I'm not sure if I can put my problem clearly because I'm technical very ignorant but here goes. For the type of romantic pop light classic I play I prefer a very mellow sound. Neither my DGX 620 or my F P 30 give me quite what I want, but the classic and stereo mellow sound on my Casio 220 come closest, but the sustain on the Casio is hopeless. I don't want to spend a lot of money on pianoteq or similiar vst partly because our exchange rate is now about 15 to 1.I have downloaded some of the free plugins but when I try to open them I get a message saying I am trying to do something which I cannot follow . It says something about needing a .dll file. I spoke to a tech who knows nothing about digital pianos or music and he said I needed a program on which the vst could work.Can anyone help me to step by step sort this out? By the way Jonkyplonky I have just seen your post on the Salamander which is one I have not tried but maybe you could advise me on this.

If the Cássio has midi sockets (all the keyboards apart from children's toys that I've come across from 1986 onwards do) then you can simply play your best keyboard, with a cable plugged into its midi out, linked to the Casio's midi in, and the sounds you want will play on the Casio.....this was the original and most basic reason for having midi in the first place.

That is by far the quickest, easiest and cheapest solution: all you need is a midi cable. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...f-9496-229032eee41c&pf_rd_i=11973431

Otherwise, you need a host in which a player can work. Some VST themselves are hosts as well as players (Pianoteq, for example) and others are platforms for hundreds of their own and other third party instruments (Kontakt, for example). They can work as standalone players without a DAW (digital audio workstation)

But a good overall host and virtual system will allow you to do everything: a DAW like Reaper is free to download and demo: https://www.reaper.fm/download.php

Thanks Toddy for your quick reply. All my instruments only have a USB socket which I use for midi with a standard printer cable, but none of them have the USB socket which the computer has, but are you saying that if I could run a cable from my FP to my Casio I would get the sound of the Roland on my Casio?.I have Reaper on my desktop which I sometimes use but how would I get one of the free plug ins to work in Reaper?

Hi, Jack. First, midi sockets: if your keyboards don't have those, that means you can't do what I was suggesting: you'd need extra conversion equipment and it's just not worth the trouble. (Great pity that piano makers have recently stopped putting midi ports on their instruments: makes things much more complicated and causes noise problems etc).

So if you've got reaper, just download Pianoteq demo, it's free, and Native Instruments Kontakt Player - I think it's free, and it supports some pianos, though many others only work with the expensive Kontakt 5 (or now 6) platform.

DLL s are the software devices that allow VST instruments to work within a larger platform. Usually, they are located in the Steinberg file in Program Files and Reaper finds the automatically.......if you're lucky . Good luck!

Use a USB printer cable.
The end with square cross-section (the printer end) plugs into the piano.
The end with the "usual" rectangular cross-section plugs into the PC.

* note - some VST instruments require a host program - e.g. Reaper, while other VSTs give you the option to run them in stand-alone mode - for example Pianoteq or Lounge Lizard.

You lack some precision : which software ? Which error ?

Most virtual pianos comes in two format : a VST plugin (a DLL which follows Steinberg API), and a standalone (an exe file ready to launch).

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About Salamander, you need to load it in Sforzando which is free too, but I don’t remember if it comes in standalone mode.

It works as a standalone, yes. And also, of course as a VST - it downloads with a dll file which works in Reaper.