Need Answer A.S.A.P.!!!!

[-LIL-DIVA-]

I'm trying to record a CD to send as a gift for Christmas. I have a Yamaha Clavinova with a built in floppy disk drive. I have recorded all of the background music onto a disk using that, but when I play it on my computer, it sounds really different..."tinny" I suppose. Not like a piano. And then percussion sounds worse too. How do I get it to sound the same on my computer??? Also, I want to add vocals to it. I have a microphone and everything on my computer. Is it possible to do this through Wave Studio? And if so, how do I go about adding vocals to the background music? I'm hoping to be finished by Thursday (the 19th) so I can give them out at school on Friday. My questions may be stupid, but be nice, I'm only 16!

Tracy

P.S. I don't know if this includes my e-mail address, so if you can help me, e-mail me at the_lil_diva@hotmail.com. I'll really appreciate it!!

 

[AlChuck]

to work on your piano sound, it helps to know how you're getting the sound from the clavinova to your computer. Is it going line out from your piano to the in -> jack on your soundcard?

-LIL-DIVA- already said how -- " I have a Yamaha Clavinova with a built in floppy disk drive. I have recorded all of the background music onto a disk using that, but when I play it on my computer, it sounds really different...'tinny' I suppose."

Clearly she has "recorded" a MIDI sequence of her playing. Then on her computer, it plays back through her soundcard's MIDI synth or the MS Wavetable synth.

-LIL-DIVA-, what you want to do is to record your performace as audio. You need to take the line outputs of the Clavinova and patch them into the line inputs of whatever soundcard you have. Then you need audio recording software on the computer to record from the inputs as you play (WaveStudio should be just fine). Actually, if your MIDI sequence on the floppy catured the performace that you want, you can just play the sequence back from the floppy drive on the Clavinova as you record into WaveStudio.

The little mics that come with PC soundcards are usually pretty bad, but you might have passable results -- try it first. Note that the typical soundcard has a stereo Line In on one 1/8" minijack (takes a plug just like the one on the end of a pair of Walkman-style headphones) and a mono 1/8" minijack Mic In. The Line In takes line level signals such as the output of the Clavinova's Line Output, a component stereo cassette deck or CD player, etc. The Mic In has a preamp in the circuit to work with the cheap plastic mic and it might not have nearly enough gain for a decent "real" microphone. In the latter case, you would use a preamp for the mic and send the preamp's line level signal to one side of the soundcard's Line In.

Hope that helps.

 

[sjjohnston]

"AlChuck" is right, so far as I can tell. What the Clavinova stores on the floppy disk isn't audio, but MIDI data. MIDI data isn't the sound -- it's the notes. Sort of like a player piano roll.

Another problem you may have is that the Clavinova may not have a line out jack. From what I know about Clavinovas (Clavinovae?), they typically have a built-in amplifier and speakers. If there's no line-out jack, you may want to try the headphone jack. Just turn the volume down before you input it into anything, and raise it slowly. It may not sound very good, depending on some obscurely technical details like impedance.

If you try the headphone jack, you will need to make sure you use the right kind of cable. The plug that goes into the headphone jack should be a TRS plug -- if you look at the end, it should have a shaped tip, then a little plastic spacer, then a short stretch of metal shaft, then another little plastic spacer, then the rest of the metal shaft. Look at a headphone plug if you want to see what it should look like. A "regular" 1/4" plug (like a guitar cable) is a TS jack -- it has only the first little plastic spacer.

What kind of cord to use depends on the input on your soundcard. If the soundcard line-in is one stereo jack, you can connect the two with a single cable. If it's two jacks, one for left, one for right, it gets a bit more complicated.

A completely different approach, which is simpler but possibly worse, would be to mic the Clavinova's speaker.

 

[stonepiano]

good point alchuck. I must have misread the post. I stand corrected (and a little embarrassed).

However, I still would recommend, as you both have, using audio instead of midi for this project.

Now, what about recording that voice? does anyone know if Wave Studio is a multitracking software? I don't know it personally...perhaps an n-track demo recommendation is in order?

 

[James Argo]

Hey Diva, why don't you tell us what's your PC's sound source (sound card) ? I mean, if you don't have any MIDI sequencer program and/or don't know how to do MIDI, attach post your MIDI file as a ZIP file here, and I'll be glad to do what it takes to convert them so you can play with your sound card. I'll make it GM compatible. Make sure you save the MIDI file as .mid (Standard MIDI File), then ZIP it...