheld recorder.  Then use Audacity to compress, normalize, and add fade in/out...  That's very doable too, even if you've never done that before.  You could get something like that done in a day I would think. Edirol or Zoom come to mind.  Just get one that's for music too, not just voice.

Just search Google or Amazon for small handheld audio recorder.


I could see something that working fine for an audition recording.  They'll be a difference between that and a professional studio, but the recording quality shouldn't be the most important thing.  That's not what someone would be looking for, or should be looking for.  I suppose it could have some slight impact in aesthetics or whatever someone would read into it though.