[CentOS] Recording piano and voice

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, John R Pierce <pierce at hogranch.com> said:
> do note, if this is a stage grade electric piano, using big phone
> plugs, the audio level out is not quite the same as consumer line
> level that a computer input would want to record, you'll likely have
> to crank the recording level way up, increasing the noise floor of
> the recordings.   the cure for this is something called a 'DI box'

Line-level is line-level.  A keyboard will be putting out an unbalanced
line-level signal, and a DI box converts that to a balanced mic-level
signal (usually XLR) for a soundboard.  Since most computers don't have
XLR (or other balanced) input, a DI box is not needed or useful.

Some computers/sound cards only have unbalanced mic-level inputs instead
of line-level (and some can be configured for mic or line); if you don't
have a line-level input, your best bet is to get something that does
(even a basic USB sound "card"), not to amp up the line-level signal to
mic-level (especially because most of the mic inputs are mono, not
stereo).

-- 
Chris Adams <linux at cmadams.net>