Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Extreme frustration with recording

I own the Yamaha P-45B digital piano and so far, I recorder my playing just by using camera in my phone which was terrible because a) the sound quality obviously was not very good b) the "clicking" sound made by pressing the plastic keys was so annoying.

So I installed audacity and bought a cable with 3,5 jack on both sides - one side should go to my laptop, the second one to my piano (to the same spot where my headphones go so I have to use reduction from 6,3 jack to 3,5 jack).
I cannot record audio using the USB so this is the only way to do it...

HOWEVER - I cannot find the piano as a device in audacity and even if I try to use an online voice recorder which allows me to chose input microphone, there is not the DP to be selected, so it always uses the default mic in my laptop.

I have like 4 pieces now ready, memorized and ready to be recorded but I cant because I´ve been trying to solve this issue for weeks and with no success. I´ve tried different laptops, everything. I wrote to Yamaha and they sent me this:

"The P45 is NOT USB.Audio compatible. It is necessary to connect the PHONES/Audio Out
with the LINE IN of the computer. In this case, no driver is required. The mentioned STEINBERG
driver is an USB-Audio driver, which is not suited for this model."

Great, but this still didnt solve my problem...

I have HP 250 G6 laptop....

Can please someone help me how to record audio from my piano? I´d be really grateful... Thanks!

Hmm, in Audacity you should be able to pick the audio driver from a drop-down box (on this machine I can choose between MME, DirectSound, and WASAPI). You should also be able to pick the input signal (on my machine RealTek and MicroSoft Sound mapper are possible), and you should be able to pick mono or stereo from a further drop-down box.

Are these choices set correctly in your Audacity setup? If not this is the first thing to do.

But, very fundamentally, if you are recording via line-in, then your P-45 will not show up in the software, because the software has no way of knowing that a P-45 is hooked up to it. Using line-in, Audacity will not know the P-45 from Adam.

Quasi: Yes, in the first box I can pick MME, DirectSound, WASAPI.
In the next box I can choose Microsoft sound mapper input, Microphone (realtek high definition).
In the next box I can choose between mono, stereo and in the last box I can choose between two repros.

I´ve tried all the combinations while having my piano connected and it either recorded my voice from the internal mic in my laptop or it did not record anything at all...

To your last paragraph: I have no idea what line-in recording is. I thought I´d just connect my piano to my laptop, hit a button in audacity and it would record the audio. Obviously, it isnt simple as that

And I run out of ideas about how to fix it.

The only audio jack on your laptop is the one on the left side. It's a combination jack with stereo out and a mono microphone input.

You'll need the right kind of a cable or cable and adapter to feed the piano's sound into the microphone input in that jack.

Related: https://www.reddit.com/r/AudioPost/comments/gf0cc5/recording_audio_from_a_tape_deck_to_my_laptop/

It is supposed to be that simple. Line-in is simply an electrical connection to be used when sending electrical (audio) signals into the PC. Sometimes there is separate line-in, and microphone in, but often they are the same thing.

If, as clothearednincompo says, there is a combined input/output connection, then I am outside of my comfort zone; I have never heard about such a thing before.

Keep in mind that the laptops don't have line-in. They come with a mic input and it is mono.

Get a cheap USB audio interface that accepts stereo line-ins. They're around 30 bucks. Behringer makes them.

Combined input/output connections exist in millions of mobile phones, tablets and laptops.

Thank you all very much, now at least I´ve identified the problem and won´t spend another x hours trying to do the impossible.

I´ve just finished reading the reddit sub and it looks like I can buy a) just reduction from jack to usb and plug this usb into my laptop
b) external sound card c) this usb interface that some of you are talking about here (even though I am not sure if its not the same as external sound card?)

Will this work?

External sound card

Well, if it does what the page seems to suggest (sorry, my Czech is a bit rusty :p), than yeah it *may* do the job.

And yeah b) and c) are indeed the same. No idea what's a) is. You basically need a USB sound card/interface to convert the analog audio signal coming from your P45's line out to a digital signal getting into your computer through its USB port.

Desktop computers usually have an integrated soundboard with line-in interface on their motherboard, so they don't need such a device, externally.

It has a microphone input (based on the symbol on the device).

It's not going to be any improvent from using the microphone input on the laptop. (Which you would use with a suitable cable.)

Look for something with a stereo input i.e. an "audio interface":

https://www.thomann.de/gb/usb_audio...t=32&oa=pra&sw=audio%20interface

I can't read the description but on the picture, the green jack is the stereo output and the pink jack is a microphone input. So maybe the input is only mono and only for microphone. If you plug your piano using the headphone jack, you might have distortion on the recording. Usually audio interface have an input for a microphone and another input call line in for the piano.

This one looks like the audio interface I posted previously but it says: external sound card USB 2.0 - stereo HQ adapter - up to 24-bit/96khz

The input is mono in all of them including Apple products.

Check out Behringer UCA222 and few other similar models by Behringer. Avoid compact audio interfaces as they put stress on your USB port.

https://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_ucontrol_uca_202.htm?sid=cef925c2aa5fd08a66516426eb8b232e
https://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_ucontrol_uca_222.htm?sid=cef925c2aa5fd08a66516426eb8b232e

Are all fine.

Maybe a stupid question but now I´ve realized - how will I hear what I am playing while recording? Once I plug the output from my DP (the same that goes to my headphones) into the audio interface, audacity will record the sound but I wont hear anything? That doesnt seem right. I need to be able to record and listen at the same time. Now I am lost again

You can use a splitter for dual headphones and plug an headphones on one of the femelle jack.

You need an higher grade piano with real Line-Outs sockets to record without switching of the piano speakers.

I'm not sure I understand your problem. So I'll tell you exactly how I do it.

I use this cable only : https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00ZKM3SDO/
I plug it in my laptop and I record it with audacity. I hear the piano while it is being recorded on audacity.

The part I don't understand is that you use the headphone jack on your piano to record. I would advise against that. Line output should be the way to go.