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Subject:Usability with an electronic keyboard?
Posted by: cwaters
Date:1/15/2008 5:41:38 AM
I'm a novice to music creation software. Everywhere I look, ACID Music Studio seems to get very good reviews. The current version (v6?) is on sale for $39.99 at Circuit City this week--so I'm thinking of taking the plunge. I have a Yamaha PSR-E403 portable keyboard. It has a USB connector on it. It's my understanding that ACID Music Studio will allow me to record music that I compose on the Yamaha keyboard...do some multi-track recording and editing of the music on the PC...and then play back this music on the Yamaha. Is that correct? In any case, my PC (a Dell XPS 410) has very good sound, but no sound card, per se; sound is generated from hardware on the PC's motherboard. From what I've been able to determine, ACID Music Studio requires a sound card in the PC. Is that the case? Or would the USB connector between the Yamaha and the PC suffice? FYI, I'm running Windows Vista Ultimate, 32-bit. |
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Subject:RE: Usability with an electronic keyboard?
Reply by: Patrick@Denman
Date:1/15/2008 2:05:49 PM
FYI, I use ACID Pro, so some of the things that I say here may not be possible in Studio - please check this out before buying. You should definitely be able to use your Yamaha keyboard as a MIDI input device - which means you can record your playing as a MIDI stream. FYI, recording MIDI means all that is being recorded is your key strokes, their velocities, and controller changes - it's not recording the audio at all. You can probably use the keyboard as a MIDI output device too, which would mean that you can play back your MIDI sequence with ACID and have it routed back to your keyboard, which would then produce the sound. On the other hand, if you wish to record the actual audio from your keyboard, you should be able to do that as well - but you won't use the USB for that. You can connect the audio output from your keyboard to your mic input on your machine. FYI, this may not be a great way to do it - you may find a lot of noise depending on the quality of your cable and the sound board. Direct miking of your keyboard is a more conventional way of recording audio from an external instrument, and that kind of recording usually requires a pretty decent audio interface - serious producers usually get an external device for this (usually FireWire or USB) that handles the inputs and converts the audio to digital, so you're not faced with any interference issues from inside your machine. FYI, you DO in fact have a sound card...it's just integrated with your motherboard. I have a Dell Inspiron laptop with a Sigmatel sound "card" that works really well. If you look in Device Manager on your computer, under "sound, video, and game controllers" you'll see it. One thing you will most certainly need is an ASIO driver. If you use the default DirectX drivers, you'll find significant delays between hitting your keys and hearing the notes; this is called latency. And with DirectX, you usually can't reduce latency to really low levels. If you try to reduce the latency too much, you'll get crackles and sound dropping in and out. The lowest latency that I can run my DirectX drivers with is about 25 msec, and that does create a noticeable delay when I'm playing. Many (if not most) integrated sound cards don't have ASIO drivers, but there is a free "generic" utility called ASIO4ALL that works really well. You can get it at [link]www.asio4all.com. I hope this helps...good luck! |
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Subject:RE: Usability with an electronic keyboard?
Reply by: cwaters
Date:1/16/2008 9:07:23 AM
Thanks very much, Patrick! >>You should definitely be able to use your Yamaha keyboard as a MIDI input device - which means you can record your playing as a MIDI stream. FYI, recording MIDI means all that is being recorded is your key strokes, their velocities, and controller changes - it's not recording the audio at all. >>You can probably use the keyboard as a MIDI output device too, which would mean that you can play back your MIDI sequence with ACID and have it routed back to your keyboard, which would then produce the sound. The above recording (and possible playback) would be through the USB-to-USB connector--is that correct? Pardon my ignorance. What is the advantage of recording the actual audio from my keyboard--as opposed to just the MIDI output from it? >>One thing you will most certainly need is an ASIO driver. If you use the default DirectX drivers, you'll find significant delays between hitting your keys and hearing the notes; this is called latency... What is an ASIO driver? Would this be required for recording MIDI output from the keyboard, for recording the actual audio from the keyboard, for both, or for something else? |
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Subject:RE: Usability with an electronic keyboard?
