hi
I want to record to computer with amidi to usb cable
but when I connect the connections and play nothing happened
I have a silent yamaha with midi out
second question
is there any difference in quality between midi cable and recording through speaker jack to microphone of computer
thank you

But midi does not carry notes, or music. It just sends messages about which notes a midi instrument (such as your keyboard or digital piano)should play. You can use midi to computer to save or load midi files of music, for example Or to record sequences of music - but not the actual notes themselves. To record, you need to plug the audio output of your piano into the audio input of your computer, or have extra recording hardware, some of which does now work through USB

dear toddy
sorry I dont uderstand. you mean midi out of my piano is not for recording of music from piano to my laptop?

Correct.

MIDI OUT sends data, i.e. a record of which keys were struck, how hard, for how long. By taking that MIDI data and sending it to a MIDI instrument (whether a keyboard or a software instrument), you can turn that MIDI data into music. If you send the MIDI data to a digital piano (or piano software), it will sound like a piano. If you send it to an organ, it will sound like an organ. MIDI contains no audio, only a set of instructions, to be interpreted elsewhere, with any sound you'd like.

To record audio from your keyboard, you need to use its AUDIO OUT. One reason you might use the MIDI OUT would be if you wanted to use your keyboard to play some other piano sound rather than hearing the piano sound that's built into your Yamaha. And then you could record audio from whatever it is that you send the MIDI data to, by recording THAT piano's audio signal.

hi
you mean when I connect midi out to a laptop and open midi software
and play piano. then what happens? something happens in softwre to record or save?or nothing
what is the best midi software?

You can also record audio and midi simultaneously. I do this in Reaper all the time. You can then send the midi back to your piano and re-record the audio. For example, I might take a midi track, record the audio playback 2 or 3 times (to different tracks) with slightly different piano settings and/or other sounds, and then bland them together. You can also use the recorded MIDI for virtual instruments.

drazh,

There's audio and there's MIDI. A simple analogy is a player piano (those old mechanical pianos that could play pieces automatically using rolls). Audio is the sound that comes out of your piano when you play it. MIDI is like the rolls on a player piano.

When you record MIDI, you're creating a new "roll" for a piece to be played later by some MIDI device or instrument. So MIDI doesn't contain any sound. But when you start your new MIDI file later, a computer or a digital MIDI piano can reproduce/replay your piece. For that, a computer would use its internal sound card, etc.

You can also record both at the same time - the sound of your piano and the MIDI. Then you can listen to your audio performance and also use the "roll" (MIDI file) on a computer, synthesizer, digital piano, etc. Hopes this helps.

Totally agree with everything that's been said.

Would like to expand on one thing though.

If you connect your Yamaha to your PC via midi (USB or by a midi interface using the five pin din leads), you should be able to record yourself playing, this as others have said will record the midi data and not the actual audio. But when you playback the midi data, it should playback on your Yamaha, exactly what you recorded.

In other words, if you want to record your playing and have the PC play back through your Yamaha, what you recorded, it should work fine. However you won't have actual audio on your PC that you can say burn to cd etc. You will have a midi file.

You need to make sure that your midi software recognises your Yamaha, somewhere there will be an option to select the midi input and output devices and these should both be set to your Yamaha (obviously having your Yamaha connected and turned on before starting the midi software).

When this is setup you will hear what your playing echoed back causing a weird effect as when you press a note on your Yamaha, you will be hearing it locally as you normally would,, but your midi software is also playing the note again at the same time (well a micro second later).

Then what you need to do is find the setting on your Yamaha keyboards midi settings called something like "local off". This will mean that nothing you play on the keyboard gets sent to the audio outs of the keyboard, the only things that will get sent to the audio outs are what the Yamaha receives via midi.

So you press a note, it gets transmitted through the midi out of the Yamaha to the midi in of the midi software on the pc. The midi software then transmits that out of the pc midi out, into the Yamaha midi in, which will make the note sound.

You will then only have the one note sounding and no longer have the weird effect caused by the same note being played twice.

The more I write the more complicated it is sounding, but it really is very easy.

One other thing, if you are doing this to see exactly how your playing sounds, make sure your midi softwares quantize is turned off.

Hope that helps, but reading back what I've written, I'm not too sure it will

Best

Joe

thank you for useful information
what midi software do you recommend?

Sorry, I'm not the best person to answer that, there are very good free and cheap programs out there but I have no experience of them, personally I use Cubase but it's not at all cheap to buy.

I'm sure many others on here will be able to recommend something.

about MIDI software: as I didn´t find a thread quickly informing about this, and information later on might be hard to find hidden within this thread, I just posted the answer to a new thread:

free MIDI software for PC

All the best,
Marco.

thank you
what about other more famous software
not necessarily free

Sorry, I can´t help with this because I didn´t check for commercially sold software: after buying my digital piano this summer, I for the moment run out of money for further hobby purchases.
Hoepfully somebody else can comment on this. I too would be curious at least.

If you want a software piano there are lots of threads on these? For example this one.

What type of keyboard do you have?

i have yamaha u3 silent with midi out
and clp 220 yamaha midi in and out

If you run MIDI into your CLP and record its audio the sound will be better than most free virtual pianos. If you go that route you may want to eventually invest in a USB Audio interface. As for other virtual pianos Pianoteq and Ivory are pretty popular.
I would recommend researching DAW's (Digital Audio Workstation). I currently use Reaper, it is free to try and has a pretty good bang for your buck for the license(~$60 USD).