Recording your piano can seem more complicated than it really is.
In practice, you don’t need a lot of equipment—or technical knowledge—to get a good result. Once you understand a few simple ideas, everything becomes much easier.
In this guide, I’ll walk through the different ways you can record your piano, starting with the simplest options and building up from there.
You don’t need to take everything in at once—just start with the approach that suits you best.
Start Here: Choose the Simplest Setup That Works for You
📱 Option 1 — Just your phone
If you’ve never tried recording yourself before, this is a great place to start. It costs nothing and removes the biggest barrier—simply getting started.
Take a look at this article for some tips on taking the phone only approach to the next level.
The main limitation is the built-in microphone, which is designed primarily for capturing speech rather than the full sound of a piano.
🎤 Option 2 — Add a simple microphone
This is the first meaningful upgrade.
While smartphone cameras give us a lot of control over the image, the built-in microphone gives us very little control over the sound. Adding an external microphone changes that completely.
A good example is the Shure MV88 (or MV88+), which is simple to use and comes with a very intuitive app to help you get the best results.
A compact, high-quality stereo microphone designed for mobile recording, offering multiple polar patterns and excellent sound clarity for musicians and content creators.
View on Amazon
A compact, high-quality stereo microphone designed for mobile recording, offering multiple polar patterns and excellent sound clarity for musicians and content creators.
View on Amazon
You can read more about it here.
🎚️ Option 3 — Record audio and video separately
This is the biggest step forward—and it’s often much easier than people expect.
If you already have a plug-in microphone, you may not need any additional equipment at all. Alternatively, dedicated audio recorders are widely available and relatively affordable.
A Simple Change That Makes a Big Difference
The main limitation of most recordings is that the microphone is simply too far away from the piano.
Recording audio and video separately removes this problem completely, allowing you to place each device where it works best.
I’ve explained exactly how to do this step by step here.
Don’t worry if this feels like a step too far for now—you can still get reasonable results recording everything together.
A Quick Note from My Own Experience
When I first started recording my piano, I used nothing more than my phone. However, even here, I found it was worth the tiny effort it took me to learn how to remove unwanted portions from the beginning and end of the videos. The Apps to do this are free and extremely simple to use.
Like most people, I quickly realised that while it was convenient, the sound quality was limited. My next step was to use a plug-in microphone (the MV88), which was a noticeable improvement and something I used for quite some time.
Eventually, and mostly because I was having such great fun, I moved to a dedicated recorder (the Zoom F6) with external microphones, which gave me much more control over the sound.
Naturally, this is a little less plug and play than my MV88. As you might expect, the more equipment we have and the more sophisticated that equipment becomes, the steeper the learning curve. However, even the Zoom F6 comes with an App that really helps.
That’s why I’m very glad I started with something simple. Each step builds naturally on the last, and the skills you learn early on make it much easier to move to more advanced setups later
Improving Your Sound Further
At this point, you might feel that moving beyond a simple setup is a big step. In reality, it’s often much more straightforward than it seems—and it gives you far more control over your sound.
If you’d like to go further, a dedicated recorder and external microphones open up a lot of possibilities.
There are many options available, but I personally use the Zoom F6, which offers excellent flexibility while still being relatively easy to work with once you’re familiar with it.
You can read more about these types of setups here.
Taking Things to the Next Level
Once you’ve recorded your audio and video, there are lots of options to enhance them (think of it as little like putting filters on photos).
This might sound technical, but in practice it’s very straightforward—and most of the tools are designed to make it easy.
For example:
- iMovie (on iPhone, iPad, or Mac) is a simple way to combine audio and video and delete unwanted parts
- GarageBand can be used to enhance your audio
- Cubase offers more advanced editing if you want greater control
You don’t need to learn everything at once—just start with a simple tool and build from there.
Common Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)
Microphone too far away
This is by far the most common issue and has the biggest impact on sound quality.
Recording everything on one device
This limits both your audio and your video without you realising it.
Over-processing
It’s easy to overdo effects such as reverb or EQ. Subtle adjustments usually work best.
My Recommended Setup
If you’re just starting out, I recommend either a plug-in microphone or a simple dedicated recorder.
These options strike a good balance—they’re easy to use, portable, and can be set up in minutes, while still giving a significant improvement in sound quality.
They also allow you to take advantage of one of the most important upgrades: recording audio and video separately.
Learn More
If you’d like a more structured walkthrough, I’ve created a course that takes you through the process step by step and shows what’s possible even with a simple setup.