Learn to Play Recorder

Lesson 89: Performance Preparation, Part 4 — Recording Techniques

  • Make a good recording of yourself with consumer equipment.
  • Place the microphone where the recorder actually sounds best, not where it is convenient.
  • Approach takes the way a recording session does — record more than you need, choose later.
  • Lesson 60 — recording-as-third-ear procedure.
  • A phone or recorder, plus a quiet room.
  • Microphone placement.
  • Room acoustics.
  • Take discipline.

A recording outlives the performance. Make it worth the survival.

Lessons throughout this curriculum have asked you to record yourself and listen back — from Lesson 60 onward, the recording has been the third ear. Most learners record themselves badly without realising it, then conclude from a bad recording that they sound worse than they do. This lesson is the basics of making a recording good enough that you trust what it tells you.

Equipment

You do not need professional equipment to make a useful recording. A modern phone (iPhone or Android, made in the last five years) records well enough to evaluate your playing. The microphone matters less than the placement.

If you have access to better equipment:

  • A dedicated handheld recorder (Zoom H4, Tascam DR-40, similar) is the next step up. About $150–200. Two condenser mics, much better dynamic range than a phone.
  • A pair of condenser microphones into a small interface is the professional option. About $500 for a starter setup. Used for serious recital archives.

Start with what you have. Upgrade only when you can hear what is missing in your current recordings.

Microphone placement

The recorder is a soft instrument with sound radiating mostly from the tone holes (not the bell). Place the microphone:

  • Distance: about 1.5 to 2 metres from the player. Closer captures key clicks and breath noise; further loses presence.
  • Height: about the height of your head when playing, not at the level of the bell.
  • Angle: aimed at the middle of the instrument (the tone holes), not the bell or the head.
  • Position: in front of you, slightly off to one side rather than directly in line with the sound projection.

Spend five minutes adjusting placement before the first take. Listen to a thirty-second test recording with headphones and adjust until the sound matches what you hear in the room.

Room

The room matters more than the microphone. A small bedroom records dry; a hallway with hard surfaces records reverberant. The recorder benefits from a moderately reverberant room — the resonance flatters the tone — but too much reverb obscures the details.

If you have a choice, record in a room with hardwood floors and bare walls, but not in a concrete stairwell. A small church or wood-panelled room is ideal. Bedrooms with carpet sound flat; do not record final takes there if you can avoid it.

Takes

Approach a recording session like a professional studio:

  • Multiple takes. Record every piece at least three times. The third take is usually better than the first.
  • Do not stop mid-piece for mistakes. If something goes wrong in take 2, finish the piece; the mistake might not be as bad as it felt, and the rest of the take may be the best yet.
  • Listen back between takes briefly. Not for full evaluation — that is later. Just enough to confirm the recording worked technically.
  • Choose later. Do not pick the best take in the session. Listen the next day, with fresh ears, and pick then.

Listening back

The listening-back discipline from Lesson 60 still applies: put the score away, listen straight through twice, mark issues, build a fix list. The recording is the document; it is also the rehearsal tool. Treat it as both.

Now play these

This lesson's application is the recording itself. Pick any piece from your program. Record it three times using the placement and room guidance above. Listen back the next day. Note which take is best and why.

When you have made a recording of one program piece that you would let a friend hear unedited, with placement and room you have deliberately chosen, and a take-evaluation discipline you have used at least once, move on to Lesson 90.