Take a look at the diagram below: Keyboard A and Keyboard B. Let’s assume they both have sounds of their own but we want to play the sounds of Keyboard B from Keyboard A from playing the keys on Keyboard A. To achieve this we use the following steps:
- Switch both keyboards off (just in case)
- Connect a MIDI cable to the MIDI Out of Keyboard A
- Connect the other end to Keyboard B - MIDI In
- Switch on both keyboards
- The transmit MIDI channel of Keyboard A should be the same as the receive MIDI channel of Keyboard B. Refer to the user manual of your instruments.
- You should now be able to trigger the sounds of Keyboard B by playing Keyboard A – If not, see troubleshooting below…
Troubleshooting Basic MIDI Connections
- MIDI cable is damaged
- Transmit (Tx) and Receive (Rx) are on different channels.
- Keyboard may not be in correct Mode for MIDI transmission or receiving MIDI
- MIDI Cables are connected wrongly
MIDI Keyboard to MIDI Sound Module
Again, the keyboard is triggering OUT so connect a MIDI lead from the MIDI OUT of the keyboard to the MIDI IN of the sound module to play it’s sounds. The same rules apply as above, the MIDI channels need to be corresponding to each other and the correct connections made.
A sound module is almost identical to a keyboard with sounds apart from the missing keyboard. This makes it portable and attractive for musicians who are scaling down the size of their keyboard system or MIDI setup. Desktop systems are now more popular than ever, computers can quite easily host software-based sythesizers either stand-alone or incorporated into Digital Audio Workstations (DAW) like ProTools, Cubase and Logic.
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