Dave's Piano Page

Recital

I have some recordings of my recent piano recital available.

New setup

At home, I used to have a Boston GP-193 grand piano. Recently, I traded it (along with a bunch of money) for a Yamaha DC6A which is a very nice 6'11" grand piano along with MIDI record and playback capability.

Things done with the Boston Piano

Several have suggested to me that I make some recordings of me just improvising on the piano. This is my first attempt, and I don't know if I even like it.

For equipment, I'm using a pair of Sure KSM32 connected to a Motu 828 FireWire-based digital audio recording. It is connected to a Apple Macintosh G4-450. The software is Digital Performer (also by Motu). It is an excellent piece of software.

Recordings

[Piano stuff in e-minor]. My first "recording" of just playing. There is no editing, and in a few places I just stop, back up a bit, and start again. I can edit these kinds of things once I figure out what I actually want to play.

It is interesting to compare the sound of with the older recordings done with the cheaper microphones and just a sound card. At least there is more whine from the computer bus leaking into the audio.

Older recording

At home, I have a Boston GP-193 grand piano. I've setup a pair of Audio Technica MB4000C microphones. These go through a Mackie mixer into my Yamaha YMF-724 soundcard. Debian Linux, using the OSS drivers, and the ecasound package did the recording. I may someday look into the ALSA drivers.

Here are a few samples of the this setup (there are mistakes, and copyright probably forbids you from listening to these). There is no editing done on this, other than chopping at the start and stop points. All of the reverb you hear is from my living room.

Michael Card, Cross of glory.

These actually don't sound all that bad for $124 worth of microphones.

The newer piano

Since I no longer have the Boston, any future recordings will be made with the Yamaha. Until then, you may enjoy some piano hacking.

2008/08/20 23:15 davidb