A new digital recorder.

http://korg.com/gear/info.asp?a_prod_no=MR1000

It seems very good.

All best,
Sandro

 

Yeah, if you have $1,200 USD to spend :!:

 

That is looking good and if we should add competitors to the Korg system in this thread, I seriously think this one is a good idea:
http://www.kawai.de/pr1_en.htm

You attach the microphones directly to the piano which means very little noise and fuzz. Again, quite expensive but if you are aiming to build a professional home studio, you should expect to spend some money on the recording equipment. It has about the same price as the Korg but with mics included.

 

After having a look at the specs, the Korg MR1000 seems to be a very high quality and easy to use recorder. Unfortunately very expensive too, but also robust and if necessary, also battery powering possible.

The Kawai recorder/CD-Burner looks interesting too but I do think that for a real capturing of all what comes out of the piano including hammer/friction noise and finger noise on the keys, I would prefer a "normal" mic recording also because of the possibility to change mic positions, and to use it for other instruments too. If one likes to have a noise and buzz free clean piano recording, one could as well take a digital keyboard since they are sampled from concert grands.

So for recording of a real grand I would prefer using "normal" mics because it draws the listener closer to the pianist that way because of all the noises what belong to a real performance too.

 

That is looking good and if we should add competitors to the Korg system in this thread, I seriously think this one is a good idea:
http://www.kawai.de/pr1_en.htm

Interesting recorder, but I do not think it as a competitor of Korg+2 good condenser mics (as I
hope my K2 Rode are).
1) With Kawai (if you use it with their mics. I've read that one can use it with external mic, but
at this point the costs are equal with my systems, and remain the minor quality of 2)) you are forced to take the sound very near to the piano, and you have to add digital reverb.
I think it will be better to try to capture the natural sound (piano+ambient), without adding reverbs
to obtain an "ambience".
2) The a/d conversion stage doesn't seems at the level of the Korg one (impressive, with its 1-bit SACD quality or PCM 192 khz-24 bit).
If one think only to a recording to be heard in mp3 compression with PC monitors, all these
machines (both Korg and Kawai) are of too much good quality and price.
But I'm interested also in recording quality by-itself (and generally in hi-fi)...
But I think (as Mindenblues) that also with my choice (2 good tube no phantom powering mics + a good a/d), a weakness could remain: the mics. pre-amp, surely excellent neither in Korg nor in
Kawai....

All best,
Sandro

 

>one could as well take a digital keyboard since they are sampled from concert grands.

And in fact I'm very curious to record also my digital piano with the new recorder (to know if limits
of my digital piano will be the same with a better a/d stage)
Also here it would be interesting to try a better (possibly tube, as you and I agree) keyboard
amp before conversion. But here there are too many conversions (d/a for the samples, then
d/a at keyboard audio-out, then a/d at recording stage, plus the final d/a; and all sounds as the worst ot these stages, that I think is the keyboard audio-out).

All best,
Sandro