<p>Micing a grand piano in a small practice room is not an easy job. There are not a lot of options for placement and you may not be able to get as far away as you want to get a blended sound. I would start with the piano on short stick with the mic pointed more toward the treble end than the bass. Experiment from there to see what improves the sound.</p>
<p>If you need better quality than that provides, to make a demo or audition recording for example, then you could add one or two external mics and preamps. You are probably going to have to spend an additional several hundred dollars to get something that is noticeably better than the R09 alone, plus it will add several pounds worth of stuff to carry around with you.</p>
<p>If you can wait a month, you might want to check out the Zoom H2, currently on pre-order for about $200 and expected to ship sometime in June. The specs look good, but I have not yet heard one. Buy it from a place that takes returns in case it turns out not to sound as good as the brochures would have you believe.</p>
<p>The Edirol R-09 is quite good. I would definitely recommend it over any mini disk recorder. You can dump your digital recordings directly to the computer using USB. With the price of flash drives being so low now, you can record for hours in the mp3 mode without running out of space. For more important recordings, you can record full bandwidth in the AIFF or WAV mode for enough hours to record a complete concert.</p>
<p>You might also check out the M-Audio MicroTrack and the Zoom H4. These two are comparable to the Edirol and all three have a street price between $300-$400. The Zoom can be switched from 2-track to 4-track mode. In other words, it has an advantage in that it can record 4 tracks simultaneously. </p>
<p>However, the latest buzz in this field is the new Korg MR-1. This uses 1-bit recording, which is FAR SUPERIOR to any 44.1k 16-bit recording. It is even better than 24-bit, 96k resolution. My son has the M-Audio, but I can honestly tell you that it can't compare to the new Korg. A recent review in EQ Magazine says, "The sound quality recordists have been waiting for from digital audio." The Korg also has the advantage of having a hard disk drive. The only negative is the cost. Right now the street price is close to $700. Hopefully, this will come down in cost soon. You can always try to negotiate a slightly better deal. As expensive as this is, it is far cheaper than the inferior Sony PCM-D1, which used to be the gold standard (and costs over $1,800). Anyway, you should check out the MR-1 at Korg's website.</p>
<p>If you do get one of the Sony minidiscs be careful about the model. Only a few were designed for recording from a mic. Often when they refer to recording capability they mean from radio or other media, not through a mic. Also almost all of the Sony's had software to protect against pirating. Once recorded on a minidisc, most models do not allow transfer to a cd. This often requires playing through a pc sound card and re-recording. This actually works well with little loss of sound quality, but it is very time consuming.</p>
<p>The Korg MR-1 does have excellent sound quality, but there are a few things about it that you should know before running out and getting one. They may not matter in most cases, but in certain situations they can be reason to use a different piece of gear. First off, the battery can be recharged but it is not designed to be replaced by the user. It lasts about two hours and then has to be recharged from the AC adapter. Not good if you were hoping to record a long event by swapping out AA batteries every now and again. Second, the recording level controls are done in software rather than hardware. They are a couple of levels down in the menu and you have to set the left and right channels one at a time. At this price point, hardware controls for immediate use would have been nice. It does have a very nice compressor/limiter, but sometimes you want to back off the levels in a hurry. Third, the 20GB hard disk is not necessarily an advantage if you are using the device to make recordings while moving or outdoors. It is more sensitive to vibration and temperature extremes than a solid state memory card. If these things do not bother you and you have the cash, the MR-1 is an excellent choice.</p>
<p>Bassdad, as I mentioned above, DS has his Apple Computer and has found the software (and hardware) record well. He has used this for both recording for auditions and for recording practice and lessons. He also finds that the computer records well in both small (think practice room) and larger spaces (small concert halls). Is he missing something?? He also has a minidisk player which he uses at times (he has gotten very good at making the CDs). This thread makes me wonder whether what he has is what he needs...kwim? He, however, is very happy with what he has. I will say...while he uses a $60 mic for his day to day recording, he borrowed one that was about $1000 to record his audition tapes and his recital.</p>
<p>If he is very happy with the results he is getting, then he has what he needs. I cannot give you an opinion on whether he is missing something without hearing the recordings he makes. If he were to go to a professional studio to record something critical, they would not be using minidisc or a stock computer without an additional specialized recording interface.</p>
<p>Most minidisc recorders use techniques that trade off just a little audio quality for a large saving in the amount of memory needed to store a recording. Given that memory is much cheaper than it was when minidisc was designed, there is no longer a need to sacrifice any quality at all on important recordings. Newer models of minidisc can be set to use the same linear PCM recording scheme that CD's have used for decades. While this helps, they are still several years behind competing products that now use even better recording formats.</p>
<p>Computers present a different set of problems. The inside of a computer is a very noisy electrical environment. There are a lot of components running at high speeds packed in tightly next to one another. Most have audible fan and/or hard disk noise. The power supplies are not designed with the demands of audio recording in mind. The result is that some computers can make decent recordings without additional recording hardware but most cannot. None of them can match the specs of a good piece of equipment that was designed from the ground up to do the job of recording, unless they are heavily modified with expensive additional equipment. There are a lot of interfaces that do an excellent job by putting the critical hardware in an external box and just using the PC for its storage and digital processing capabilities.</p>
<p>For the purposes of recording a practice session or a lesson, minidisc or the right computer can do a perfectly acceptable job. For recording an audition or performance, I would want something better to go with that $1000 microphone.</p>
<p>Thanks for the infos! I probably will go to my school's recording department if I need a tape for audition or whatever, but I have ordered Edirol R-09 for my everyday use... </p>
<p>One question about recording in a hall: with just the built-in microphone, would the sound be terrible if I record from the back of the hall - not really the last row, but pretty close to that.</p>
<p>When using a stereo pair of microphones (rather than mixing down many microphones that are placed near the individual performers), you generally want your microphones placed a good bit nearer to the source than they are to any of the walls, particularly the back wall. If the hall has permanently installed microphones, note that they are usually well away from the ceiling, floor and any walls and that they are never far from the stage. There are very good reasons for placing them there. Reflected sound that arrives soon after the direct sound wave is a bad thing in almost all cases.</p>
<p>If recording a soloist or a small group, you probably want to be no further than the first few rows. If recording a larger group, back off the microphones perhaps 1 to 1.5 times the maximum width of the group from the front row of performers. Depending on the acoustical properties of the hall you may need to move a bit closer or farther away. If you have the luxury of a sound check before the performance, you can record from a few different spots to see which sounds best.</p>