Roland DS88 and computer

[RHoward]

New guy and brand new to keyboards. As I get going on this I eventually will want to add a computer for music editing and file storage. I have a decent laptop running Win 7. It is a 64 megabyte system. Lots of RAM and moderately large HD. I assume this should work?

Also was considering using an iPad instead. Would an iPad with 128 gig memory storage work for doing this?

Thanks

 

[Fellwalker]

The Roland DS61 I have works fine with my laptop ( which is no great shakes ) and a free copy of Cakewalk by Bandlab for mostly midi and some audio recording, The DS61 has midi and audio over usb so you don't need a USB interface for windows use, but if want to recorded into an Ipad you need to change the driver settings and you possible would need a usb interface to recorded audio into an Ipad,

So my advice download a free copy of Cakewalk or any demo of a DAW and try your laptop out first, plus you will need to download and install Rolands Midi driver ,

Good luck and all the best, Brian

 

[Biggles]

Welcome.

Do you have are keyboard at present?

If so can you say what it is or what you are considering?

Regarding your Laptop, Windows 7 is now an old OS and support for it ceases in January 2020 so you may wish to think about buying another at some stage. It may also only be a 32 bit OS system and so you may have issues with modern software.. You say it has 64Mb RAM but this is very small when most laptops today have between 2Gb and 16Gb RAM, rule of thumb is 2Gb RAM for every core of the CPU and then double the RAM for photo and video editing.

Can you confirm the spec of your Laptop?

 

[RHoward]

I misspoke. I meant to say my laptop has a 64 bit OS system. I am not sure it will run Win10 but I think it will since Win10 was once distributed for free as an upgrade to Win7.

Laptop is a Toshiba Satellite L655D with a 15.5 inch screen. It won't boot so I cannot view the computer system for other details. I don't know why it stopped booting. Everything was rosy but then one day all I got was the black screen.

I bought a Roland Juno DS88 as it had lots of good reviews and some high end features used on more expensive keyboards. My local Guitar Center had it running as an in-store sale item for $799.00 brand new. Traded in a Roland Micro bass amp as part of the deal and that got it down to $499.00. I haven't played it much so far so no opinion yet. I lucked out and met the regional sales rep for Casio at GC. He knew everything about the Roland DS88 so I asked to get a lesson or two to help me with a better understanding of all the features.

 

[Biggles]

Great choice of keyboard.

Just in case you are unaware but Roland have a Youtube website by their Product Support team that have a whole mass of tutorial videos on the Juno DS. Only downside of the videos is that they are not in sequential order but in features order.

Good luck getting the Laptop working.

My Win 8 laptop falls over when trying to upgrade to Win 10 so I gave up, had it for years so it has served my well.