Reply by: DKeenum
Date:1/16/2008 10:15:38 AM
Check the owner's manual for your keyboard to give you the specifics about your usb connection. Most keyboards transmit midi over the usb. The reason you would record audio would be because the keyboard sounds better than the soft synths you have. |
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Subject:RE: Usability with an electronic keyboard?
Reply by: cwaters
Date:1/16/2008 12:55:28 PM
Thanks, DKeenum. Yes, my keyboard can transmit MIDI over the USB connection. To use any music composition software, I figured I would need a USB-to-USB connection, at the least. On the various pages on the product's web site, however, I've seen no references to a USB cable. The Introduction page (http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/products/product.asp?pid=443) states: "Easy Live Recording Record vocals, guitars, keyboards, and other instruments with ACID Music Studio software. It's easy - simply plug your microphone or instrument into your PC sound card and click Record to capture audio and MIDI." Why is there no mention of a USB connection? Even the MIDI page (http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/products/product.asp?PID=443&PageID=66) doesn't mention what is required to connect a MIDI device like my music keyboard. |
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Subject:RE: Usability with an electronic keyboard?
Reply by: Chienworks
Date:1/16/2008 6:10:57 PM
That's probably because SONY doesn't know what sort of MIDI input you have in your computer. Up until recently MIDI was almost always a DIN connector. ACID doesn't really care. Whatever hardware you have for MIDI will include drivers that let ACID connect to it. |
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Subject:RE: Usability with an electronic keyboard?
Reply by: JohnnyRoy
Date:1/17/2008 3:41:24 PM
> "Easy Live Recording Record vocals, guitars, keyboards, and other instruments with ACID Music Studio software. It's easy - simply plug your microphone or instrument into your PC sound card and click Record to capture audio and MIDI." MIDI will flow between your keyboard and PC via the USB cable. Audio will only flow over an audio cable connected between the audio out of your keyboard and the Line-In of your PC's sound chip. Microphones can be plugged into the Mic-In of your PC's sound chip. If you want the sounds from your keyboard to appear in a wave file on your PC you must record the audio at some point. ~jr |
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Subject:RE: Usability with an electronic keyboard?
Reply by: cwaters
Date:1/18/2008 8:27:40 AM
Thanks for the helpful information, Chienworks and JohnnyRoy. |
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Subject:RE: Usability with an electronic keyboard?
Reply by: Patrick@Denman
Date:1/18/2008 10:10:44 AM
Sorry it took a few days to get back to the forum. In response to your questions: What is the advantage of recording the actual audio from my keyboard--as opposed to just the MIDI output from it? No advantage at all - I just thought that was something you were trying to do. But recording MIDI means that in order to play the music in ACID, you'll have to assign the MIDI track to a software synthesizer to generate the sound. What is an ASIO driver? Would this be required for recording MIDI output from the keyboard, for recording the actual audio from the keyboard, for both, or for something else? You can find a definition of ASIO at [link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_stream_input_output. Basically, if you don't use ASIO, when you're playing your keyboard and listening to the music on your computer (i.e. not the sound coming from your keyboard), you'll notice a distinct delay between the time you strike a key and the generated sound. If you're a really good player, this will be totally annoying. On the other hand, ASIO has a restriction that it needs exclusive access to your sound card, and once it's running and has that access, you won't hear any audio from any other applications on your machine, until you close ACID. This is a bit of a pain, but it's the only real way to play a keyboard live through your computer. And as I methoned, the ASIO driver you'll probably need is at [link]www.asio4all.com. If, however, you just need to record a sequence and you're not concerned with hearing the rendered sound on your PC at the same time, you can just use the keyboard's audio while you record. It all depends on what works for you. Hope that clarifies things a bit... |