I mean geek in the most affectionate way possible!

In all seriousness, can somebody tell me how to make my sound when I record not sound like a mystical distant cave? It's truley disturbing. lol
I want to record my piano using the microphone in the laptop, granted that doesn't sound pretty anyway but still, how can I make it sound like a mic an not a deamon in the laptop? lol


~ God Bless ~

~ Moko

You could be over exposing the mic? Don't know the exact word, but what you're recording could be too loud, and In the US there are stores called Microcenter, and I'm sure similar elsewhere, where cheap electronics are sold. You can pick up a desktop mic for like 20$ tops and that'll really improve your quality

I presume you are recording from an analogue piano? That's a tricky thing to get right, it comes down to the right hardware as well as a suitable recording location. I have no real advice to give there.

If you use a digital piano/synth, it's considerably nicer (if still not easy) to get your sound cleanly into the computer. I set up such a system under Linux just the other week, coincidentally. It's probably not the answer you are looking for though, sorry.


(Also, I am on a personal quest to get people to stop using the "geek" nomer. "Expert" is the term used in other knowledge-based fields, it should work fine for computers and academia too.)
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Griatch

Those microphones in laptops can be of very low quality. They're more suited to Skype conversations etc. You can get proper mic quite cheaply. I have some good equipment for that purpose, but I found that my headsets mic is actually quite good (made by Sennheiser, but not expensive). Other option, my Samsung phone also is quite good sound recorder. Some equipment has too heavy noise reduction, but if there is other noise (like laptops fan or old hdd) it can be good thing...

It is nowadays quite surprising where you can find microphones. And not talking about NSA, just observing customer electronics... XD

Maybe I'm assuming too much, but maybe you have sound effects enabled. If so, disable sound effects such as cave echo and such. I know SB (Sound Blaster) allows for these presets and that might be what's happening.

I THINK...That did it! LOL...
Thanks! To you and everyone else! If I'm wrong I'll be back. XD

If it's not a hardware problem or where you place the microphone and if Lyle's advice doesn't do it, you might try cleaning the sound up a bit with Audacity.

Hi Mokonafan,

I've recorded many different live instruments over the years and while Lyle's suggestion to check your playback channels for added effects should be done, the simple truth of the matter is that laptop microphones are designed to pickup voice. They just don't have the frequency range required to properly record live instruments, especially something like a piano, which can go down to 27Hz with the low A.

To properly record an acoustic piano, I'd recommend a pair of omni-directional microphones, positioned in such a way as to capture sound equally from the low frequency notes of the piano, to the high frequency notes of the piano. The better quality microphone you buy, the better quality recording you can make.

You can get started with a pair of SP-C4 mics, or if you have a little larger budget, a pair of Avenson Audio STO-2 mics, with a full frequency range of 20-20,000hz, is a better choice.

The reality of recording live instruments is that no matter how good an instrument is, if you don't have a microphone capable of picking up the frequencies it generates, your results are not going to be as good as they could be. On the flip side, a small upright piano is not going to sound as good as a Steinway grand, no matter how good your mics are or how much studio magic you apply. For best results, you need both high quality instruments and high quality mics.

If you have an electronic keyboard with a midi port, another approach to getting a good acoustic piano sound is to simply record directly from a sampled piano sound module, which has always been the approach I use. In this case, the high quality recording of a high quality instrument, has been done for you and placed inside the sound module, in the form of samples. You can pick up a used piano sound module on ebay, with high quality samples, for around $200. I bought a Roland sound module on there for $150 a couple of years ago. It works well and has several really good piano patches to choose from.

I used to have a cable that looked like a headphone plug on both ends and that worked but I don't have it anymore, I also had a midi cable but don't have anymore..........thank you for all the advices! :>