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I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself here, but I'm looking for a solution to a problem that I anticipate having soon.

As I await the arrival of my PX-850 on Wed, I've been eyeing the program "Home Concert Xtreme" for my iPad and considering buying a copy to help me learn new songs and to evaluate my playing. It looks like a really promising program.

One thing that I think would be fun would be to play songs with some backing tracks, but I'm realizing that my previous focus on "I want it to be as piano like as possible" how now closed this door somewhat since the PX-850 has few instrument samples.

I think my solution might lie in hooking a few different programs together... I'm thinking:

1) PX-850 USB Core MIDI connection to iPad
2) HCX configured to accept input from the PX-850 directly
3) JACK with MIDI output of HCX routed to a software synth, external speakers hooked to iPad (do any of these exist for the iPad? Even if they're not great?)

OK... so, assuming I can find a full sample set software synth -- that gets me so-so sound, but it'd be even better if the synth in step 3 could be configured to pass any piano sounds back out to the PX-850 to be played by its speakers, meaning that the software synth would play everything except for the piano sounds.

Any new on whether iOS 7 will make this any better with their promised inter-app audio control?


Another option I'm considering...

For now, just use PianoBooster on Linux... it's "so-so"... use Fluidity as the software synth (again, so-so), and (if possible) configure it to pass any piano parts back to the PX-850. Any advice on this option? Unfortunately, I don't have a working laptop at the moment and don't want to invest in one just yet. I don't think my netbook has the power necessary for this option.

Now... Assuming I was willing to spend some more money... what other options? Hardware synths? Can they be configured to handle the passthrough of the piano? Also, the PX-850 doesn't have real MIDI ports, so it kind of has to connect directly to a computer (I assume -- maybe synths have USB host mode?) Also, the PX-850 doesn't have a line-in, so I can't feed the synth back through the PX-850's speakers... meaning either everything through the external speakers or have two sets of speakers...

Any advice would be appreciated!

Perhaps I'll just stick to just piano/organ/etc songs that the PX-850 has samples for. :-)

I may have just answered my own question by reading the manual for HCX, which I found on their website.

It looks like HCX has a GM synth built in. Maybe not the best, but good enough? It looks like you can choose A or B outputs for each channel of the MIDI file, so I can choose which channels go back to the PX-850 and which ones go to the GM implementation included with HCX. Also, it looks like I can set it by default to just play everything with the internal GM implementation and have the piano just play its own sound w/o making the round trip (though, I can't find any settings on the piano to tell whether it should play the notes it is sending or not...)

Am I getting closer? Am I correct so far?

Figured it out. I bought the 99¢ demo version with one song just to make sure it works. It works great. Plugged it in and everything worked right out of the box. By default all sounds play out of the iPad and I can choose per channel which ones play through my piano. Works perfectly. Headphones are a problem for night practice due to two sources, but I wear a small set of earbuds that don't isolate much for the iPad sounds and full studio earphones over the top for the piano sounds.

I've often wondered if I should get Home Concert Xtreme. I have Synthesia, but HCX seems to offer more possibilities. Some users warn you about putting too much emphasis on learning software, and recommend teachers of flesh and blood, though it costs more.

Hope it works out well for you.

I'll have to check out Synthesia, but I think HCX is a closer match for what I want.

So far I've been drawing to the tutor programs useful for a few things...

1) Improving my sight reading speed... being able to recognize notes quickly makes it a LOT easier to learn new songs

2) Having a backing track while playing a song, making them more interesting.

I would consider lessons, but for me it's more schedule than cost that prevents me. I had lessons for about 5 years as a child, so hopefully my teacher's lessons are still rattling around in my head somewhere. :-)