Beginner at Keyboard and MIDI

[Kn3th]

Hi there, i just recently joined the forum and hope that all of you here who are more experienced can help me out.

So, i started playing piano but recently transitioned to keyboard. After awhile playing i've come to notice that you can link keys to laptops (usually macs) to make new sounds if you will. Yeah i know, mind blasting.

I currently use a Roland RD-300 GX, I've got cakewalk which came with the keyboard and fruity loops which was suggested by a musician friend, and Spectrasonic Omnisphere (i don't own a mac so this was the last resort if you will)

1st Question: Does my keyboard model support the whole hooking it up to my laptop thing so i can add in more sound effects? Lurking around i've seen comments on USB connection capabilities but as i'm honestly very much a noob at this i'm pretty much jumping off the deep end.

2nd Question: Can cakewalk and/or fruity loops, using omnisphere as a plugin (i'm trying to figure out how to fiddle around and how to actually hook them up but guess its one at a time) be used for the purpose that i'm aiming for, i.e., adding in more sounds and perhaps more sound control?

And sorry if this really is a noob question, googling doesn't really give me much answers so figured why not go to the pros?

Cheers,
Ken.

 

[happyrat1]

Look at page 53 of your manual

http://www.roland.com/support/article/goFtp.cfm?sRcId=1810808&sDlID=1&dtcl=o&flty=1

It explains that you can use the RD-300GX as a MIDI controller and you don't actually need to buy or use MIDI cables. All you need is a standard USB AB Printer Cable to make the hookup to your computer.

From there once you've set up Cakewalk to recognize the keyboard in the options menus you're good to go.

At that point you'll be able to use the keyboard to control any compatible VST plugin while using the Cakewalk Sequencer to record.

I'd suggest visiting the cakewalk User Forums to get more info on which plugins are compatible with your version and how to set them up.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/default.aspx

Gary