help needed: really basic midi setup questions

[xiaoken]

Can I get some help here? I want to put together a setup to make some music thru midi. Ultimately, I want my end product to be an audio cd

What I have now is a yamaha p60 keyboard which I think I can use as a master keyboard. But it has little to none sounds, so I think I'll need something else. Any reccomendations?

How do I hook up my computer to the keyboard and sounds if I want to use a software based sequencer? eg. cubase

I'm currently using the generic onboard soundcard for sound. Do I need to buy a soundcard?

Do I need a mixer?

I'm really confused about the myriad of options here.

 

[LfO]

Read up at Tweakheadz.com for general info.

A few specific answers, though:

Unless, the P60 is REALLY cheap, its got MIDI in/out - if not, you need a controller that does.

You need some kind of MIDI port on your computer - this can be the game/MIDI port (looks like a serial port) on some SoundBlaster cards (in which case you'll have to get a specialized MIDI-game port cable), or regular MIDI in/outs.

If you do have to get a new controller, you might find one that transmits MIDI data through a USB or Firewire connection - if so, you won't need the standard MIDI port.

You're best bet for sound sources are softsynths (software synthesizers) - there are many nice ones for sale, and there are many nice and not-so-nice ones for free (play around on kvraudio.com - they have a searchable database). If you go this route, there's no immediate need for a mixer.