Making a decent recording with a digital piano without expensive equipment

Introduction

I can play the piano but I’m not a sound engineer. Because of that, I never invested in decent sound recording equipment (microphones and stuff). Because I don’t own decent recording equipment I will never learn how to make a decent recording and become a sound engineer. it’s clear, I love playing piano, but I’m not interested in the technical details of making recordings. Recently, I elaborated a very pragmatic and simple process to make a decent recording with a fairly recent digital piano without the need for technical recording equipment.

what do you need?

• a digital piano of the new generation
• a usb stick
• Audacity: Free, open source sound editor ##setting up the digital piano and making the recording You will need a digital piano which can make a recording to an usb stick directly as a WAVE file (16-bit, 44.1 kHz). Strangly, digital piano companies don’t advertise this feature too much. Nonetheless, it is very useful. Obviously, older models can only export music as a midi file, which is completely useless (at least for the purpose we are describing in this article).

My Roland Hp 508 can export to a wav file. Probably other brands like Yamaha support this feature as well. Read the details in the user manual on how to configure this.

So, try it out and make a recording. ##the initial result Simply copy the .wav file to you computer. Obviously, any computer can play .wav files out of the box. Here is a sample I recorded with my Roland digital piano:

##adding reverb with audacity Download Audacity and open your .wav file. Go now to the Effect menu and select reverb:

Again, I’m not a sound engineer, so I stick to some presets:

For me the “large room” preset is the most satisfying.

Here is the same piece played with the FortePiano sound

Conclusion

If you own a fairly recent digital piano, making decent sound recordings can be a piece of cake.