recording from midi keyboard to a digital recorder like boss br900cd or br1600cd

[vkapralos]

hello everybody,

i'm qite new in home recording, i only had sonar and cubase which i used a liitle but i intend to buy a digital recorder (probably roland br900cd or br1600cd). but my decision depends higly on this:

i want to record many parts (piano horns organ etc) using my midi keyboard (evolution mk-361) which of course takes sound from my sound card (soundblaster audigy2ZS). the keyboard has a usb and a midi out connection while the sound card has spdif in and out, optical in and out,aux in, line in and mic in, midi in and midi out, and firewire.

i read the user manual of these recorders devises (esp br900cd for which i'm more interested) but i can't understand if you can record midi with them. it says everthing about recording guitars bass vocals and the drum machine but nothing about midi keyboards connection and how to use it.

can someont inford me, does anybody own these devices, or can you recommend me an appropriate device?

i don't want to spend money for something that it does'n cover my needs to record from my keyboard as well (though i'm a guitarist in fact)

thanks everybody in advance,

waiting for your answers,

vasilis

 

[suprstar]

Those recorders, and every other one I've ever seen or used, only record audio. They don't record midi sequences. They use midi to sync up OTHER midi sequencers so when you hit 'Record', they all start simultaneously.

The Evolution mk-361 IS a sequencer though, so you'll have to program any midi right there on the keyboard. Or you can get a PC or whatever to send midi sequences to the keyboard (it looks like via usb in your case), which is how I'd do it personally.. I like to see the piano roll on the screen, it's way easier to copy/paste/move chunks around with a PC than try to do it on the keyboard.

 

[vkapralos]

thank you very much for your answer...

so it seems that in my case it's better to use again a program like sonar to record both audio and midi parts...in fact i'm not very familiar with all this midi story, in sonar it was much easier,

in fact i don't understand what do you mean with the phrase "so you'll have to program any midi right there on the keyboard. Or you can get a PC or whatever to send midi sequences to the keyboard (it looks like via usb in your case".how can you do this? can you give me an example? and wich programs do you use to to program and send midi sequences to the keyboard? i thought that i just pick the sound i want and play through to the recorder, but you say all the recorders you have seen don't work like this...

thank you very much again anyway, if you have something to add i'm very interested...
and sorry for my poor english, but i'm just a greek guy who loves music...

 

[suprstar]

How exactly you do it is dependent on your keyboard, but the short answer is:

Get your keyboard recording and just play. The keyboard remembers the sequence and timing of the keys you play, and can play back exactly what you played, mistakes and all. You're actually recording the keystrokes and velocities, NOT THE SOUND ITSELF! Midi is like sheet music for computers. That means if you change the voice on your keyboard, you'll hear the new instrument playing your song.

Recording and playing on a keyboard is only one way to record midi. On a PC, you can see a grid called the piano roll, and you can click on the notes at specific places on the timeline. It even looks and acts like player piano scrolls. Your particular keyboard has a USB connection that acts as the midi input.. If you connect your keyboard to the PC, you can play midi files on your PC, the keyboard sees the midi stream, and plays the programmed song for you. Then you run the keyboard's audio outs back into your PC and record the audio.