Question about racks...

[Liquid Shadow]

How do they hook up with other keyboards or MIDI controllers? I've got a Casio WK3500 right now, and I was curious as to whether or not there would be a way to hook it up to a rack of some sort (probably a Roland).
I was just curious because I know you can hook racks up to MIDI controllers. I don't know exactly how you do that, but I do know that my keyboard has MIDI in/out jacks, so maybe that would make it possible (or does nothing for it at all)

Just wondering...

[Spacehog]

You should just be able to connect a midi cable from the Midi Out of your controller into the Midi In on the rack unit. How comprehensive control that'll give you will depend on your keyboard, some are much more basic than others... eg you may need to change patches actually on the rack unit if your keyboard (I've never played a Casio in my life) doesn't send Midi Patch Change information. But I don't forsee any reason why playing a rack module from any MIDI equipped keyboard shouldn't work.

Martin

[Luca_Capozzi]

Generally you only need basic controls as DataIncrement/Decrement (CC 97 and 96), Data Slider (CC 6), Mod Wheel (CC 1), Expression (CC 9) and so on for common midi controllers. If you want to know what kind of controllers you have on your keyboard, simply follow this steps:

Required: Midi->PC Cable

1) Download MidiOX (www.midiox.com) and install it
2) Connect your keybord to pc and start midiox
3) Setup in midiox, both input and output midi port (out should be MIDI UART)
4) Start playing with your controllers and watch MidiOX screen

In the far right column you'll see the type of midi event you're playing. Write'em down on a paper so you can check if they're useful for your rack.

See ya

[Liquid Shadow]

You should just be able to connect a midi cable from the Midi Out of your controller into the Midi In on the rack unit. How comprehensive control that'll give you will depend on your keyboard, some are much more basic than others... eg you may need to change patches actually on the rack unit if your keyboard (I've never played a Casio in my life) doesn't send Midi Patch Change information. But I don't forsee any reason why playing a rack module from any MIDI equipped keyboard shouldn't work.

Martin

Would I be able to hook up one of those pedals into the rack that go to the next sound each time you press them? I know you do it into the keyboard other synths but I don't think mine has a jack for that....could I hook that pedal up to the rack?

[Spacehog]

Depends if the rack module (a rack is just a piece of wood / metal / plastic / combination of the above, for mounting gear in... it's got nothing to do with synths!) has a pedal input (most do not). Alternatively, there's a new product due out soon from Kenton Electronics that lets you plug 2 footswitches and 2 controller pedals in and convert the outputs to midi for controlling just about anything. Not had the officlal word on release date yet though (I'm on the mailing list)

Martin

[Georges]

When you connect your keyboard to a rack, there are two things:

- cable connection: MIDI IN/OUT to MIDI OUT/IN
- channel selection: you have to select a channel on both devices over which you want to communicate (for multitimbral devices, the selection of channels is only primordial for MIDI recording or if you want to control several sounds without switching sounds at the same time in a live situation)

Consider though that some keyboards are slower/faster at processing MIDI information. Older synths like D-50 or cheap arranger keyboards are reputated to be slow, while recent workstations are quite fast in comparison. This is important when you plan on intensive MIDI applications...