What Cables do I need?

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Pengu1n

New member
So after some intense research, I've been finally getting a grasp on what type of studio I can make within my budget. But, one big uncertainty remains. I realized I don't have a good grasp on all of the cables I need... To start, I think I've settled on an AI in the PreSonus Fire Studio FireWire Audio Interface.

So for a quick background, all I really use right now is a MIDI keyboard, and an acoustic - electric guitar. But hey, wait, is my keyboard even MIDI? I plug it in with something that looks like a USB, and then it connects straight to USB on my computer. But when I looked at the PreSonus, there was nothing that looked anything like this, but instead the MIDI section looks kinda like a VGA cable... and on every other AI I saw, the MIDI was circular.

Sooo... what the hell is a MIDI cable then anyway? I understand MIDI is a type of system that transports data of what note is pressed when, but I thought it was just one cable...

But my main question is, what cables do I need to hook up this stuff to a PreSonus (or other recommended interface)
- Yamaha YPG-635 piano
- LTD Acoustic - Electric Guitar
- Condensor Microphone (Will likely be a Studio Projects B1 Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphone)
- MIDI Controller (likely an Akai MPD18 Compact Pad Controller)
- And lastly but most important, AI to Computer (Does that even come with the PreSonus?)

Thank you very much.
 
Pengu1n said:
So after some intense research, I've been finally getting a grasp on what type of studio I can make within my budget. But, one big uncertainty remains. I realized I don't have a good grasp on all of the cables I need... To start, I think I've settled on an AI in the PreSonus Fire Studio FireWire Audio Interface.

So for a quick background, all I really use right now is a MIDI keyboard, and an acoustic - electric guitar. But hey, wait, is my keyboard even MIDI? I plug it in with something that looks like a USB, and then it connects straight to USB on my computer. But when I looked at the PreSonus, there was nothing that looked anything like this, but instead the MIDI section looks kinda like a VGA cable... and on every other AI I saw, the MIDI was circular.

Sooo... what the hell is a MIDI cable then anyway? I understand MIDI is a type of system that transports data of what note is pressed when, but I thought it was just one cable...

But my main question is, what cables do I need to hook up this stuff to a PreSonus (or other recommended interface)
- Yamaha YPG-635 piano
- LTD Acoustic - Electric Guitar
- Condensor Microphone (Will likely be a Studio Projects B1 Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphone)
- MIDI Controller (likely an Akai MPD18 Compact Pad Controller)
- And lastly but most important, AI to Computer (Does that even come with the PreSonus?)

Thank you very much.
Click to expand...

What's up man! Welcome to Homerecording :)

Ok, first question--what the hell is a MIDI cable? Well, you can connect a MIDI device either through a regular MIDI cable (the round-looking hole you talked about) or you can get a MIDI/USB cable that connects to the MIDI out on your keyboard and goes into your computer via USB. Make sense? I'm not really sure what the "VGA" style MIDI insert you saw was...I don't see anything like that on the Presonus.


As for the other stuff....

- Yamaha YPG-635 piano--plain old instrument cable

- LTD Acoustic - Electric Guitar--instrument cable again

- Condensor Microphone (Will likely be a Studio Projects B1 Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphone)--XLR cable (aka "mic cable")

- MIDI Controller (likely an Akai MPD18 Compact Pad Controller)--like I said, either MIDI cable or MIDI/USB cable

- And lastly but most important, AI to Computer (Does that even come with the PreSonus?)--this should come with the interface, at least as long as you are buying it new. Make sure your computer has a Firewire port on it though so you can connect it. That would suck if you bought this and it didn't :)
 
I have a MacbookPro, and assume it has firewire (I don't know exactly what it looks like, but just looking at stuff online and system requirements and other users, seems like it does work).

Also, according to Yamaha and the quick look of the back of my keyboard, "The YPG-635 has 2 USB ports on the back, USB TO HOST and USB TO DEVICE.
USB TO HOST is plug and play simple for recording and playing back MIDI files, as well as transferring data to and from your computer."

The Cable I use right now I believe is called a standard A to B cable. The B is a USB, the A looks kinda like a printer cable (by that I mean it's more squarish than rectanglish). So it doesn't have a standard instrument cable plug in (kind of strange considering it's high-end ish).

The rest of what you said seems to be perfect, thanks!


EDIT: I can't post links, but find the PreSonus on zZounds. If you look on the picture for the back, there's a "MIDI - S/PDIF" plug in. That is the ONLY place it says MIDI on the whole unit, so it kind of worries me.
 
