Midi set up help (moved this from another part of the site)

[clntgn]

Hello everyone, I'm in no way a professional yet, but I'd like to eventually have a decent studio set up at my house for myself. I moved this from the midi help portion of the site because I figured in this sense I don't know much about what's going on so I'm definitely still a newbie.

I don't use midi often, but I figure it'd probably be better to use it for keyboard tracks and drum tracks. Most of my equipment is stuff my uncle gave me because he wasn't using it anymore, so there's quite a bit of mismatch in what I have and a lot of it is outdated.

Here's what I'm working with right now:
Midi controller (casio cz-230s)
Synth module (roland m-gs64)
boss gs-10 (has midi in and out on the back and then a usb that goes to the computer)
Powermac g4 dual processor (don't laugh. I got it for pretty cheap, and it's working alright for me so far).
Digital Performer 5


That's what I've got in the way of midi stuff. I have three midi cables, I don't think I'll need anymore. I also have a microkorg that I want to get hooked up to this too eventually.

The boss gs10 is what I'm using as an audio interface. It's mostly intended for guitars (its an effects processor), but its also supposed to work as a midi interface. I can set midi TX, RX, and ID, and I think something about notes, but I don't remember at the moment. The way I'm supposed to transmit the data to it is something that says "midi bulk load" and then under that it says "waiting...". It's supposed to change to receiving, but I don't know how to get it to work with my software. The mac will recognize the gs-10 as a midi device though. What I do from there, I don't know.

NOTE: I do NOT have a lot of money, and probably can't spend more than about $20 right now. I'm planning on joining the air force in june to hopefully make enough money for better equipment though. As of right now, I'd just like to get this set up and working. Any help you can give me would be much appreciated.

 

[bozmillar]

Good news is that you don't have to spend any money. If you plug the midi out of your keyboard into the midi in of your gs-10, that's all you need to transmit midi data to the computer.

Try loading a new midi track in digital performer and set the input of the track to the gs-10's midi port with channel select set to "omni." The terms may be different in DP than other software but the idea should be the same.

then hit record and play a couple notes on yoru keyboard. You won't hear any sound, but it sould record little blocks that represent the notes you played on your keyboard. Get there first, then let us know and we can show you how to get actual music from it.

 

[clntgn]

Thank you! That worked (sort of). DP doesn't let you set inputs for midi tracks (as far as I know), but it lets you set outputs. At first I was confused, but I had to make a new icon inside of the mac's audio midi setup for a keyboard and then connect it to the gs-10s icon.

I pressed record, and I got the bars to show up, which I guess means the midi data is being transmitted, but now I need the sound too and to figure out how to sync up the patches on my synth module with DP.