Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Yamaha CP33 and Computer Advice needed

Hi,

has anyone successfully been able to connect their CP33 to a computer to be able to record etc?

I'm looking to invest in a nice sound card that will be able to be plugged by the midi ports but I'm not sure what one to get.

also is it easy to record music and know of any tutorials?

I went through the instructions on installing that usb-midi driver as requested in the book but seems I can't find anything on how to connect it via usb so I guess I'll have to do it midi-midi.

just need some good advice to get me going

thanks in advance.

Because you're looking for a soundcard with MIDI ports, it's obvious then that you're after MIDI music although you might still want to try audio recording...anyways:

For a good quality soundcard/audiocard (with MIDI In/Out ports and audio LINE-IN ports as well), check this out:

M-AUDIO 2496

I use the M-audio 2496 audiocard in my PC in addition to my old Creative Soundblaster Live 5.1 Platinum soundcard:

Creative Soundblaster Live! 5.1 Platinum review


There are a lot of MIDI-audio sequencing softwares available...some/few are free and most are of course sold in music stores or on-line.

For starters...if you want a "basic" MIDI software package that contains a "Getting-started" with MIDI manual (that can guide you in the basic functions and how to arrange/Record in MIDI) for use with the accompanying software, try this link:

USB-MIDI studio kit

NOTE: This is just one of several basic MIDI sequencing softwares available. I leave the other forum members to give out better suggestions. Personally, I started out with Voyetra's MIDI Orchestrator software several years ago, then shifted to Cakewalk Pro Audio which I used for a couple of years (upgrading only twice which lead me to Cakewalk Pro Audio version 8) until I finally shifted to Cakewalk Sonar 6 P.E. (producer edition).

By the way, you can still connect your CP-33 to your PC/laptop even if you don't have a soundcard if you can find a MIDI-to-USB converter (like the one included in the Voyetra software I linked above) or you can check this out:

M-Audio Uno MIDI to USB connector

As a side note, however, although keyboard and digital piano manufacturers provide USB-MIDI drivers for their products, you might still encounter "compatibility" problems between the provided USB-MIDI driver and the OS that you're using. In line with this, I'm still using Windows XP and I like it that way in so far as it keeps my soundcard/audiocard hardware, sequencing softwares running without problems. Personally, I wouldn't exchange this "problem-free" setup that I currently have for whatever "eye-candy" Vista might offer to the PC user. I'm more interested in the process of creating/arranging music and in this regard Windows XP has proven to be a "stable" OS for this purpose. I'm mentioning these things because it's possible that you might encounter problems between some USB-MIDI drivers and softwares and/or OS...just so you'd be aware too.

Good luck and happy learning.

ah I've seen this card, I actually heard good about it as I wanted to be able to plug my PC into my reciver via the RCA ports.

I imagine that with my CP33 I would use a cord like this:
2x RCA male to 6.35mm jack stereo male

so that I could still plug my reciver into my PC output and then the CP33 into the input.

which I imagine would then be able to record music (as mp3 or wav) and also be able to play my piano through my stereo speakers?

Read this first:
http://www.pianoclues.com/how-to-record-piano/

I have a CP33 and use a cheap RomI/O MIDI-to-USB interface. It does weird things sometimes but overall it works okay.

The USB port on the CP33 works too, but you have to install a driver for it. You should be able to find it somewhere on the Yamaha site but when I last looked it wasn't immediately obvious where. Worse, is that the USB connection interferes with the audio outs so it introduces nasty static in the sound. That's why I went with the RomI/O.

You can also record directly from the audio outputs on the back of the CP33 to your computer's audio inputs.