Recording Piano: Can you edit out mistakes?

This article is part of my Step by Step guide on Recording Piano at Home and accompanies my YouTube Video on how we can get around odd mistakes when we’re trying to record ourselves playing. 

Why would we want to do it?

When we’re alone and practicing away, as we get a piece to a good place, we can often manage to play it through without any obvious bloopers and also so that it sounds musically quite good to our own ears.

Then, as soon as there is a person in the room – especially one that is listening – the likelihood of pulling off that same good performance starts to fall.  Make this person someone who is actually going to ‘critique’ what we’ve played (like an examiner or a paying audience member), then the stress goes up even further and our chances of getting that ‘perfect version’ dip yet more.

This is known as performance anxiety and even the greatest pianists can suffer from it to one extent or another.

Place a microphone in the room and almost all of us will suffer from exactly the same phenomenon.  We know that microphone will capture every detail and expose it to everybody who listens.  This then puts us under extra psychological pressure to ‘get it right’.

Smartphone Microphones

If you’re still looking for a great Plug In Microphone, then something like the Shure MV88 or MV88+ is a great option. You’ll find much more detail on them in this article.

Both are readily available on Amazon.

How can we fix it?

However, when recording, we do have options when we don’t always get it right first time.

In a recording studio, very little is actually recorded in a single take.  If it were, then the record companies would be cranking records out very quickly as the end to end process wouldn’t take long at all.

It’s also true in the classical world that great pianists rarely recorded in a single take.  There’s a documentary film about Arthur Rubinstein in which he unashamedly re-records sections with which he wasn’t happy.  I saw the same in a documentary with Horowitz.  

That’s not to say that nobody does ‘one take’ recording.  Richter famously didn’t like the recording process – which is why generally we only have recordings of his live concerts.  Equally, Martha Argerich apparently told the studio when she came in to record that she would play everything through 3 times and then they could choose the version they preferred.

But aside these great exceptions that prove the rule, there is very little that reaches our ears or eyes that was done in a single take.  Why should we put ourselves under pressure to be any different?

It’s easier than you might think!

Many years ago, when recordings were stored on tape, being able to cut and splice things together to remove bits we didn’t like required tremendous skill.  In the modern world, being able to do this is on your computer is fairly simple for anybody with just a little patience.

We’ve talked about Digital Audio Workstations before – when we looked at Reverb and also EQ (see these posts).  A Digital Audio Workstation has all the functionality required to do this cutting and splicing in a simple to manage way.  As I always say, don’t be put off thinking this might be difficult to do … it really isn’t.

Record to edit

The first thing we need to do is change our mindset slightly.  When we sit down to record, we’re going to sit down with the intention of ‘recording to edit’.  By that, I mean we’re going to expect to make mistakes and, if they happen, we’ll go back a little and start again.

To make this possible on piano, you have to think about how the instrument works. The main issue is the pedal.  Whatever notes we played previously are often caught in the pedal and, therefore, we can’t often just ‘start again’ from any location at random.

Instead, we need to define some carefully considered ‘restore points’ before we start recording.  A Restore Point is basically the place to which you’ll go back in case of any error.  An ideal restore point is somewhere in the music where nothing much is happening – it doesn’t need to be total silence but the closer to this the better.

Set restore points

Using Chopin’s C Sharp Minor waltz as an example, I’d put the restore points like this:

Once we have defined all of the restore points, all that is left to do is actually record.

You simply start at the beginning and keep going until you make a mistake.  Once this happens, you stop and then re-start at the previous restore point.  

How to use the restore point

To make this work, first make sure you completely lift the pedal and let all sound stop before you re-start.   Then, re-start a couple of pedal changes prior to the restore point. This is vital or you’ll have real problems when you cut and splice later.

So, if your restore point was here:

Then you’d restart from here

Be patient, repeat as many times as you need and keep going like this until you get to the end.  It’s always easier if your last repeat of any section is the one you intend to keep.

My tip is to avoid the temptation to record several versions thinking that you’ll be able to mix and match them together later … this doesn’t work so well (I’ve tried it myself) … you tend to have continuity type issues.

Now we just need to edit it

Once the recording is finished, we can then move onto editing in Garageband (or any other DAW that you use). 

We simply import our audio file into a blank Garageband project and we’re ready to start editing.  If we paid attention whilst recording to ensure that moment of silence each time we re-start from a restore point, then the simplest thing to do is start from the end and work towards the front.

If you’re unfamiliar with the idea of recording Audio and Video separately, this article describes how to do it step by step.

Find the parts you want to use

Identify each of the segments that you intend to use in the final version and cut the audio file accordingly – you can actually see the silence in the waveform.  You then delete all the ‘out takes’ to keep your workspace cleaner

Stitch them together

To join them back together again, create a new track ‘with duplicate settings’ – this is very important as you want each track to be identical.  Position the fragments (these are called regions in Garageband) along the tracks – with each subsequent region on a different track.

As an aside, this needing duplicate tracks is a constraint with GarageBand that we don’t find in other DAWs (where we can do this on a single track. However, the workaround is perfectly acceptable.

It’ll then look something like this – with each region slightly overlapping from the previous one as we made the splits just before and just after the Restore Point

Use the overlapping part to get them properly aligned so the next region merges just at the right point

Now, we’re going to use the editor to merge them together.

To do this, we’re going to use what is called ‘Volume Automation’ on each track.  We use this to effectively turn the volume down on one region and up on the other so that they blend together when played.

We need to very carefully determine the right point at which to do this – use your eyes to look at the wave form and fine a place where it is quieter.

Now we click on ‘Show Automation’ and a line appears the length of the track.  This line represents the ‘volume’.  By clicking on the line with the mouse, it adds a dot.  You then find a different point and click again.  Now you have two dots, you’re able to drag either one up (louder) or down (quieter).  You can add as many dots as you like in order to manipulate the volume.  By doing this carefully, you can make the transition pretty much seamless. 

Export the result

Once you have done it for all fragments, simply export the resulting to a new file (click Share) and you’re good.  Watch the video to get a better idea of how to do this.

Once you have the new audio file, you can then use iMovie to combine the audio and video files together.  We’re going to basically repeat the process we went through above with the original video file – splitting it up to get rid of the ‘out takes’ and then synchronising the video clips with the audio file.  I showed you how to do this in the Video on Reverberation that I’ve linked here for you.

There are of course limitations to this technique

For it to work properly, you really do need to be able to play the piece well enough.  Editing out lots and lots of individual wrong notes is technically feasible, however, would take an inordinate amount of time and, unless you’re really good at editing, the result would likely not be too convincing.

Now, over to you.  Give it a try.  Let me know in the comments how you get on.  I look forward to listening to your recordings soon.

GarageBand for Classical Musicians

If you’re new to GarageBand and would like more step by step details of how to get the best from it, then I invite you to check out my course GarageBand for Classical Musicians.

For more step by step suggestions of how to record your piano at home, you can check out my free guide here.