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I just started taking piano lessons and got a Yamaha P-125 for practicing at home.
I made a recording using the the record/play button on the keyboard.
How do I save that recording to my computer?

I tried accessing the recording using Yamaha's Smart Pianist App and I can't find a way of getting to that recording.

There are not many way :

1/ With a USB link, download the record with Musicsoft Downloader (https://fr.yamaha.com/fr/products/m...series/p-125/downloads.html#product-tabs).

2/ With the phone jack and a good sound card (or recorder like Zoom H1n), playback the record while recoding the phone output.

With the first option, you will have a MIDI file which will not sound good with the Windows MIDI synth. A virtual piano like Pianoteq or Garritan CFX could be handy to convert it in WAV. (Other virtual piano will need a DAW like Cubase to load the MIDI file and are then more complex).

The second option will give you directly a WAV or MP3 file but you may have some quality issue depending of your hardware.

Wasn't there also the audio over USB option?

No… not for the P125. With Yamaha instruments, you can search the associated download page (like the one I have pointed). If its driver is the Yamaha USB-MIDI driver, it is MIDI only, if it is the Yamaha-Steinberg USB driver, it is MIDI+audio.

I don't have a Windows computer I use only Linux or Mac OSX. That's why I was trying to use Yamaha's Smart Pianist app to access it.

So you're saying there is no way for me to do it?

According the the Yamaha's documentation you should be able to.
I just haven't figured out how to do it yet.

Use the Smart Pianist app to record the song - its the easiest method.
If Smart pianist is working then I assume you have the USB cord (plus CCK for iOS lightning devices) connected to your iOS or Android device.
Next step is that you must have a Dropbox account. You can get a free one for your Mac and you can download the free Dropbox app for your mobile or tablet. Smart Pianist only works with Dropbox for file transfer - there are no options for other cloud storage at this stage - it would be nice if Yamaha extended the options here.
Once set up you just use the red record button and User Song area to send your recording to your dropbox account and from there access it on your Mac.

And yes there is the audio over USB option as well in which case you can use any recording software like Audacity. For windows you must install the Yamaha Steinberg driver for it to work - for Mac I am not sure.

The P-125 definitely has audio over USB. I used to make recordings that way with mine.

1) Install the Yamaha Steinberg driver. I use Windows but there seems to be a MAC OSX version available.

2) Connect the piano to your computer with a USB cable.

3) Run a programme like Audacity, and select Line/Digital piano as recording device. Press the recording button in Audacity, and the play button on your piano. You'll hear your performance in Audacity, and you can then save it to your desired format (.wav, .mp3 etc.).

It is curious that Yamaha made it USB-audio compatible, but omit to include the Steinberg-Yamaha driver in the download page, and omit also to tell about in the manual :

connecting a computer to the [USB TO HOST] terminal, you can transfer data between the instrument and the computer via MIDI.

But if you manage to use it with audio/USB, this prove it is possible.

There is no way to export a recording from inside the keyboard to a computer. The keyboard just stores notes in its internal memory and plays them back on demand with its internal tone generator. Your instrument is the required playback device, because without it these notes don't mean anything.

Creating recordings to be played back on phones, car stereos, Bluetooth speakers and other devices involves going through a steep learning curve. Guides like these https://www.pianodreamers.com/digital-piano-recording-guide/ outline the very basics.

JoeT --

Please go back, and re-read Calavera's post. I think it deals with the OP's situation -- making an audio recording of the P-125 -- in the simplest way possible.

Yes, it requires a computer, and free software. But those are available to most of us. It's only hard, the first time you do it.

Completely agreed. Even my lowly Yamaha PSR-E373 has support for USB-Audio: all I need is a regular USB-B to USB-A (or -C) cable between the piano/keyboard and the computer and I'm done.

On the Mac, I don't even need a Steinberg driver, by the way. Audacity recognizes an input source named Digital Piano. Press record and start playing on the piano. Then stop the recording in Audacity and trim the silences at the beginning and the end. And normalize (or the volume will likely be too low), before exporting in .mp3, or .wav format.

I found a way of downloading a recording made on the P-125 with my iPhone.

Yamaha has an app called "MusicSoft Manager". It will allow you to access the recording you made on the p-125 and you can download the recording to the app. From there you can upload it to Dropbox then down load from Dropbox to a computer.

I can play the file using VLC. As a bonus I can use VLC to convert to another format if I want to.

Since I just starting taking piano lessons and I wanted to do this to track my progress.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

The Smart Pianist app I mentioned above also allows recording plus it combines other functionality like instrument selection and layering/mixing. I get the feeling Yamaha will be discontinuing most of the older apps in coming months.

That's the way I was going to do it before YAMAHA told me about the "MusicSoft Manager" app.
I find it's easier to just press the button on the keyboard to start the recording and change the instrument selection.