Pengu1n said:
I have a MacbookPro, and assume it has firewire (I don't know exactly what it looks like, but just looking at stuff online and system requirements and other users, seems like it does work).

Also, according to Yamaha and the quick look of the back of my keyboard, "The YPG-635 has 2 USB ports on the back, USB TO HOST and USB TO DEVICE.
USB TO HOST is plug and play simple for recording and playing back MIDI files, as well as transferring data to and from your computer."

The Cable I use right now I believe is called a standard A to B cable. The B is a USB, the A looks kinda like a printer cable (by that I mean it's more squarish than rectanglish). So it doesn't have a standard instrument cable plug in (kind of strange considering it's high-end ish).

The rest of what you said seems to be perfect, thanks!


EDIT: I can't post links, but find the PreSonus on zZounds. If you look on the picture for the back, there's a "MIDI - S/PDIF" plug in. That is the ONLY place it says MIDI on the whole unit, so it kind of worries me.
Click to expand...

Ok well then I guess you can plug your keyboard straight into the USB if you want to record that! Or you could always do the MIDI.


Are we looking at the same Firestudio? :D I definitely see a MIDI in and MIDI out on this unit--
PreSonus FireStudio FireWire Interface at zZounds
 
Ah, We are NOT looking at the same one! :P

I'm looking at the PreSonus FireStudio Mobile FireWire Audio Interface, Key word = mobile. According to the tweakheadz guide and a lot of other research I've done it seems to be the best for a good quality initial AI for solo composers/artists.
 
Hey, look at that, I have 10 posts now. Link time.
This is the exact keyboard I have. When I bought it, it was the perfect choice. Going off to college soon, wanted a keyboard that sounded and felt like a piano. I wasn't too focused on recording - it had a way to make my notes appear on garageband. However, now I need to connect it to an AI somehow. Maybe the best option would be to not just get the MIDI Pad, but get some sort of $200 keyboard with a MIDI pad... but I'd hate not to be able to use this keyboard with an AI.

This is the AI. If you have another suggestion for something around the same price (less than 300), it'd be appreciated. But based on a couple hours of research this seemed the best.

Also, looking at speakers and consider I need a mic or 2 anyway, would the package deal be pretty good here? The only thing holding me back is that I'm not sure if I want 2 speakers, or if the stuff there is as good as what I would want (the mic I said, and I'm looking into 100-200 dollar headphones). But it seems like a pretty freakin' good deal... (KRK RP5G2 Rokit G2 Active Monitor at zZounds)
 
Alright, so far, it seems that your main concern is about the MIDI.
The thing is, it depends on your keyboard.
If you only have a keyboard that has something that says "MIDI In/MIDI out" on the back, you can get a MIDI male to USB male cable, and then just plug in to your laptop directly.
Personally, I use an Axiom Pro 49, which just uses USB to USB to transfer MIDI information (with the option of MIDI to MIDI). Nowadays, almost all MIDI I see is through USB (unless you have the cables to plug in to your interface).
As far as I can tell from a simple Google, it looks like if you just plug from the "USB to Host" input on the back into the USB on your laptop, it should recognize your keyboard as a MIDI controller and let you record MIDI information with it.
 
firestudio mobile has a breakout port that kinda looks like vga.

IIRC it breaks out to midi and spdif.

It seems your keyboard has usb connectivity for midi recording and playback so there's no need to put through the interface.
 
this is indeed a usb midi keyboard as stated in the specs page
and the vga type connector i believe the op is talking about is the old style (back in the 80's) is where midi keyboards used to connect via a games port controller. i still have such a cable that came with cakewalk music maker back in the day. almost defunct now .
 
Ok, I guess I just assumed since I'd be getting an interface that it'd be necessary to plug in the keyboard to it, make it higher quality or less latency or something. (But now thinking on it, adding another medium the MIDI has to go through wouldn't help...). Thank you very much. Keyboard problem solved. I think everything else is good EXCEPT the Akai MPD18 Compact Pad Controller. This looks like a straight up MIDI to MIDI, and the PreSonus doesn't have that. However, I was also looking at the Tascam US144 MKII USB 2.0 Audio Interface (But this is a much cheaper box! In this day where it seems MIDI is very important, how could the PreSonus not have it? :/)

So to use this Akai MPD18, would I need a MIDI male to USB male cable. But then once again I wouldn't even be using the interface...

Should I just start looking for a different interface?
 
Pengu1n said:
In this day where it seems MIDI is very important, how could the PreSonus not have it? :/)
Click to expand...

I think it'll still do MIDI. It just has a strange cord evidently but this is included in the purchase! This is from their website...

