Hi, I have a piano downstairs, and my studio upstairs. I want to do a lot of piano recording, but I don’t want to move the piano upstairs. I am toying around with the idea of running audio cables inside the walls to a first floor wall-plate, and using a laptop/tablet to control Cubase remotely. That way I can just plug in the mics and headphones and do as many takes/edits as I want without having to run up and down the stairs. What’s the best way to accomplish this? Thanks!
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I use a second wireless PC keyboard from across the room to control the transport when recording my own vocals so I don’t need to run back & forth between takes. Obviously that won’t work between floors. But as long as you are running cable, you could add USB to the list. The down side is you wouldn’t be able see the monitor. From across the room I can see (with the proper glasses on) if a track is armed, loop on, etc. If you don’t need the visual feedback this might work for you.
Another approach would be to use Windows Remote Desktop. I don’t have any experience on that front.
Also it might be easiest overall to install a copy of Cubase on a laptop and take your dongle downstairs and record on the laptop transferring the Projects to your main computer later.
I would go with running cables through the wall, that will be the most bulletproof setup. Doing it via remote desktop will give you a laggy, annoying interface.
So…i’d do it like this:
Next to the piano you need mics, a mic-pre and an A/D converter with AES/EBU out. Run that digital cable to your studio computer.
You’ll need a computer monitor at the piano. You need to connect this to your studio computer via HDMI, over a LAN extender: https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Extender-Ethernet-including/dp/B00OZV04BK
For your keyboard and mouse (or trackball or whatever,) you’ll need a USB over LAN extender:
Wait!! I see this box is a USB AND HDMI extender all in one, that’s cool!
At your studio computer, you either need a video card with 2 or more video outputs, or something like this:
You’ll also need a way to monitor your audio from Cubase while you’re sitting at the piano. You can either do this via an audio cable from the studio to the piano running into a cheap mini-mixer with headphone output, or via a digital cable if the cable run is very long. You’ll be able to set this up via Cubase’s Control Room settings.
For the record: i run a set-up like the above, but with THREE extra remote screens (so i can control Cubase from various parts of the studio), and it works perfectly!
I guess what i’m describing is a “pro” set-up. Of course you can also achieve your goal via a smartphone or tablet app, but you won’t have satisfactory monitoring (latency?) or full control of Cubase. So if you need to run cables anyway for monitoring, you might as will just do it properly in the first place. And you’ll have the added bonus that you’ve integrated another room in your house into your studio as a recording area - i’m sure your wife will be delighted! 
Good luck!
Anydesk 2.6.1 set to fullscreen… with gigabit or best wireless… set up a dummy terminal, laptop or even ipad… and thank me later
Jazzius, thanks for your incredibly complete suggestion! The hdmi+usb over LAN is great! (and multifunctional too) This is probably what I’ll do, with maybe a few modifications. If possible, I want to keep the mic pres upstairs, so I’m looking at an xlr wall-plate like this:
So this would look more like a very large recording booth in another room. Do you see any issues with doing it this way? The room is directly beneath the studio, so the cable run should only be 50-75 feet if I can avoid going through the basement.
No worries old chap, i’ve just completed my studio in a similar way, so it was all fresh in my mind.
I’m not sure about running a cable from a mic to a pre for such a long distance. Mic signals can be very low and susceptible to noise and interference. Cable is cheap so you could wire in both set-ups, in case the long mic line idea doesn’t work well.
One word of advice: i’d set up and test everything first in the studio, and once you know all is working correctly and as anticipated, then run it all into the wall!
Have fun!
I’m still using a Frontier Design “tranzport”. It works fine on Windows 10 64 bit. I also use an Ipad mini 2 running Lemur (over wifi) that works great as well and has a lot more feattures.
Cubase iC Pro works good if you have an iOS device. I use to use it a lot but unfortunately Steinberg dropped support of the Android version.
I think I would buy a decent soundcard and use a laptop LOL
Frontier Designs Tranzport still working fine here after upgrade to Windows 10 even though the latest and last ever driver was for Win 7.
A long USB cable+an extra numeric keyboard could handle the transport functions. This together with the VST Connect Pro concept could possibly make a solution for you.
Ages ago I was recording bass guitar with 2 different mics and I made up 25m cables using oxygen free mic cable and Neutrik connectors so I could locate the bass cab downstairs and mostly out of earshot (before I had an isolation booth). I had no problem with noise issues at all as it was a balanced cable, phantom power was fine as well. So you should be OK with your cable lengths.
I personally use Cubase IC Pro on my iPhone for remote recordings. Or I even use TeamViewer sometimes as remote control too, which is easier that ICPro I find, just that the laptop isn’t as small as the iPhone.
Mike.
Frontier Tranzport or a number of phone apps to control Cubase. No need for anything more complicated than that. You need to figure out wiring for Mic/Headphone amp if they are on a separate floor. Do the wiring through the walls to a face plate and be done with it. It’s not that complicated really.