Recording For Keyboard: A Quick & Easy Guide

Oct 21, 2015

blog keyboard

Continuing our recent theme on tips for recording the best music you can at home, this week we’re going to turn our attention to an extremely versatile musical instrument: the keyboard. In today’s day and age, the keyboard is one of the most useful instruments for recording music, and can be found in recordings of literally any and all musical genres. Whether it be a more classical piano sound, synth-pop, or rock, electronic keyboards and synthesizers are still very popular. This is at least in part due to the widely held opinion that the sound is fuller, and more powerful, than those created by software plugins.

Because of the popularity the keyboard enjoys, you’ll want to be sure to capture the best sound possible, but how you go about doing that will depend on the actual keyboard you have, your home studio setup, as well as the actual sound that you want to record. This week we’ll take a quick look into the three most popular ways to record your keyboard track:

  • Straight from the keyboard through MIDI or USB
  • Utilizing the keyboard’s line-out ports, and
  • Through an amp and microphone combination

Direct Recording

Connecting your keyboard directly to your setup and recording the output is undoubtedly the easiest and simplest way to record. This can be done in a few different ways, depending on your keyboard’s hardware. If you are using a software plugin for your digital audio workstation (or DAW) to actually produce sounds from your keyboard, then you will want to record through MIDI (less commonly known as Musical Instrument Digital Interface). Most modern keyboards will also allow you to use USB with their MIDI keyboard controllers. With this setup the MIDI signal will tell the software plugin what notes to play, but any and all sounds will be created by the actual computer, not the keyboard.

The other way to directly record your keyboard is also the most common method. Your keyboard should have some kind of “line-out” connection, most commonly 1/4” jacks. Utilizing this kind of setup will have you plugging straight into your audio interface or mixing board. This will allow you to record directly into you DAW. This will also give you the opportunity to play around with any interesting plugins you may have at your disposal.

Most keyboards will even take this setup one step further with stereo outputs. Whether you record into a single stereo track or two mono tracks panned to the extreme left and right is entirely up to you and the sound you are looking for. Keep in mind that recording in stereo, as opposed to two mono tracks, will better mimic the way a keyboard instrument sounds when played live; lower notes will come more from the left, and higher notes from the right.

One last thing to consider if you are going to be recording directly is your keyboard’s output level. Many keyboards suffer from a remarkably low output level, often called “consumer level.” Unfortunately, “consumer level” output can create issues setting a good recording level without bringing too much noise into your recording. A common way to fix this issue is with a DI unit (“DI” can stand for “direct input,” “direct injection,” “direct induction,” or “direct interface” depending on where you are getting your information from). This little box can help boost your signal up from “consumer level” to “line-level,” the signal strength needed by DAWs and mixing boards.

Amplifier & Microphone

If you prefer using an amplifier and microphone to record your keyboard, there are a few important things to consider before you begin. The first, and most important, is your keyboard amplifier itself. Keyboard amps are rather different than guitar amps, so don’t try to get away with using one. These amps need to be able to produce a much wider frequency range because of the extreme high and low notes a keyboard can create. You also want an amplifier that can keep sound distortions to a minimum; keyboard music is usually recorded as cleanly as the artist can. Of course, if the sound you are looking for requires a bit of distortion, try using a guitar pedal between the keyboard and amp, or try a guitar emulator plugin. The beauty of a plugin is it can be applied both during, or after your recording session.

Of course, you may be interested in adding some natural distortion to your recording. This is best achieved with the use of an older style tube amplifier. With this older technology if you turn the volume up high enough, the tube circuitry will overload, creating that distinctive, distorted sound.

Taking a quick look over your keyboard, you may be tempted to try using a microphone to record the music that comes out of the keyboard’s tiny, built in speakers. Unless you are looking for a “tinny” sound (which can be better created with the use of plugins) this kind of recording is best to avoid, as the built in speakers are almost always way too small.

The next bit of hardware to consider is, of course, your microphone. When using the amp/mic combination for recording keyboard music, either a dynamic mic or a condenser mic can be used; again, it depends on the sound you are looking for. If you are trying for an aggressive, rugged sound, or if you’ll be utilizing an overdrive or distortion effect, then you will want the robustness of a dynamic microphone. However, if you are looking for the much more common bright and sharp sound, using a lot of high notes, at a relatively normal volume level, you will want to turn to the condenser microphones we discussed before when talking about recording vocals.

As you can see, there are a few ways to record keyboards to find the exact kind of sound you are looking for. That being said, keyboard amplifiers are expensive, and it is somewhat unlikely that you will have a dedicated one in your home studio. This is why recording directly is the preferred and easiest way to capture your keyboard sound. And of course, with the direct technique you have the added bonus of adding any number of effects to it during the mix.