Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Grieg recital: Proposal.....

Ok.. I've got a couple of passable recordings, but they sound like they're in a box or something - sorta muffled. Do any of you use a Zoom H4? What settings do you use, and where do you put your zoom when you record?

Will do Peter - Thanks !!

I use the H4. Where did you place the unit for recording? Also, are you using the onboard mics, or any external mics? Lastly, what format and frequency are you recording in: mp3, wav, and if wav is it 16-bit/44kHz?

(sorry it took so long!)
I place it on top of my upright (which I know probably isn't right, but I tried placing it on a table nearby but it didn't sound much better).
MP3 format. No extra mics, mic gain is medium.

Hi folks!

On the eve of the recital (from early evening UK time), there will be a special post for everyone to enjoy to help introduce the recital. So, I hope you can spare a few minutes next saturday 14th to take a look.

Its getting excitingly close now, isn't it?! (with apologies to those who are panicking about their pieces, who don't need reminding of how close we are to the deadline!)

I was at Hyde Park last night at one of the Last Night of the Proms concerts. At the end of the concert in the Royal Albert Hall, there was a video link up to the crowds dotted around - in London, Wales, Glasgow (scotland) and Belfast, in (Northern) Ireland. (and I think there are even last night of the proms concerts in other parts of the world). I don't go in for jingoism, but when the crowds in the different venues greeted each other with 'hello hall' - 'hello park', tens of thousands of people were united across space in a vast wave of enthusiasm, and goodwill. It was great fun.

I've attempted to copy across the link from the bbc radio 3 website to the prom concert (for any of you who'd like to see what you missed) - so I hope this works. I really like 'Walk On' which can be found 50 mins in.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039vkd8

MP3 format is very low-quality, even at the "higher res" settings. Do .wav format, in stereo mode, at the recommended 48kHz/16-bit according to this website:
http://blogs.lsa.umich.edu/issmediacenter/2011/11/21/zoom-h4n-quickstart-guide/

You can find all the possible formats on p. 51 of the manual. Be sure you are not on stamina mode (p. 37), and I recommend not using batteries if you can help it .

The higher the quality, the larger the files, but you can always compress them afterwards if need be. However, I recommend 48kHz/24-bit for greater dynamic change. I think you will notice a much better recording quality. Unfortunately, that does mean you'll have to redo your recordings because you can't change this after the fact (you can always compress afterwards, but you can't expand afterwards).

Also, I recommend putting it somewhere other than on the piano. The vibrations from the instrument will interfere with the recording. If the piano sounds muffled after testing a small portion of your piece with the higher res format, try opening up the top of the upright. Each piano and room is different, so you'll have to do a little tweaking and moving around, so don't record the whole piece until you've found what you like. It's best to try several different spots on one format (48kHz/24-bit, for example), and record the same section of music at each location. Make notes as to which location goes with which recording. Then listen to them side-by-side after and makes notes as to which you prefer from that, or at least eliminate the ones you like least.

This is the process I went through with my setup. While not perfect, I found a format that I liked that was easy to remember each time I set up.

Please help. My ZoomQ3 recording is not sounding the audio when I download to computer. I hear it on the device.

Must be the thin air up there in the Rockies ….

Actually, that's an interesting issue. What format did you choose on the Q3 for the recording?

Thanks for the tips - I appreciate it. I've always been so worried about playing something right I've never put too much thought into the recording quality

Mastering or just guessing successfully on the technology questions is no small feat!! You think you are in good shape having learned a particular piece only to find out that the techno geek speek of the recorder is an alien language! LOL! I was lucky and guessed well early on to at least get something recorded. I'm still in the "happy with what I've stumbled on" phase. Picking up little tidbits of recording help along the way. Thanks Erin! So, I've been recording in MP3 lately. Not good, I see. Switching back to WAV. Thankfully, Audacity will change the format after that little add on program. Truthfully, I'll probably always be in the dark as far as the audio technology. I don't really understand what I'm doing!! Those of you with video recorders are way out of my league!! I'm in awe! Thankfully, they make these recorders so simple a Caveman can do it. Well, sort of. Meanwhile, I'm glad I got my recordings done and am not under the gun now. I hate pressure! I do not opperate well under it. Best of luck to all of you trying to finish thngs up.

I'm still learning a lot about recording and tech stuff. I am certainly no "pro" at this, but I'm thinking that going from an mp3 to wav file in audacity will not improve the sound quality as recording as a wav can do. If the sample rate is lower, it can't fill in with more sample to make it sound more dimensional. I think

As far as not being under pressure, I guess I thrive on it. But I am not really happy that I don't have any good recordings yet. Yesterday was my first run through of From the Early Years, Halling, and French Serenade. I'll be giving them another go tonight, and who knows? Perhaps they will magically be better. I certainly hope so.

Recording does weird things. Part of my system is "equalizing" dynamics at least to some degree, despite using cable, which sucks when you are trying to get pp an ff, and you get something like mp and mf. I finished my mega-work, with stressful things coming in; have not touched the piano for over a week. Drained and exhausted. I wanted to download Audacity and try it, because I understand it's better than Goldwave.

Wisebuff, did you get an answer to your problem or resolve it somehow? Sorry I can't help you myself as I'm not very technically minded (as you can see from the way I've quoted you above!). If not, maybe someone out there can offer advice...

Clarifying that Audacity will convert WAV to MP3 upon exporting the file. I had early on been recording in WAV. Switched to recording in MP3. Will go back to recording in WAV to be better quality (density) recordings. I believe my Grieg pieces were recorded in MP3. I was pleased enough with them. But there were comments about my ABF recital recording sounding "off". So, hopefully going back to WAV will help.

OK, that makes sense

.Wav and a mini tripod a few feet away is working out great.. thanks Erin!

I will record later tonight when the cicadas pipe down

Yay!

The Zoom Q3 offers PCM 48ghz 16 as an option. Is that a WAV file perchance? I have not figured out the problem with sound. When I go back into my saved files on the computer, my audio files play with sound but not the video files. All the sound controls appear to be on and other videos (youtube) play.

I'll ask my broadcasting faculty at work and see if they have ideas. BUT if any of you out there have ideas please share.

I guess the video files are in .mov format, also I guess you're trying to either play them with windows media player or import them into windows movie maker. If these assumptions are correct then it's a simple decoding problem of WMP (or WMM). You've to install Apple QuickTime Player, or if you have VLC player then it should play this kind of file. Nevertheless, if you just directly upload the video on youtube then it'll also work fine. Otherwise you can convert the video to some other formats (like .avi, .mp4 etc) for importing them into WMM.

In my experiments, a small tripod set on a table at about 4'o-clock position (behind my back and slightly to the right) turned out to be the best so far.

What helped fighting the "muffled" sound was to add a little bit of reverb to the audio in the editor of your choice, i.e. to make it sound like it was recorded in a slightly bigger room, like professional recordings.