On the back are 6 more balanced, ¼-inch line level inputs for channels 3 through 8, plus a DB9 connector that accepts a breakout cable (included) to provide stereo S/PDIF digital I/O and MIDI I/O.
Click to expand...

Anyone else know what this cord actually looks like? I'm curious. Ever seen one Steenamaroo?
 
View attachment 69469
kip4 said:
the vga type connector i believe the op is talking about is the old style (back in the 80's) is where midi keyboards used to connect via a games port controller.
Click to expand...

No it's not. It's a breakout cable port.

It may be the same as a serial port (rs323) but I'm not certain. The old gamepad ports were 15 pin.


guitaristic said:
Anyone else know what this cord actually looks like? I'm curious. Ever seen one Steenamaroo?
Click to expand...

Yeah man, I've got one.
Looks like this.
645641.jpg
Spdif I/O and midi I/O.
 
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So my conclusion is.. with a PreSonus Mobile, my stuff would connect like so:

- Yamaha YPG-635 piano - USB Cable, Keyboard to Computer
- LTD Acoustic/Electric - Instrument Cable, Guitar to Interface or I can use the Instrument to USB cable I have...
- Condensor Microphone - XLR Cable to USB
- MIDI Controller (likely an Akai MPD18 Compact Pad Controller) - MIDI to computer with a conversion cable...
- AI to Computer - Firewire cable

Wait, so looking at this, the ONLY thing that needs the AI is the Mic. Why the hell do I even need an AI? I have Reason 5 / Garageband, so it's not for the software...
 
What are these instrument to usb and mic to usb things you're talking about?
Forget that.

The presonus is an Audio Interface.

It's an interface between audio sources and your computer.

Any mics, instruments (guitars/bass), line level output devices (synths/electric pianos) all plug into the presonus.

midi controllers like keyboards, e.drum kits, things like that (whether usb or 5pin) are not audio. They're midi; A digital protocol.
If they have 5pin the can go through the interface, but don't necessarily have to.
If they have usb just plug em into the computer.


That yamaha can be used as a midi device, or as a real instrument.
If you want to record the sound that it makes, use the line outputs and plug those into your presonus.
If you just want to use it to record midi data, which would then be fed to a softsynth, use usb.

*edit. can't believe you passed up the tents gag! :p
 
Well, as far as my keyboard goes, it does not seem like it will plug into the PreSonus. It doesn't have a line output. Only a USB cable output, as seen on the pictures on the yamaha website I linked to before.

For the Guitar, I currently have THIS type of cable. Guitar to USB. Once again, no need for an Interface.

The Akai MPD18 Compact Pad Controller has a MIDI connection. Like I said before, the PreSonus does not have a MIDI connection. It does not have a 5-pin connection.

The MICs are the only thing that need to be plugged into the interface, since I have to use an XLR for those.

Any mics, instruments (guitars/bass), line level output devices (synths/electric pianos) all plug into the presonus.
Click to expand...
This is what I thought before doing all this research. But looking at the PreSonus mobile, it seems that the only thing that can plug into the PreSonus is the Mics and Guitar.

This topic has changed a lot, should I just make a new one with the new questions?

EDIT: And the intense joke never gets old. :D
 
Pengu1n said:
Well, as far as my keyboard goes, it does not seem like it will plug into the PreSonus. It doesn't have a line output. Only a USB cable output, as seen on the pictures on the yamaha website I linked to before.

For the Guitar, I currently have THIS type of cable. Guitar to USB. Once again, no need for an Interface.

The Akai MPD18 Compact Pad Controller has a MIDI connection. Like I said before, the PreSonus does not have a MIDI connection. It does not have a 5-pin connection.

The MICs are the only thing that need to be plugged into the interface, since I have to use an XLR for those.


This is what I thought before doing all this research. But looking at the PreSonus mobile, it seems that the only thing that can plug into the PreSonus is the Mics and Guitar.

This topic has changed a lot, should I just make a new one with the new questions?

EDIT: And the intense joke never gets old. :D
Click to expand...

You're chopping and changing (or I'm not following).
You say you have a guitar to usb cable so no need for an interface, then you say the only things plugging into the presonus are the mic and guitar.

Seriously, just forget any usb adapters you have. They are interfaces, but probably not as good as the presonus.
Plug your guitar and your mic into the presonus.
 
Sorry, I was kinda changing around.

The only things I NEED to plug in are the Mic. Everything else has an alternate method.

The only things that I CAN plug in are the Guitar and Mic. Everything else has a connection that isn't compatible with the presonus mobile.

I think my conclusion is that I will find a different AI that has a MIDI Input.

Thanks everyone!
 
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