Recording Kawai CN25 via an audio cable

A

altynq

New member
Hi everyone,

It's my first post ever on this forum! So I decided to post it here in the Newbies section. I am not quite comfortable with the terminology yet, but I am trying my best.

Here's the situation. I am trying to record the sound of my e-piano Kawai CN25 using my laptop and an audio cable (having two 6.3mm connectors on one end and one 3.5mm connector on the other end). The e-piano has two 6.3mm jack sockets. Not sure how to put it right, but the laptop's audio device is apparently Realtek High Definition Audio. My operating system is Windows 7 Professional and I am using Audacity.

And here are the two problems that I am facing:

1) I am not satisfied with the quality of the recorded sound. The main thing that freaks me out is that the sound of every note I play fades out more quickly than in reality. Even if I press the sustain pedal and play some chord, on the recording it would fade out quickly and actually just go out abruptly at some point. This would never happen when the sound just comes out of the piano speakers or when headphones are connected.

2) The only option to be able to hear what I am actually recording is to activate (either in the Windows sound settings or in the Audacity settings) the option to play what is being recorded right away. But in this case there is a clear time lag between the moment I hit the key and the moment I hear the sound it produces. Apparently the problem is well-known and is called latency. There are some settings in Audacity that deal with latency, but I am not sure if they can help deal with the problem. Playing around with those settings didn't help.

So my question is simple: is there a way to solve these problems without having to buy a new laptop?

What I thought a solution to problem 2 could be is connecting headphones to one of the 6.3mm jacks and using just one recording cable connector rather than two. But in this case no sound gets recorded. Apparently information from both connectors is required in order to produce a stereo signal. But could using a mono cable (which has just one 6.3mm connector) be an option in this case? (At the moment I don't even know if such cables exist).

Thanks a lot in advance!
 
There are multiple overlapping problems with what you're trying to do. Rather than explain each one I'll just suggest doing one of two things. Either use the USB connection or get yourself a proper audio interface. With the audio interface you might need what's called an insert cable to make the connection.
 
Thanks for you reply, bouldersoundguy!
Just to make sure, when you say using the USB connection, do you mean using the e-piano as a MIDI device in effect? Does it mean that I will have to use some special software and have a decent sound card to be able to convert the information contained in the MIDI file to a proper audio file?
 
altynq said:
Thanks for you reply, bouldersoundguy!
Just to make sure, when you say using the USB connection, do you mean using the e-piano as a MIDI device in effect? Does it mean that I will have to use some special software and have a decent sound card to be able to convert the information contained in the MIDI file to a proper audio file?
Click to expand...

You don't necessarily need a different sound card to use the USB, but you will probably need different software as I don't think Audacity can receive MIDI and make it audio. And not being a hardcore MIDI guy I can't recommend the best software, but there are lots of people here who are know all about that stuff. Basically, the MIDI command (what key, how hard etc.) goes over the USB to the software which plays a digital sample which gets turned into sound by the sound card. There's going to be some latency but if your computer is up to it the latency can be minimal. You can record the MIDI data itself rather than the audio, which allows you to do things like fix errors or change the instrument. Once the MIDI performance is recorded you can change the sound being triggered from a concert grand to a tack piano, Rhodes or a harpsichord. Heck, you can change it to a string section or chorus of singers if that's what you want.
 
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