Digital Voice Recorder for Piano Lessons?

Mr_Forgetful

Would anyone have any recommendations for recording piano lessons so I can give out a disk for the pupils to use at home? We have been using a tape in the past but some of the newer pupils are refusing to do this as they say it is old technology even though it works. I have been looking at the Olympus models but they are about £70 on ebay which is far too much. There seems to be loads of models out there but for that kind of money I need to know it can cope with live music - piano and singing.

Many thanks.

closed

pc/laptop, microphone into line-in, with audacity (free) or sound recorder (vista onwards)

Marty999

My digital camera and mobile phone can both be used to record audio, might be worth a try? Then you could burn a CD from the sound file.

googler

Recording to a digital file means that if you want to give a disk to a pupil the same day, you have to transfer file to PC, then burn CD on PC - which eats into either the pupil's lesson time, or possibly the following pupil's......

If what you REALLY want is a CD to send the pupil away with, then I'd suggest you need a standalone CD recorder with a microphone pre-amp - however there's no way you'll get these under a £70 budget unless you go second-hand on eBay or similar

How much do you want to spend?

Mr_Forgetful

We have nothing spare for this so I wouldn't want to spend any more than £50. We have an old desktop in the music room so I could try a microphone on that or take the laptop there which may be better. You're right about the CD, Googler, so I'll see what they are going for on ebay.

Many thanks for all the replies. Very much appreciated.

spakkker

Audio files aren't that big and could be transferred to a usb drive in a minute surely? Your super techie pupils must have their own usb drives or even mp3 players.

£$&*"($£&(

You could put the recordings online for download rather than burning a CD so you wouldn't waste anytime during the lesson. You could even still record to tape then record the tape onto a PC as long as your tape recorder/hifi has a line out.

Mr_Forgetful

closed wrote: »

pc/laptop, microphone into line-in, with audacity (free) or sound recorder (vista onwards)

This seems to be much better than I expected! The built-in microphone seems to be fine for a start but that is not tested with the piano yet. I have tried Audacity and WavePad which are both free and they both seem perfect. This technique has got to be as good as a tape if not better.

I'll also look into grahawk's idea of storing online which is great.

It's all gone from me having to spend a lot, which I haven't got, to spending nothing so far.

THANK YOU ALL!!!! You've made a skint man very happy.

googler

Does your laptop have a Mic In? Mine does. This would work better than plugging microphone into Line In (different level and impedance requirements).

If you've only got a Line In, a small pre-amp or mic amp might be required for better results, but sounds like you've got the recording solution you need with Audacity on the laptop and a mic to connect.

I like the idea of putting the files online for the students to download later. Or maybe you could e-mail them out to all students at the end of the day?

closed

I mistakenly put line-in, I meant mic-in, but sometimes there is only one input.

Get you recording level right, and it should be fine, if you aren't bothered about full quality, mp3 them, and buy then a cheap usb flash drive, or even use their mobile phone on the usb port.