Controller question

[therage!]

This question is for a friend who’s a newbie who’s going to take the big plunge and get into recording. I’ve got an Alesis synth and really don’t know anything about controllers and soft synth’s etc..

He’s asking me how a controller and software synth will work in the recording environment. Basically how will you record and run the synth simultaneously? I didn’t have an answer for him and my thinking is a soft synth as a plugin? This isn’t my area so forgive the dumb question, lol.

Thanks guys

[lumbago]

I presume your Alesis synth has MIDI capability.

Let's say that you record to hard disk on PC, and you have USB on the PC, you're running Windows 2000 or XP.

You load a sequencer on the PC, say Noteworthy Composer from www.noteworthysoftware.com (cheap and great to use).

You write some notes in the package, and you intend to drive the synth from the sequencer.

If you're on a desktop PC, you can connect a midi cable from the sound card MIDI output to the midi input on the synth. You set the midi output device on the Windows control panel to the PC sound card.

If you're on a laptop you'll need a device like an Edirol USB midi cable (UM-1) www.edirol.com if your laptop PC has no soundcard ins or outs.

When you play your sequence on the sequencer, the notes sound on the synth.

Now, if you run an audio cable from the synth line output to the sound card line input on the PC, you can then record your synth on a recording package such as n-tracks (www.fasoft.com) or similar.

Again, if you have a laptop, you'll need a second USB port, and a device like a Tascam US-122 http://www.tascam.com/product_info.php?pid=253
or an Edirol USB conversion box like a UA-20 or UA-1 or similar (http://www.edirol.com/products/audio.html).

Both the sequencer and the recorder can operate on the PC at the same time.

Another option is to save/export the midi sequence from the sequencer as a midi file, and import this direct to recording package like n-tracks, as a midi track, then drive a soft-synth from this track inside n-tracks.

So there's a cheap way to set yourself up - about $110 for the registered software, and about $230 in midi and audio interfaces if your PC is a laptop with two USB ports.

There may be other options, but I'm simply recommending something that I have in use here which is cheap and quite effective.

[TexRoadkill]

If he wants to use softsynths then yes they work like a plugin that is inserted on a track. Softsynth compatability and availability is one of the things you pay for with the better software packages.

[Riverdog]

- All you need to know is that the physical keyboard on the Alesis is essentially a "separate entity" from the sounds in the unit... You can tell the keys not to play anything if you want...

- From that - each item, ie: The Alesis sounds or the softsynths' sounds are separate "modules" that make sounds... Some of these can play more than one sound at once...

- The only thing left is to get something to record one of the sounds coming from one of the "modules".... Be it a "sequencer" that just records MIDI data - or a multiple track audio recorder or program that records the actual sounds...

- Hit play on this device - and you get multiple sounds playing at the same time...