New to MIDI with old keyboard

[Bill Simmons]

Hi all, I've been recording for folks with protools 9 for several years now at our church. Built a "home studio" for myself and bought Elevenrack with Protools 10/11. My question is I have an old Kawai Personal fs800 keyboard. It has MIDi in/out and I am wondering if it will work as a controller for virtual instruments??? Been reading a LOT about MIDI and looks like fun.
Thanks, Bill

HPxw4600 workstation Win7

[Bill Denton]

Assuming you have USB ports on your computer, you'll need to pick up something like this to connect your keyboard to your computer.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Uno/

Then just follow the MIDI setup instructions in the Pro Tools manual and you'll be good to go...

[Bill Simmons]

I was hoping to use the MIDI input on the Elevenrack. Thats my main interface. But if it will work with the adapter from Sweetwater I can do that as well. Was really just wondering if it would work as a controller. Thank you for the reply!!

[DonaldM]

Originally Posted by Bill Simmons

I was hoping to use the MIDI input on the Elevenrack. Thats my main interface. But if it will work with the adapter from Sweetwater I can do that as well. Was really just wondering if it would work as a controller. Thank you for the reply!!

Yes it will. With the MIDI to USB interface mentioned above (or something like it), you set up your MIDI using the MIDI Studio in Pro Tools - check the manual for how to do that), and then your Kawai should be seen by PT for MIDI. Set up an instrument track in PT, instantiate a VI, record arm the track, and play to your heart's content!

One thing to remember: you MUST have your keyboard turned on first so your computer sees the USB interface BEFORE you boot up PT in order for PT to "see" the keyboard. If you're in a session and decide to add a MIDI track and turn on the keyboard while in the session, PT won't see it and you'll wonder where the MIDI went.

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by Bill Simmons

I was hoping to use the MIDI input on the Elevenrack.

You can just do that.
Plug it in, and PT will show you your keyboard as a input source on a instrument (or midi-) track input selector.