Another MIDI question

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wakefield

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Hi all,

I have a kawai ES3 which I have recently acquired and I am not entirely a newbie to recording. However, in the past I solely used my schools recording set up. I have my own audio interface (steinberg CI1) which does not have MIDI in's or out's. So my question is, as the ES3 has a midi out, is there a solution where I can go from MIDI from the piano to XLR or 1/4" into the audio interface? I know midi is not an audio signal but rather a sequence of 1's and 0's. I was wondering if said cable existed and whether or not the audio interface would be able to handle a midi signal if it does not have midi inputs and outputs. Or is my best bet just going for a stand alone 1x1 interface like this http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Uno


Thanks

Cooper
 
I am a little confused by your question, but might be able to help. The MIDI must go to a MIDI port. You could record the analog from your keyboard outputs to the interfaces inputs using the keyboards sound, but that would not give you the MIDI information.

Not knowing for sure your setup, the one that I found showed that it has a USB port on it. If so, that would get you the MIDI signal. Just plug that into your computer. You might need drivers (I think standard MIDI on the computer should work) so check Kawai's board just to make sure.

If you do not have a USB, you can get a MIDI to USB converter. But read up on the cable before you do, the success rate has been hit or miss on those things.

Hope this helps.
 
Yes, my backup plan was just to use the USB function to record the MIDI. Just was wondering if the data stream could be picked up through a midi to xlr cable and processed by the audio interface or not. evidently not.

Thanks for your help.
 
Hi Cooper,
if it is a desktop PC and you have a spare PCI slot I strongly suggest you look for a soundcard with MIDI. Best bet would be an M-Audio 2496 IMHO as I know it will work in Win7/64 (can't help with hated 8!) but there are a few other PCI and PCIe cards still around.

You probably won't be able to use the audio side of the card with the C11* but it will come up as MIDI I/O. Latency will also be about as low as you will get unless you pay for RME!

Yes, I too have read horror stories about some of those inline MIDI cable interfaces.

*Ironic innit? The very people that practically invented the MIDI DAW don't fit ports on at least two of their interfaces!!!

Dave.
 
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