Pianobello Presents Remote Piano Recording

Piano MIDI files can now be recorded on real acoustic grand pianos online. Until now the recording of a piano music song played on a digital piano has always produced a sound quality corresponding to an imitation of an acoustic piano sound. The problem of this recording technique is that the quality of a digital piano sound is clearly less good than the quality of the sound of an acoustic piano. Since the digital piano has existed the designers of this instrument have tried to obtain a perfect imitation of an acoustic piano but they could never achieve that. It has therefore never been possible until today to obtain a piano recording having the sound quality of an acoustic piano by playing the piano music song on a digital piano. Pianobello has succeeded in solving this problem by using among other technologies player pianos and the internet. Player pianos are acoustic pianos equipped with a mechanism allowing the piano to play in an autonomous way, without a pianist. When playing on a digital piano, a pianist can record a music piece in the form of a computer file in the MIDI format (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). This type of file records the data corresponding to the movement of the keys and of the pedals of the digital piano when playing the song. Some player pianos are capable of reading MIDI files and executing accurately and in an autonomous way the piano music song contained in this file but only if it was played originally on an identical player piano. If the MIDI file was recorded on a digital piano its execution by a player piano produces velocities (the speed at which keys are struck) unadapted to the performed piano music and the sustain pedal of the player piano produces loud parasite noises thus making the recording of the piano music performance unusable due to a terrible sound quality. This technical problem comes from the fact that all current player pianos are not designed to perform piano music songs recorded on a digital piano. It is possible to solve this problem by processing the MIDI file recorded on the digital piano before having it performed by the player piano. Once the processing has been done the player piano will perform the piano music song with velocities adapted to the music performed and with a silent behaviour of the sustain pedal mecanism. Therfore it becomes possible for a pianist to record a piano music song in the MIDI format by playing on a digital piano, to send through the internet the MIDI file to Pianobello then to download from the web site of Pianobello the recording in an audio format of an accurate performance of his piano music song having the sound quality of an acoustic piano and having the following characteristics: velocities that are adapted to the piano music performed and without any parasite noise. This technique offers many advantages. Indeed, pianists can thus obtain a recording of their piano music songs with an acoustic piano sound without owning an acoustic piano, without going to a music recording studio and without even leaving their home. Since the recording is being done in a deferred way and not in realtime and also since the piano music song has been recorded originally in the MIDI format it ensues the following benefits: firstly the pianist can record his piano music song at home as many times as he wants before he sends his favorite version of the MIDI file to Pianobello while in a professional music studio the time spent in it is limited. Also the piano music song can be edited. This means that the pianist will be able to use at home a MIDI file editor software in order to delete notes, to transpose in another key, to add notes, to change chords etc. before sending the file to be performed by the player piano. The advantage to do the modifications at the MIDI format level is that they don't affect in any way the sound quality of the audio file. On the other hand, audio editing of an acoustic piano music recording can damage greatly the quality of the sound like for example when transposing one octave or when slowing down the tempo at half speed. Moreover it is possible to create the piano music song in the MIDI format without even playing on a digital piano. The pianist can use the MIDI file editor to create the piano music song entirely, note after note and using the computer mouse only. Another advantage of this technique is that if a recording of the piano music song played on the player piano presents a problem like a parasite noise which appeared in the studio or the piano slightly loosing its tuning or even a technical problem with the recording equipment, the pianist can ask Pianobello to have his piano music song reperformed identically as many times as necessary until the sound take is perfect. This is not the case with traditional recording where the pianist would be very disappointed to hear that a sound take is bad for one of the aforementioned reasons while his performance was very good and he fears not being able to reproduce it as good. Note that there is a large quantity of piano music MIDI files available on the internet and in the music shops, remote piano recording allows to convert all those MIDI files into audio files of acoustic piano. Some softwares can transform piano sheet music into a MIDI file. All you have to do is place the music sheet in a scanner. The software will scan the printed music and convert it automatically into a MIDI file. If you like you can edit the score to correct small mistakes that might have appeared during the automatic score recognition process. Then you simply send the MIDI file to Pianobello and you will receive the grand piano audio recording in return. That means that it is possible from now on to have any piano sheet music played and recorded on a grand piano automatically. Note that the quality of the performance will be very "robotic" but it is still useful to "hear piano sheet music" in order to decide which song you like and want to learn. Remote piano recording is in no way a competitor of digital pianos since they are often used to create the MIDI file in the first place. In the contrary it is a wonderful new technology that allows all amateurs of digital music around the world to have access to the noble and lively sound of a real acoustic grand piano. And even virtuoso pianists will now be able to enter the new world of acoustic music editing since the MIDI file can be edited before getting performed by the acoustic grand piano.