General: Belkin GoStudio

The Belkin thing seems a little limited to me. Seems good for podcasting, however spending an extra £40 would get you something like the Zoom H-2, which looks like it'd do semi professional recording duties for music too.

but why? When you can use an Hi-MD recorder with a mic of your choice for probably a lot less and better fidelity. Yeah, okay it's a webcast recording, so it's going to be compressed anyway but you will have access to higher quality recording with the Hi-MD unit.

Okay, no XLR inputs without some adjustments, but it can be done without a mixing desk.

So, are you planning to podcast for the new site? (hehe, I verbed a noun. Doh! I did it again. )

I think Spode should do more podcasts. With ice cream. On Brighton beach.

Posted By: Lolly

I think Spode should do more podcasts. With ice cream. On Brighton beach.

Coming soon...

I recently bought a new yamaha keyboard, as I missed playing the piano. My Grandma has asked me to record some stuff, and send her a tape (yes, as in cassette tape).

Instead of that, I thought I'd record some tunes, and send them home as MP3 or whatever for dad to burn to CD. Save the postage and, more importantly, decent music quality.

However...one problem. I need a microphone. What I'd prefer to do is plug a USB mike into my macbook. But what do I buy? The key here is that it's not too expensive. I've noticed some USB mikes for podcasts. But are any suitable for piano music? Any suggestions?

I do have some nice XLR dynamic mikes, but I'd like to try out a USB mike if it's possible.

But if the soundcard isnt that good, the recording wont be good?
Why not get a USB/Firewire interface and record that way.

Try Powestudio 250 (USB) or 660 (Firewire). They are bundles of with an Edirol interface and a version of Sonar.

MIDI just records the code behind the music, not the actual sound. The MIDI file would just use the macs MIDI module which would also alter the sound, unless it has the same MIDI module as the keyboard. Very doubtful. I would really be surprised if the sound card produced sub par audio even recording from the analog input. Most of todays computer analog sound inputs will provide a decent recording, especially for personal stuff.

I think it will have better sound than a USB mic, since you are eliminating all extrenous noise that can be picked up by the mic and replacing it with any inherent noise from the I/O's which is probably a lot lower than most would expect. One pass through Audacity's noise removal tool will eliminate any noise that can be produced by the I/O's anyway. (I have no idea what the mac equivelent to Audacity is but I'm pretty sure there must be something out there).

The only issue, as I already pointed out, would be if vocals need to be recorded in conjunction with the keyboard. It still could be done with a small mixing board hooked up to the analog input on the mac. Again, Audacity could do this without a mixing board. You would have to multi track in Audacity. Lay down the score first, then add the vocals afterwards. You could hook up an XLR mic via a "direct box" to the analog input on the computer.

They say the piano is one of the easiest to reproduce, or was that drumbs? I don't remember. It all depends on the person I guess. I hate some of the renditions that creative cards do. I kept an old Yamaha XG card around just because of that. It's onboard midi module was awesome. I have not tried to use it with Ubuntu. Maybe I should.

Posted By: KrazyIvan

They say the piano is one of the easiest to reproduce, or was that drumbs? I don't remember.

Not so sure about that - I've heard some absolutely awful renditions. Modern electric pianos (as opposed to electric keyboards; the former designed to look like a piano, though not as deep) can sound pretty good but they need careful adjustment in the room they're in otherwise they sound very fake.

Back on track, I've never been happy recording from MIDI; it's too difficult on an electric keyboard to get the touch right, etc. and of course the computer will reproduce precisely what you played, with no acoustic effects to cover it up. I should imagine you'd have the same problem hooking the keyboard directly into Line In. If you're happy with the keyboard's own piano rendition, I'd use a separate microphone.

It's quite common to mic up even an amplified instrument. It can give a much more realistic sound with more depth to it.

If you're concerned about the onboard sound, why not get a USB sound card and use a normal mic?

Posted By: Spode

It's quite common to mic up even an amplified instrument. It can give a much more realistic sound with more depth to it.

With an electric guitar for example the amp and speaker combination colour the sound as much as the instrument does. Which is why you'd use a mic. To over-simplify, this is because the modern overdriven guitar sound came about when people deliberately over loaded their equipment - making the output sound significantly different to the input. It's not my area of expertise but I'd be really surprised if the amp and speaker section of a keyboard did anything over than amplify and turn electrical signals in to sound. Reverb can always be added afterwards.

What I've been doing with acoustic guitar recordings recently is simultaneously recording direct input and microphone sounds on to separate tracks. Then I mix them to get the required sound, often panning each track a little left and right to widen the sound a little.

For cheap prices, if you do want to get a mic try thomann.de.