Hi,

Any musicians in here?
I am considering buying a MIDI Keyboard controller from Roland
http://www.edirol.com/products/info/pc70.html
but am not sure if it’s gonna be compatible (if yes, what’s the quality) with our tiny/super/cute machines.

Anybody tried hooking your TR with a musical instrument?

Note: Connection MIDI to USB (http://www.music123.com/Yamaha-UX16-MIDI-USB-Converter-i51242.music)

I can’t believe we don’t have any musician here ... come on guys/gals let me hear you.  :mrgreen:

Sorry, no musical or artistic tallent in any way.

Erik

That’s OK ... it’s just that there’s this keyboard that I really like but I don’t know if our TR will work adequately with it.

Looks good to me {I have no idea what i am looking at}.

Erik

Don’t worry about it ... thanks anyways ... 

Hiya,

Sorry for the late reply.

For the keyboard to work correctly you will need a USB interface on the keyboard or an external MIDI card for the TR. I’m not sure whether the keyboard you refer to has USB or not. The TR does not have a built in MIDI port, so you would need to buy an external MIDI card (not expensive)

Then the next thing you need are some decent sounds!! MIDI controller keyboards are simply trigger devices that play the internal sounds in your TR (poor quality) or drive an external module.

If you plan to do any hard disk recording then you may need to invest in a USB audio / midi card such as those form Tascam or M-Audio -they can range for £99 to over £500.

All the recordings on the link below were created on my TR using a Tascam US-122 Audio / midi card, and Sonar 3 producer edition software, which proves that teh TR is a formidable device - I’ve even had compositions of up to 50 audio tracks with no problems!!

Hope that helps you a bit..

Really helpful Wadham ... thanks ... ohhh awesome sounds ...

Thanks!

We’re releasing our ep this weekend - the tracks you hear on the website were early mixes, and we should be putting snippets of the new ones online shortly.

I even mixed some of it in the car on the TR!

I love this machine!!!

Hope your EP release goes well ... the songs/tunes are really good (listening right now).

Here is the Keboard that I wanted to buy:
http://www.edirol.com/products/info/pc70.html

And the connection from MIDI to USB http://www.music123.com/Yamaha-UX16-MIDI-USB-Converter-i51242.music

Again thanks

Is there any way you can stretch your budget to the PCR 50?

One of the benefits of a USB keyboard is that more often than not they are powered by the USB port too, so you don’t need a seperate power adapter..

That way you get the USB connection and don’t have to shell out 50 notes on the Midi Adapter….

Don’t forget you still need a sound module - I’ve been using a Roland JV 1080 for years, with a few expansion cards, together with software synths such as Propellerhead’s Reason. All the drum tracks on the Ep were programmed with Reason - it was just too much hassle to mic up our full kit!

Good luck, and if you like our music I’d be delighted if you could post a message on our discussion board!

[quote author=“Wadham”]
Good luck, and if you like our music I’d be delighted if you could post a message on our discussion board!

I’d be hapy to do so ... and thanks for the tip

  aloha! i just bought my tr for music and it rolls i have a usb midi keyboard and works great even the basic sound of the tr is enough for live acts.
i just want to recomend u the EVOLUTION© mk-425c for it. One octave? but really smooth and without decadence….. also has lots of programable buttons for nice sinths u can use…..
HAVE FUN!!

my nu tune is in  
im eCOMMONdUDE© and the tune its kind of a strange funk.

Nice one, I use an Evolution MK 149 at home and can’t fault it. Was trying to remember the name for TR3MaNiaK. Evolution!!!

Thanks you guys ... now I’m confident to buy one (don’t know which one yet but at least now I know that our TR will be able handle it) ... 

Hmm.. Well it depends which musical direction you are headed. You can buy software reasonable cheaply that enables you to mix samples together on a number of tracks which you don’t need an external keyboard for. I cant remember what they are called, though I had one years ago called music maker from a company called Magix, and it was great. you can buy sample cd’s or download snippets from the net and then paste ‘em together to create your own tunes. I’m suggesting this because you mention that you are not a musician - if you start this way the emphasis is on fun rather than learning what all those black and white notes are for!

If you like that then you may want to go a step further and start using Midi to trigger external sound sources or you may wish to work solely with audio files.

You can buy products such as Cubasis and Cakewalk home studio if you just fancy a dabble, and they won’t cost you much money.

Whilst I have a midi keyboard and external synths I record the sounds directly into the TR by playing live, that means I don’t have to haul a load of gear around if i want to play songs to people out of the studio.