USB/MIDI Confusion

Posted on Oct 20, 2005 10:24 am
dmn23
Member Since: Oct 07, 2005

Okay, I need someone to hold my hand and speak to me like I'm four years old. I'm a guitar player, not a keyboard guy, and regardless of how much research I do the jargon and general concepts are leaving me baffled.

The goal: I'd really like to add a little Rhodes or Hammond sound to some of the stuff I'm working on right now. That's all I want. Nothing fancy.

I'm getting confused on the options and the mechanics of how it all works. This option I understand pretty well: I can fork over $500 or so for something like an Alesis QS6.2, push a few buttons and probably be up and running in no time, playing the synth in real time and sending audio into the computer just like a vocal or guitar track. No problems there.

OR...I can buy some sort of MIDI controller and use this keyboard to control internal sounds stored as VST intstruments. So far so good. I understand that the keyboard would have no real sounds of its own, and that it's just sending instructions to whatever VST plug-ins are on loaded on my computer. Got it. That sounds like a pretty nifty solution, except for a few things:

1. The MIDI/USB thing is really screwing me up. Most of what's advertised out there (in the cheapo range, anyway) are "USB MIDI Keyboard Controllers". Is the USB cable sending the MIDI information? From what I understand, the USB cable is powering these devices, but is it also taking the place of a MIDI cable or do I still need some sort of (hardware) MIDI port?

2. I'm interested in playing in real-time. There might come a day when I'll suck it up and try to learn how to sequence a part, but in the meantime I'd rather have a root canal. How realistic is my expectation that I can just plug in one of these controllers and be playing along with other tracks that I've recorded?

3. If I buy something like, say, Reason or a similar sound library -- how in the %$#@ does my recording software (Cubase SL) understand that there is an instrument being played in a completely different program running on my computer at the same time?

4. This relates to question #3 -- since Cubase and Reason would be running at the same time, wouldn't there be a serious latency issue for someone like me who's trying to play in real time? First there's a gap between the information being transmitted from the controller to the computer, then there's the time it takes for Reason to interpret the command and play the sound, the time it takes for Cubase to understand what's going on, and the time for the sound to be played within Cubase while I've got other tracks playing in the background. Clearly, there's got to be something I'm not understanding here. The answer may be as simple as "Sorry, you can't do it". Please educate me.

5. As I've said, I know nothing about this kind of stuff so I have to assume there are important questions I'm not asking. If anyone wants to chime in with additional thoughts or considerations, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks to all in advance.

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