A printable checklist

Phone recording checklist for clean piano transcriptions.

Software that turns audio into notation works from the sound alone. Noise, echo and clipping become wrong notes on the page. Tick these off and you will spend less time correcting the score.

I.Before you record

The room

Noise sources off
Fans, air conditioning, dishwasher, TV. Close windows and doors.
Echo tamed
Rugs, curtains, a sofa or bookshelves absorb reflections from bare walls and hard floors.
Out of the corner
Bass builds up in corners and makes low notes boomy and muddy.
Piano tuned, if you can
An out-of-tune piano can confuse pitch detection.

The phone

Do Not Disturb or airplane mode
Then check your recording app still works in airplane mode.
Voice-focused processing off
iPhone Voice Memos: avoid Voice Isolation, choose Wide Spectrum where your model offers it. Android: noise reduction and speech enhancement off, automatic gain control off if the app allows.
Highest quality setting
Lossless if Voice Memos offers it, WAV or the top quality option on Android. Stereo or mono both work.
Ready for a long take
Other apps using the microphone closed, recording continues when the screen locks, enough free storage.

Placement

Upright: 2 to 3 feet away
Around keyboard height or slightly above, aimed at the center. Lid open: same distance, slightly higher, angled toward the opening.
Grand, lid open: 3 to 5 feet away
Facing the curve of the case, the direction the lid projects the sound.
Digital piano: 2 to 3 feet in front of the speakers
Or skip the microphone and record MIDI over USB: no room noise at all.
On a stand, never on the piano
Holding the phone adds handling noise; the piano's vibrations go straight into the microphone.
Microphones uncovered
Many phones have several. Keep the top and bottom edges clear of your case and your hand.
20-second test, on headphones
A loud chord, a quiet passage, something low in the bass. Boomy: move away from walls. Distant and echoey: move closer. Distorted: move back.

II.While recording

A second or two of silence first
And again at the end, before you move.
Count in silently
In your head, not out loud. No talking or singing along during the take.
Steady pulse
Rubato is beautiful, but a steady beat makes rhythms far easier to notate.
Change the pedal with each harmony
Pedal held through chord changes makes notes overlap: one of the hardest things for any tool to untangle.
Piano only in the room
No other instruments, no TV or conversation, no metronome bleeding into the microphone.
Long piece? Record it in sections
One mistake then doesn't cost the whole take.

III.After

Listen for clipping
Harsh, crackly or flattened peaks cannot be repaired. Move the phone back and record again.
Trim, don't process
Cut long silences, talking and bench noise. Add no reverb, compression or noise reduction.
Export WAV or high-quality MP3
Heavily compressed or re-recorded audio transcribes worse.
Name it, keep the original
For example “Nocturne-draft-take3”. Edit a copy, never the only file.

A recording that is a little quiet can be turned up later. A clipped one cannot.

What AI transcription still struggles with

A clean recording removes a lot of avoidable errors. It does not make any tool perfect, ours included. These are where you should expect to proofread.

Dense chords: The more notes at once, the more likely some are missed or added; inner voices get masked.
Sustain pedal: Ringing strings blur note endings into overlapping notes and phantom ties.
Rubato: Written down exactly as played, so a simple eighth note can become a dotted sixteenth plus a tie.
Very fast ornaments and runs: Expect to correct them by ear.
Echo, noise and other instruments: Reverb reads as extra notes, especially in the bass; voices and drums share the piano's frequencies.
Octaves and hands: Low bass notes can land an octave off, and the left/right-hand split around middle C is a guess.

That is why the MusicXML file matters: open it in MuseScore, Sibelius or Dorico and fix the two bars that are wrong instead of starting again.