can i learn keyboard with m-audio series? say keystation 61es ?

[flyclassic]

hi, i intend to take up lesson to learn keyboard..

i read i can actually hook up laptop/pc to a midi controller and can produce piano sounds

So i was thinking if i can just get a m-audio keystation 61es, and then hook up with my laptop and try to learn the basics first.. i will slowly exploit the use of a midi controller...

question is...
can i run on windows?
midi controllers has no built in sound to output, have to go through software.. so.....
any special requirement, i'm using centrino laptop with 1.2gb ram..built in soundcard(will there be a bad latency ?)
and if i only want to play for the piano sounds, not exactly for recording, where do i get realistic sounds software for pianos? what special software to hook up with??? does it comes as a package, or can i purchase it somewhere?

i dun mind going through all the trouble to install software and drivers .. but i need some clue.. anyone?

look i know i can get a synthesizer , keyboard or workstation to reduce all the hassling...
but has anyone tried on midi controllers yet.. advice? duno if i sound silly....pardon me

 

[Cheez]

Before going into your questions, you need to ask yourself one more question: what type of music do you intend to learn to play on the keyboard? As you mentioned piano sounds, you need to know that 61 keys is pretty limiting. 76 is the bare minimum. 88 recommended.

Now to your questions:
1. Yes, you can run on Windows.
2.Yes, there are special hardware requirements. Give us more specs of your notebook.

• If you just want to use one piano sound (and no other sounds), 1GB RAM is sufficient (bare minimum). But your notebook must be optimised - ie dual booted with a partition dedicated to music making etc (do a search in SOFT).
• You'll also need a dedicated hard-drive as the most realistic piano sounds are samples - which require streaming from a hard-disk.
• You may be able to get away with the build-in sound card if you use ASIOforall (free for download driver). Also depends on the specs of your notebook. If you find clicks and pops, you should get an external audio interface.
• You'll need a midi interface to hook your keyboard to your notebook. A simple one like M-audio's 1x1 will do.
• There are many realistic piano sample libraries out there. Garritan's Steinway Virtual Concert Grand (Garritan - Authorized Steinway Virtual Concert Grand) is the latest hype in the sampling world. Other's include East West stuffs (Pianos/Keyboards :: Instrumentation :: Sounds Online).

My suggestion for somebody learning keyboard is, however, not into meddling with softsynths/softsamplers. You'll find that you may have to cough up quite a bit to get an audio interface, a midi interface, softsamplers, dedicated HD etc, and not to mention trying to optimise your notebook. There are synths that can do the trick. Or just get Yamaha DGX series - which has pretty decent piano sounds for beginners who's starting to learn. You can always go the software path later on. The main focus should be on learning the keys, and not figuring out how to get it to work properly in your notebook.

 

[seekz]

I'm not sure if you can get away with latency, but I know for sure your proposal is pretty much quite feasible. But the problem is I did it with a
PC instead of a laptop.

And I used much much cheaper free VSTi's instead
like mdaPiano, you'll need a VSTi Host program though,
Just search for Freeware VSTi on the net, my guess is
that you won't need that super pristine/authentic piano
sampling sounds.

 

[flyclassic]

very useful!!!.. thank you.. guys

 

[Cheez]

Well, if you're not going into too realistic piano sound, you can even use the general midi piano sound that comes with your build-in soundcard. In fact, you can use the entire template of GM sounds that comes with it, which will be pretty cheesy sounding in most cases.