Hooking Yamaha Keyboard Up To PC

Stephen P

Hope this is the correct forum for this query.

I bought a Yamaha PSR-175 keyboard today. It has midi in/out connectors on it. I want to hook it up to my PC's soundcard, I have Audigy 2 Platinum with the front bay for adding devices.

The question is what midi cable do I need to hook the keyboard up the PC? By the looks of things the connectors on the Audigy 2 are smaller than those on the keyboard. If its not possible to hook both devices this way then what are my alternatives to hook keyboard to PC?

Thanks in advance!!

Lawnkiller

you have an ideal setup there already. I hooked my psr-170 (not as good) to my old SB Live! last year. I used the midi interface on the sound card itself to connect to. I got a cable with midi in/midi out on one end for the keyboard and a midi interface on the other end. Got it in the local music shop here in Waterford (was about €15 if I remember correctly). One it was hooked up, I could test it by using the included midi test software with the soundcard.
midi cable looked like this

Stephen P

Thanks for the help there. I have the cable that goes into the soundcard I just have to fix it into the PC. Once I get that in and get the cable and hook it all up will I be able to hear the keyboard through the speakers or do I have to configure it someway?

Lawnkiller

not really. default config will give you the midi sounds from your sound card controlled by the keyboard.

what you can do (and this is quite cool) is use the midi to control software that gives you different sounds from software synths. things like cubase provide vst instruments which emulate different instruments and samplers.

Stephen P

I got the cable that lawnkiller recommended to get and I have the keyboard hooked up now. What programme is best to use the keyboard with? I'm kinda new to this MIDI stuff so I'm not sure what I should be doing.

Cheers!

gillenk

i have an old program. it's called cubasis. there's newer models out by this stage. there's another program i had called cool edit which is pretty good aswell

karma police

I used to use a free prog called Anvil Studio - http://www.anvilstudio.com/
but have now moved on to Fruity Loops due to it just allowing me to do more than midi. Anvil Studio was good enough for me to record all the midi for my first album anyway.

mordeith

I use Fruity Loops and Reason (a version which shipped with my M-Audio keyboard). As another poster already stated, probably the best thing is being able to play vst instruments on your keyboard. There's loads of free ones out there and you get great control over what sounds you generate. (Of course I usually go and lash on a load of FX afterwards )

Stephen P

Thanks for the replies!!

mordeith wrote:

As another poster already stated, probably the best thing is being able to play vst instruments on your keyboard. There's loads of free ones out there and you get great control over what sounds you generate. (Of course I usually go and lash on a load of FX afterwards )

Do you play vst instruments through the programs mentioned in the other posts (cubasis, fruity loops etc...) or what do you use to play them?

mordeith

Yes you need a host program to utilise the vst instruments. You can download a demo of Fruity Loops but it doesn't let you save your work but you can get an idea of what you can do. (I don't have the address to hand but a quick google should get you sorted )