Hooking up a midi muscal keyboard to sound card

[grabbag]

I just bought a Creative Extigy with midi jacks. I have a muscial keyboard that is midi compatible. What do I need to know to make it all work together? Do I need any special software? If so, any suggestions?:confused:

[malcore]

The Audigy or Extigy has sound font banks. You installed the drivers for the midi/gameport when you installed the sound drivers.

If you are into composing or arranging and recording there is a great program called Band-in-a-Box. You can check it out at www.pgmusic.com The Roland Virtual Sound Canvas usually comes with this. Nice piece of software.

There is also some sort of program with the Extigy called Asio. Haven't looked into it yet though.

[gwallen4]

You need a special connector (maybe the one you have) for the physical connection of PC to keyboard like the one shown in this link:

http://www.cdbm.com/shop/detail.cgi?id=108210

The center connector connects to the gameport of the sound card. The left is a game port connector. The two smaller connectors are midi-in and midi-out and they connect to your keyboard.

The software you need is called a midi sequencer. Band in a Box is a simple one. If you just want one to try, then send me your e-mail address and I'll e-mail you back a real-old version of Cakewalk Pro. This will allow you to play a midi song on your keyboard or to compose your own music. It can also record in midi format what ever you play on the keyboard.

If you want to learn about midi, try the following link:

http://www.midiworld.com/index.htm