Hi,

Firstly I would like to say hello to everyone on the forum, thanks for running such a site and hopefully someone may be able to help me with my specific questions – so thanks again in advance for the info. I apologise if this is the wrong type of forum for the questions i have, but after trawling the internet, and a recommendation from another forum, you guys seem to be very knowledgable.

As the title says, I am currently designing/modifying a MIDI Keyboard into a “folding” slim line 4 octave travel keyboard that I can take away with me in a suitcase to practice learning the piano/sight reading.

The IMPORTANT thing for me when I am away with work is to have the “feel” of a piano (i.e. full size keys, weighted touch/ portable) and I have the perfect midi keyboard as a donor, however it’s OLD and doesn’t produce any sound.

My question to you guys is, is there a simple solution to connecting this midi keyboard to my laptop and generating a sound from it through my laptop speakers in real time? The ports available are 1x MIDI Out, 1x Joystick and 1x MPC port (I haven’t a clue what an MPC port is).

The quality of sound isn’t important, I also understand electronics fairly well, so making my own leads incorporating MIDI/USB with a midi interface (eg Edirol UM1SX) isn’t really a problem – I just don’t know how to connect this keyboard to a laptop/ software/ and leads to do it.

If this isn’t possible, then I have a plan B! Which I know I can execute! But it involves putting my own electronics into this Midi Keyboard with a speaker etc and then it gets a little messy and complicated, and I start to lose the portable element.

Many thanks for your help and advice

Hope you find this an interesting thread; I will keep you updated on the progress

Tom

Welcome to pianoworld.

Re: your question, check out: www.pianoteq.com


Re: your project to build a folding keyboard: please keep us up to date.

Hi Tom,
Sounds great! Pianoteq, mentioned above, is one of several great-sounding computer-based piano instruments. That's great once you get your midi signal from your keyboard into your computer. I believe your question may be directed toward how to do do that.

Yes, you need a a USB-based midi interface for your laptop, like the edirol product you mentioned.

I'm interested to see your folding keyboard ideas.

Cheers.

Hi Tom,

Welcome to the forums.

Let's break it down in detail:
1. You need a way to go from MIDI to your computer (most likely USB or Firewire). Most MIDI interfaces are USB unless they also have an audio interface.

2. You need software on your computer to act as a DAW (digital audio workstation).

3. You need a set of software samples or modeled instrument to create the sounds you want. This will likely be in VSTi format for a PC (Mac uses other formats as well), or possibly as a sound font.

4. You need a way to play this back or render it into audio format. This is generally an audio interface or sound card. This is where it gets tricky as most of the latency occurs between the software and the audio interface. Having a good audio interface increases the quality of the sound and minimizes the latency, you want to look for a device that supports ASIO drivers.

Now as to which platform you are using:

Mac already comes with everything you should need except for the MIDI interface.

A PC laptop will generally not have a great soundcard. ASIO4ALL is a generic ASIO driver that can sometimes improve the latency.

You also want to have your samples on a fast hard drive.

For PC tips, check out the site http://www.pianoclues.com for some tips on how to set this up and record both digital an acoustic pianos. Someone else would have to chime in with tips for Mac, as I have not worked with Macs.

I use a Firebox for both MIDI and audio interfaces.

For a DAW,, there are plenty of programs out there. I use Reaper from http://www.reaper.fm .

For software pianos, there are a ton of them. I just picked up Alicia's Keys from Native Instruments http://www.native-instruments.com . It's currently my favorite and it's only about $100.

One program to make sure you download is MIDI-OX. This program will let you view the MIDI messages so you can debug your keyboard and make sure you have everything connected right.

Rich