Roland E-20 and PC: can this be made to sound like a piano?

[RDH]

Hello... insert standard disclaimer about not knowing anything about
MIDI here...

I have an old Roland E-20 keyboard, and I have a fairly decent PC
although it's got an old Turtle Beach Montego II sound card in it. The
voices on the Roland are ok, but I was wondering if there were a way
to connect the keyboard to the PC and produce more realistic piano
sounds with it? It's just for tinkering, nothing serious. Is this
possible?

- RDH

[Mikael Willberg]

In article <df9e9572-5fa2-4808...@q39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,

Yes you can, you need some kind of MIDI interface for your PC, a MIDI
cable and necessary software to PC to produce the actual sound.

After connecting everything together the E-20 can control (send
information what note was pressed) the PC and PC needs software to
listen the that MIDI information (sqeuncer or similar) which then uses
a plugin (VST or similar) to make the real audio signal.

I'm not familiar if the Montego has a low latency ASIO drivers or not,
but those are needed or the PC will play the sound with noticetable
delay, after pressing a key.

I had E-10 which is a limited version of E-20 and there was no way of
changing MIDI settings on the keyboard and it used different MIDI
channels for different modes 3-5 for bass, upper, lower and 10 for
drums. If I remember correctly E-20 has a way to change those if
needed.

Also note that the E-20 will send MIDI information when playing, but
also it emits the sounds using internal speakers, I suggest plugging
in the phones or similar to silence it. I used this kind of plug:

http://www.thomann.de/gb/the_sssnake_1843_adapter.htm

I hope these will help you some:

http://www.tweakheadz.com/how_to_get_started_with_midi.html
http://www.midistudio.com/Help/Midi_Connect.htm

Maybe someone else can suggest a simple sequencer and nice plugin to
go with that. I would suggest "the grand", but that seems "a bit"
overkill for a test setup.

Mig

--
**** Mikael Willberg ***** "Oh dear", says God, "I hadn't thought of that" **
* * and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. *
* Tampere * (Douglas Adams) *
******** Finland ************************************************************

[Norbert Stellberg]

Hello,

> I have an old Roland E-20 keyboard, and I have a fairly decent PC
> although it's got an old Turtle Beach Montego II sound card in it. The
> voices on the Roland are ok, but I was wondering if there were a way
> to connect the keyboard to the PC and produce more realistic piano
> sounds with it? It's just for tinkering, nothing serious. Is this
> possible?

Have a look at the Live-Styler sites.
www.live-styler.us

with best regards

Norbert

[RDH]

Thanks! Lots of great info. I'm going to give this a shot :)

On Feb 5, 8:38 pm, m...@hyper.fi (Mikael Willberg) wrote:
> In article <df9e9572-5fa2-4808-9a07-eec3ae547...@q39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,

> http://www.tweakheadz.com/how_to_get_started_with_midi.htmlhttp://www.midistudio.com/Help/Midi_Connect.htm

[RDH]

One more question... if I was going to dump the Turtle Beach card for
something new, can you recommend a card? Something reasonable < $100 ?

> >http://www.tweakheadz.com/how_to_get_started_with_midi.htmlhttp://www...

[Mikael Willberg]

In article <8dbbbcb1-5580-4754...@l1g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>,

RDH <rhe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>One more question... if I was going to dump the Turtle Beach card for
>something new, can you recommend a card? Something reasonable < $100 ?

For low latency you want to check that the card has Asio-support. Also
check the operating system support from the manufacturer site or
somewhere. If you are using or planning to move to Windows Vista you
really have to check that support, because many older product will not
get vista drivers.

I have no deeper knowledge about current models. After quick browsing,
"E-mu 0404" might be quite nice, maybe too good/expensive:

http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp?category=505&subcategory=491&product=10447

Google some reviews etc. Maybe there are some used one for sale in
some music shops and have knowledge to help you out. Or some other
people here will give more suggestions.

I personally use audio features on the mother board for system
beeps/sounds, games etc. then I have another card "M-Audio Revolution
7.1" which I use as a "2 in / 8 out ASIO card" for "production". The
Asio support is not advertised anywhere for this, you just has to know
it 8-)

Mig

--
**** Mikael Willberg ********************************************************
* * Sekalaista taravaa myytävänä *
* Tampere * Various items for sale *
******** Finland **************** http://www.hyper.fi/~mig/forsale/ *********