Chopin Polonaise-Fantaisie on my Baldwin, + recording issues

[rubens99]

This is me playing my favorite piece on my Baldwin SD-10 concert grand, in my living room. I previously posted a video of me playing the same piece on my previous piano, but this piano sounds so much better.
I hope you'll be able to appreciate the warm and powerful tone of the instrument, despite the recording issues:

Now regarding those recording issues, which are from my inexperience with recording:
First, the sound. I recorded with a condenser omni microphone but used no external preamp because of the limitations of my equipment. So I made up for the low mic signal by miking fairly close to the instrument. It is also in mono, like recordings from the 1930s, but hopefully with better sound quality.
Secondly, the picture. Yes it is blurry, but this may be mostly because I subsequently zoomed the video into the keyboard area (because I don't want to do a face reveal yet).
However, what bothers me the most by far is that the video is VERY choppy as you can see. I recorded this with a Nexigo webcam and the YouCam 10 software on my PC, at 720p. I disabled all the video effects, and yet it is still too choppy. I heard that setting the format to Mjpeg or H264 would help with the choppiness, but I don't see that option in the YouCam software. I don't see a framerate setting either.
I have done Zoom meetings with that camera and PC (but with the little internal microphone of the webcam instead of the external condenser microphone) with no issue, so I don't think the webcam or the PC processor and RAM are the culprits here, but I may be wrong.
Comments and suggestions (about my playing and my recording issues) would be greatly appreciated!

[stringoverstrung]

Hello Rubens99,

that is one big piano you have there in your living room. Rest assured I can hear very well that it has the sound that is completely inline with its reputation. As far as the recording is concerned, it seems indeed that your mic is too close resulting in the "detached" (less legato sounding than it in reality is) sound. What might also be worth investigating is the acoustics of your room. Now I do not know how big your living room is but your piano is for sure made to fill even much bigger rooms no matter how big your living room is.
This being said, it seems from what i can see that you have quite some reflecting surfaces (flat , metal etc). You could investigate this in more detail. There are several youtube videos that explain what to look for.  Consider adding more living materials (books, wooden surfaces, acoustic sound panels). This will greatly improve the sound control for such a giant and will also result in better recordings. A carpet with natural fibers (not too long) under the piano can be a good start.  For the record, the best sound i ever obtained was when i was moving and my living room was full of cardboard boxes all over the place. Try it it is incredible.
What you could also try is record yourself with an iPhone or similar and this from different places and distances. You might be surprised of the results and it for sure gives you something to compare against.
A third try might be to play the left hand softer compared to the right to check out the balance.

In the mean time my post might sound like you have a problem. This is not what I am intending to express on the contrary. You play the piano very well.  Tuning sound and recording described as above and maturing the piece will result in serious improvements that you will like yourself for sure.
As of your video recording issues, i would advice you to google and check out what you can do. In general you should turn off fancy features like anti-aliasing, video card acceleration etc. Also make sure there is enough light for the camera to be able to capture the speedy changes.

Kr,
Gert

[perfect_pitch]

Secondly, the picture. Yes it is blurry, but this may be mostly because I subsequently zoomed the video into the keyboard area (because I don't want to do a face reveal yet).
However, what bothers me the most by far is that the video is VERY choppy as you can see. I recorded this with a Nexigo webcam and the YouCam 10 software on my PC, at 720p. I disabled all the video effects, and yet it is still too choppy. I heard that setting the format to Mjpeg or H264 would help with the choppiness, but I don't see that option in the YouCam software. I don't see a framerate setting either.
I have done Zoom meetings with that camera and PC (but with the little internal microphone of the webcam instead of the external condenser microphone) with no issue, so I don't think the webcam or the PC processor and RAM are the culprits here, but I may be wrong.
Comments and suggestions (about my playing and my recording issues) would be greatly appreciated!

Okay - in terms of Video, I can probably help you with that. A nexigo webcam is not meant to really capture full motion video like you would see. It's meant just to get a sense of your face when you're talking and that's really it. The picture if choppy because web-cams don't always record at a stable framerate. Even most smart-phones these days can do a better job (My iPhone 11 does a very good job, and my iPhone 8 did a semi-decent but better job than nexigo). It's either that or get a proper video camera - but I'd just stick to a cheap 1080p one. You don't need 4K.

Trust me - it's the web-cam. Most of them have a very limited bitrate, so if there's lots of motion - the video tends to seize up, and you get the jerkiness you see here. Notice how the picture framerate gets smoother when there is less motion on the screen... or when you're rather still.

Also... do you seriously have a 9ft piano in your room??? How big is your room? I have a Yamaha C2 in a 13ftx17ft (8ft ceiling) room with acoustic sound-dampening panels and before I had the panels, I couldn't properly practice in there - it was too loud.

[rubens99]

Thank you stringoverstrung and perfect_pitch for your feedback and suggestions!

Yes that is one big-__ piano! In terms of surface it takes up a third of my living room. My main floor has 9 ft high ceilings and is open area, which helps with the acoustics. Surprisingly the piano is not uncontrollably loud. I can play comfortably with the lid fully up, and on the short stick like in the video. It sounds better in real life than in the recording, so I will experiment with your suggestions.

Yes it looks like I might have to record the video part on my smartphone in the future.

Btw, I just won 2nd prize in a Chopin amateur competition with this very video (in its original uncropped format)! I don't want to think that I would've won 1st with a better recording quality(!).