need advice on midi connections etc.

i'm going to assume that i'm being too vague.
i am interested in learning to use my yamaha keyboard in lieu of a drum machine as it has many built in sets that sound fine to me for my recording needs.
my lack of experiance with midi makes me wonder if i'm missing an easier/better way to record my drum tracks.

should i just stick with a mic stand and record that way, or would a midi/soundcard or midi/usb connection to my pc be a better option?

if i need cables, what should i be looking for?

the listed midi/usb interface cable (UX16- http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Yamaha-UX16-USB-MIDI-Interface?sku=332007 ) advertised for my yamaha, has some scary reviews and i'm hoping for a better option if this is the way i should proceed.

or am i misunderstanding the whole kabob?

hope this helps....

I'd go with using midi cables to either usb end (like the one you linked to) or going into an interface or soundcard. recording the drum tracks by microphone will result in them being audio tracks on your DAW and the possibilites for tweaking and/or using efffects will either be limited or made more difficult as a result of this.

as for your keyboard and the cable you linked to.....I've no personal experience of them, so take this with a grain of salt (at least until someone else confirms), but I don't believe you have to use that cable - any midi cable connected to a midi-port soundcard or an interface which can process midi information should work just as well.

as far as cables go, either using the one you linked to, or getting two midi cables which would then run from your yamaha to your interface/soundcard should do the trick fine.

and I'm really rubbish on latency and similar issues when it comes to any gear I don't own, so there might be an 'ideal setup' in this regard.

thanx for the reply Scrybe,
i was having trouble understanding the difference between a midi/usb and just using a straight midi hookup to my soundcard. (with the supplied dongle connection)

i totally agree that the mic route would be a last resort, but this is all kinda greek to me.

i've stumbled thru getting a simple mic'd test track recorded in audacity by hooking up the mixer to the tape in's on the soundcard. unfortunatly i'm starting the whole learning process over again.

i'm going to go ahead and purchase straight up midi cables, i kinda wish i had waited and just purchased a digital recorder.

I may be wrong, but it sounds like you're not clear on exactly what midi is.

midi is a transfer of digital commands - it is not the same as audio. If you linked your keyboard (musical, not typing!) to your PC via midi, your keyboard could send midi commands to your computer, to "play" the instruments on your computer. The commands tell the computer when to play a note, when to stop, how hard to play it etc. So if you've got a great harpsichord (random example!) sound on the PC, you can "play" it with the keyboard rather than drawing in the notes in a midi sequencer.

Think of a midi keyboard as being like a TV remote control. There's no TV programs on your remote, but if you point it at your TV and press a button, it tells the TV which channel to go to, or to increase/decrease volume. Controlling a PC with a midi keyboard is exactly the same.

If you want to play the drums that are actually on your keyboard and record them with your PC software, you'd need to connect using a regular audio cable to actually carry the sound from the keyboard to the PC.

Of course there's nothing to stop you doing both - you may want to play the drums that are on the keyboard, but then later use the keyboard to control the saxaphone sound from your PC (or any other synth that's on there).

Hope that clears up some of the confusion.

Regards

Pete

thanks for the explanation, i was indeed confusing the two together.
i was under the impression that i would be able to do both, transmit commands to vst instruments on the PC and sounds from the Yamaha.
like i said, I'm just now learning what a lot of these definitions mean on the producing side of the music. it makes me appreciate more the stuff Arjen and you guys that use midi are able to do.

i bought a book today that i highly recommend to noObs to the studio side of things called "The Everything Home Recording Book" by Marc Schonbrun.

i see now that i need to decipher quite a few abbreviations before I'm going to understand how to set this stuff up right.

for instance,when i bring up my soundcard in my "audio properties" and it gives me multiple choices in both the output and the input windows. Each of course are abbreviations, such as PCM,S/PDIF,Mon.Mixer, WavOut1/2, WaveOut S/PDIF, etc.

anyway thanx for the reply, stick around tho because i can see I'm going to need some help understanding some of this (even with the book)

No problem - will keep an eye on the post!

i was under the impression that i would be able to...transmit...sounds from the Yamaha.

You should be able to do that, TL.
At least I can with my digital piano and software.
I'm sure the lingo varies from app to app, but basically: I assign the MIDI controller (my keyboard) as the source of the sound modeling and the software 'records' the MIDI data and the sound patch from the keyboard. So what gets laid down sounds exactly like what I heard and played on the keyboard.
Hopefully Hue or KP or Arjen can give you a further leg up or explain it better. I only know enough to get by.
Enjoy! MIDI is powerful stuff.

(I put 'records' in quotes because, like all MIDI data, it's completely editable. It's not like audio information that's fixed in stone. With MIDI, you can always assign a different voicing to it later.)
:)

If you want to record sounds from your keyboard, you need to patch the audio outs from your keys to the input of your interface. MIDI carries DATA ONLY. I don't know about some of the USB capable keys out there but I would assume that if you were to use the USB-Audio function of these keyboards, that would require changing drivers in your software to the keyboards USB drivers.

As with all audio devices, when you apply them as the audio source, all audio must pass through that device if you want to record it.

Boxboy, I don't believe you are actually hearing the sounds from the keyboard but rather the patch equivalent that is available via General Midi under Windows' or Mac's midi softsynth library.

Boxboy, I don't believe you are actually hearing the sounds from the keyboard but rather the patch equivalent that is available via General Midi under Windows' or Mac's midi softsynth library.
Hue, that's right for certain. Sorry, didn't mean to imply anything different.
I was just looking to point TL in a direction where he could record a great facsimile of his favourite keyboard patch.
:)

So, i have to use the Yamaha/drumkit audio out to my mixer (interface), then to the PC/Audacity?
i assume this will still be better than mic'ing the Yamaha?

Absolutely! I'd never recommend mic'ing a keyboard - the built in speakers will never do the sound justice. You should have a stereo input on your mixer, and a stereo out on the keyboard, so you'll get a much cleaner signal running that way.