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a.out 
FNG
Group: Members
Posts: 58
Joined: Jan. 2001
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Posted on: Apr. 28 2001,01:46 |
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I would like to record some of my music (piano playing), and I'm confused as to how exactly I should go about doing so. I would like to do this spending the least amount of money possible. Here is my current situation: I have a nice microphone that my uncle who runs a recording studio sent me, I have a miniature cassette player/recorder (which I DO NOT want to use), and a computer with a Sound Blaster Live Card. I would like to get the sound onto the computer in the highest quality possible, so using the cassette player is completely out. I was thinking that the best way would be to haul my full tower computer with the SBLive downstairs next to the piano, plug the microphone into the *line* input (it seems that the microphone input has very bad quality), and then using any editing software, remove the track which contains no sound making it mono rather than stereo (a single microphone cannot do stereo...), and then encoding it to mp3 using lame or into ogg vorbis or something.This seems to be the best way for me to do this without spending much money, but if anyone has any suggestions for (cheap!) hardware that I could build or anything to make this better/easier, I would greatly appreciate it.
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a.out
FNG
Group: Members
Posts: 58
Joined: Jan. 2001
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Posted on: Apr. 28 2001,02:53 |
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I guess I didn't make it clear: I have a real piano (6 foot grand), not an electrical keyboard. So moving that to the computer is *not* an option 
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ASCIIMan
-- Insert Witty Title Here --
Group: Members
Posts: 408
Joined: Sep. 2000
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Posted on: Apr. 29 2001,02:58 |
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Make sure your mic level is set correctly on your sound card -- this is probably why you're getting crappy quality (clipping).Easiest way to set it on your SBLive is to open up Creative's "Recorder" applet and watch the level while you're playing on the piano. The level should only peak occasionally. It also should not always stay out of the red - you want to use as many of those bits as possible. If you want, it may be easiest to go ahead and just record directly to wave with the Recorder applet and then work with it from there. BTW, preferably, the mike should be held right under the center of the piano (as close as possible to the underside, pointing upwards), or pointing into the top pointing into the opened side (problably opened to the lowest angle). This should minimize outside noise (remember that sound falls off as the square of the distance). If you still get bad quality when positioning the mike correctly and adjusting the levels, you either need a new mike or a new soundcard. Two more things - NEVER plug a headphone output into a mike or line input. This will damage the input circuit (higher signal level than it's designed for), the output circuit (high impedences are hard on output circuits), or both. Also, when adjusting levels, see if you can get the level right without the "+20 dB Mic Boost" on. If you can't, then turn it on, but by further modifying the (analog) signal, you are degrading the quality (consumer-grade soundcards are not known for their good analog components).
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askheaves
Ack!!!
Group: Members
Posts: 1955
Joined: Sep. 2000
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Posted on: Apr. 29 2001,06:06 |
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The other thing to remember is that microphones can have different fields... ie, there's a shape to where it can listen effectively to. Most often it can look like a butt, but sometimes it's wider or narrower, there's dead spots, or there could be left/right parts to the mic. Read the instructions.
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