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Music software for a digital piano

Comments

  • #2
    steveland?
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,842 ✭✭✭steveland?


    You just looking for a way of recording from the line-in on the PC?

    If so give Audacity a go. It's free. I use it all the time for recording guitar and it's great for a free program. Plug the piano out into the line-in on the PC, set Audacity to record from line-in, check the sound levels and hit record.

    You can then save it in Audacity format (to be edited again later) and export it to wav or mp3.

    You can record several tracks, balance them left and right, increase and decrease gain and there's a good few little effects (although I've found these aren't great).

    Maybe check out the recording forum for other opinions

    Edit: I see the recording forum is now called Music Production


  • #3
    shayser
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,650 ✭✭✭shayser


    Thanks Steveland. I'm going to ask some very simple questions, I've never played a note on any instrument in my life!

    The connection on the piano is a usb connection. Would Audacity read from this? Or would he use the headphone socket into the sound card? Would he need a good sound card?

    Definitely going to try Audacity. Was looking at the Sibelius website. Very expensive but there is a student version for around €200. Have you used this? Maybe he would get into composing too, if he got using it.


  • #4
    BuddhaJoe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 329 ✭✭BuddhaJoe


    shayser wrote: »
    The connection on the piano is a usb connection. Would Audacity read from this? Or would he use the headphone socket into the sound card? Would he need a good sound card?

    In most cases the usb port on digital pianos/keyboards is used to transmit midi data as opposed to audio. If this is the case then you wont be able to record the sounds from Clavinova CLP240 via USB but you can use the Clavinova to play and record virtual instruments, such as http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=akoustikpiano_us or for something free http://www.getfreesofts.com/soft/293/39434/Absolute_Steinway_Piano_VSTi.html. It doesn't have to be a piano either, practically every instrument from synths to drums to full on orchestra's have been recreated as a virtual instrument. However if you want to go down this route you will need a good soundcard to avoid any latency that may occur from pressing the note on the keyboard and having the note on the virtual instrument play.

    For something simpler you can just plug the keyboard into the line in on your soundcard and that will record the piano fine.
    shayser wrote: »
    Definitely going to try Audacity. Was looking at the Sibelius website. Very expensive but there is a student version for around €200. Have you used this? Maybe he would get into composing too, if he got using it.

    Audacity is great, as is Reaper. Cubase Studio 4 is another fantastic program to check out (120 euro with student discount from the states), I find it to be a fantastic compositional tool. Unfortunately I have never tried Sibelius but I have heard nothing but good things about it from friends who do. It can be gotten a lot cheaper than 200 euro aswell, its only 123 here http://www.studica.com/Sibelius/index.cfm?storeid=4&gclid=CJ2J4O-YqJMCFR4sIgodcSd6og and possibly even cheaper if you ordered it from the US.


  • #5
    steveland?
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,842 ✭✭✭steveland?


    shayser wrote: »
    Thanks Steveland. I'm going to ask some very simple questions, I've never played a note on any instrument in my life!

    The connection on the piano is a usb connection. Would Audacity read from this? Or would he use the headphone socket into the sound card? Would he need a good sound card?

    Definitely going to try Audacity. Was looking at the Sibelius website. Very expensive but there is a student version for around €200. Have you used this? Maybe he would get into composing too, if he got using it.
    OK, I'm not sure of the exact specs of the piano but I'll assume this:
    The USB is used to transmit MIDI signals from the piano to the computer.
    Basically MIDI transmits notes from the piano to a program on your computer. If you play a middle C on the piano a signal is sent to a program on the computer which tells it to synthesise a middle C note (or a drum sample assigned to the middle C key, or a sound effect etc etc).

    Hopefully that made sense... it's getting late...

    So, if you plug the piano into the computer via USB you'll need a software instrument program installed on the computer to pick up the notes being played on the piano. Can't help you here I'm afraid but I'm sure there's plenty of people here who can.

    It's also possible the piano came with a program to do this (did you get any CDs with it?)

    If you want to just record the actual sounds that come out of the piano then you should be able to plug a mini-jack to mini-jack (the same connector that's on a set of headphones) cable from the headphones socket on the piano (if there's a line-out socket on the piano that's even better than the headphone socket) to the LINE-IN socket on the PC's soundcard (make sure it's the line-in socket and not the microphone socket as the microphone socket will amplify it and make it sound like cack) and then record with Audacity.

    So basically:
    If you want to just record what the piano sounds like normally, plug a cable between the headphone jack on the piano to the line-in on the PC sound card
    If you want to use the piano to control any number of software instruments (grand pianos, old school synths, drum kits, air horns etc) then get a program that accepts MIDI to play notes (which someone else can hopefully help you with).

    A good sound card will help of course but the card already on your PC should do if it's just for messing around recording ideas and stuff

    Good luck


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