How do I do it? I have a Yamaha keyboard and I want to hook it into my computer so I can play music. What kind of cable do I need, how expensive is it, and where can I get it?

I use a midi-to-joystick converter.. plugs right into my audigy2.



As far as where to get it.. don't really know, i got it back in '94 :)

You'll need to hook it up using some sort of MIDI connection. If your sound card has MIDI Ins, then great, you can use a normal MIDI cable (5-pin male DIN connectors on each end), which is essentially equivalent to an AT keyboard cable. I got some from Cables To Go for about $0.79 USD each, though the price seems to have climbed quite a bit, so maybe that price was a mistake.

If you don't have a MIDI In, which is more than likely if you don't have a pro audio card, you'll probably want a MIDI-Joystick port cable, as Dreq showed above. They're about $25 USD.

There are also some USB MIDI interfaces such as the M-Audio Uno, for under $50. This would plug into the USB on your computer and use a 5-pin MIDI cable to connect to your keyboard. This might be a good option if you want to connect to a laptop or want to plug in multiple controllers.

Hope this helps.

Okay thanks guys for pointing me in the right direction. I was browsing some sites for info and they were talking about needing an expensive interface for the hookup and I was getting confused about that.

I came across this which is similar to the one you linked except with a longer cord and some bundled software. Looks like a good deal, free shipping.

"Software Platform: Win 95, Win 98"

I highly doubt the software is any good compared to what is out there today ;)

Hah, yeah I'm not banking on it. I've got Reason.

Haha, Reason, nice. If you're going to use that though it's better to get a controller like the M-Audio Oxygen 8 or the Edirol PCR-30, so you have physical, real time control over the knobs and sliders of the virtual instruments. A big plus if you're used to hardware.

Or maybe invest in one of these babies. I agree, tweaking knobs on a screen with a mouse doesn't quite compare to the hands on experience.

Personally I have no problems just recording the mouse movements on the sliders individually. Could be from my years of RTS playing ;)

Those 'babies' are cute but expensive. I'm really new to this, as a matter of fact I just got started learning to use Reason. Initially I was gonna duke it out with software alone but I thought hooking up my keyboard would make it earier to compose for a beginner like me.

Could somebody clear something up for me though. Is the quality of the music I produce dependant on my sound card? Not speaking of midi but the outputted .wav file.