Hooking up your keyboard to a PC (Recording)

[evergreenthompson]

Just a follow up to what Mourndark said... When buying your 3.5mm / 1/8" audio cable buy it from RadioShack, etc.

Stay away from Target, Wal-Mart, CircuitCity, Best Buy, etc. unless you have no other choice. These guys will charge you $18+ for the cable! Yes, that is the price I found at all four stores just last week. You have iPodMania to thank for the obscene price.

I found mine at RadioShack for about $7. Still overpriced, but that might be the best you can do, and better than 2-3x the price of the other stores!

 

[airyfairie]

Got it at Radio Shack yesterday! Thanks for the info. Hooking up today! I'll let you know how it goes. Enjoy your day.

 

[evergreenthompson]

Good deal. Waiting to hear how it works for you.

I'm having some hum issues with my setup, so I may have to break down and buy an external USB/Firewire soundbox to get rid of the noise.

 

[airyfairie]

Hi. Sorry to be away so long. I'm now able to get the sound from my keyboard to come out of the computer speakers. I still need to see how to record to a blank cd. I'm a little confused though upon reading the instruction book. I still don't see how to do it without having to use their song memory which can only hold so many notes on each of the five storage buttons. Does what I'm saying even make any sense? And each storage button records only so much which means I'd have to stop playing and switch to another memory storage button.

 

[kanthos]

Get Audacity, and use it to record the audio coming into your computer from your keyboard. Save each song as a WAV file, and burn those to an CD, making it an audio CD. If you'd rather not have an audio CD but want to give the tracks, save them as MP3s in Audacity instead.

 

[airyfairie]

thanks, i'll give it a try.

 

[Possum]

Good thread and something that I have been wondering for a long time.

My issue is that my laptop does not have a LINE IN.

It has 2 inputs....

One is red with a pic of a microphone next to it.
The other is black with a pic of headphones next to it.

Would I be right to go from my keyboard straight into the microphone input on my keyboard or will that not work?

Also, what is a good FREE music program to download?
I have heard REAPER is pretty good?
Any thoughts?

 

[Possum]

And lastly, I am using Windows Vista and there is no Sound and Devices.

I have SOUND. When I double click on that I get 3 tabs: PLAYBACK, RECORDING and SOUNDS.

I have clicked on RECORDING (microphone) but cant find anything about a tick next to LINE IN or anything?

 

[Skipp]

Good thread and something that I have been wondering for a long time.

My issue is that my laptop does not have a LINE IN.

It has 2 inputs....

One is red with a pic of a microphone next to it.
The other is black with a pic of headphones next to it.

Would I be right to go from my keyboard straight into the microphone input on my keyboard or will that not work?

Also, what is a good FREE music program to download?
I have heard REAPER is pretty good?
Any thoughts?

You can use your mic input (the pink/red one) but in most cases you'll only get mono recording.

When it comes to Vista it's basically the same thing except a bit different interface. "Sound" is the right place to go.

Oh, and Reaper is just fine.

 

[Possum]

Cheers...
Finally, what do you do for the vocals?
I imagine you just hook the mic up through the same input channel, but how do you get rid of the inevitable background noise?

Most mic leads are too big for the input on the laptop?

 

[Skipp]

this kind of recording is for home purposes only... if you want to make a decent
recording you will need a good PC and a very good sound card.

 

[kanthos]

It has 2 inputs....

One is red with a pic of a microphone next to it.
The other is black with a pic of headphones next to it.

Just so you're not confused, the black one is an *output*. It is a female output (female means it's a hole, male means it's a pin - the headphones themselves are male), but it's an output because data is going from the computer *out* through that port and into headphones or speakers.

 

[Neomax]

A good place to start with recording software is Audacity. It's simple to use, but has lots of features for when you want to get more advanced....

...To connect things up, you'll need an "3.5mm jack-to-jack lead" (long enough to reach from the "phones/output" socket on your keyboard to the audio input on your computer) and a "3.5mm to 1/4" jack adapter". Ask at your local hi-fi or electronics shop (Radio Shack, Maplin or equivalent).

Plug the lead into the adapter, then the adapter into the keyboard. Plug the other end of the lead into the line-in socket on the back of your computer (usually blue) or if there isn't one, into the mic socket (usually pink). Have a look back through this thread for more information on actually recording things.

Mourndark...

my situation...

I have USB cable to connect to my laptop... I did read this thread yday before i tried out Audacity hoping there might be something in it for USB cable recording... I was not able to do that cos the inputs cannot be set to "digital keyboard" ( thats how Cakewalk identifies my keyboard )...

my questions
a. Is it possible to use Audacity with USB cables and not the line in / mic inputs??? Dont have them in my laptop.
b. Is it possible to use VST plugins or others in Cakewalk Home Studio 2004 with which I can record music "as-it-is" (with the high quality sounds of my Yamaha arranger ) to my lappy?

footnote....
Tried Cubase 4.1.1 yday... Either its totally bugged or its incompatible with Vista...

System
Dell 1.66 core2duo, 2GB RAM, 120 GB HDD, GeForce 8600M GT(vista wont eat up my RAM for graphics )

Gear
Yamaha PSR S550B, Hohner Blues Harp MS ( not very related to this but its a part of my gear )

 

[kanthos]

The USB cable probably just sends MIDI data and possibly other control data, but not audio. You'll have to buy an audio interface to record the audio.

I don't know if the Cakewalk software supports plugins of any kind (probably), but check that out for sure. If you want to use your keyboard as a MIDI controller (which is what you've been doing already) and have it control plugins, you'll need a decent host.

 

[Neomax]

Thanks Kanthos...

I am mining for something... have some doubts and will get back to you soon...

 

[Neomax]

The USB cable probably just sends MIDI data and possibly other control data, but not audio. You'll have to buy an audio interface to record the audio....

Okies Kanthos...

Next question... So I guess there will be USB / Firewire audio interfaces (sound cards) available in the market... which do you think is an value for money purchase??? I use a laptop which have both these ports... and I if this doesnt workout, then I will have to get my desktop which is a bit rusty ( AMD 3200+ , 1 GB Ram, 80 GB HDD, GeForce 6200 ).

 

[Minorkey]

Yea i recorded my songs like that years ago,and hope to get started again soon. I'm sure I used to plug into the mic input tho,cant remember,was so long ago. I also had a small mixer which I fed the two keybaords into(I only have one keyboard now and no mixer)
Now if I want to do similar with the laptop I would have to use the mic input as thats all it has!
(We do also have a PC but its currently uunder maintenance)

 

[genesisfan]

Macintosh

I have a Mac Pro Tower OS 10.4.11
Any suggestions on connecting my synth or a controller?
I could go to the nearest Apple Store but thought i'd try this forum first
Thanks!

 

[donny]

Hi, Guys
My PC is a different room than all of my keyboards so I don't really use it for recording.
I might be getting a new laptop though because mine just totally crapped out on me.
Do you know if you can record stereo using that single input jack, or is it just mono?

 

[kanthos]

The microphone jack? It'll be mono, and not particularly good either.