CP33 Effects Question

[snafu7x7]

Apologies in advance for being completely ignorant on not just this keyboard but keyboards in general, I'm a guitar player myself so beyond turning it on I'm basically at a loss. I bought this keyboard for my wife as a xmas present, she had played piano her whole life but we did not have the room in our small apt for a piano so after much research and study I chose the CP33 because it had excellent sound and 'feel' and it was a wise choice because she loves it. However she knows about as much about electronic keyboards as I do so we're hoping you can help answer some questions for us.

The main thing we are curious about is if the keyboard is exapandable or adaptable to produce different sounds and effects from what it comes by default with as its presets? For example, say I want a cheesy 80s synth pop sound, or maybe a Hammond organ sound or whatever. How does this work? I assume these are just patches that you can download for a price but is it something that is loaded via computer to the keyboard itself? Or is it a scenario more like an effects module for guitar where you simply capture the raw output from the instrument and then a secondary interface is responsible for altering the sound?

Again apologies for the probably dumb question but any help would be much appreciated, thanks!

 

[The Y_man]

You can't add a sound as such, but you can use the keyboard as a MIDI controller for your PC. In simple terms, you can get virtual synth programs on your computer, and play these from the keyboard using trhe USB connection.

The Y-man

 

[snafu7x7]

You can't add a sound as such, but you can use the keyboard as a MIDI controller for your PC. In simple terms, you can get virtual synth programs on your computer, and play these from the keyboard using trhe USB connection.

The Y-man

Thanks for the reply. Can you elaborate a bit on how exactly that works? Say for example we are recording a song and we want to be able to hear the keyboard sound the way the songs calls for (use my previous example, say we're recording a cheesy 80s pop song with lots of synth sound), is that possible? What would that chain of look like?

thanks

 

[duncan121]

Midi

He's referring to your keyboads midi capabilities. You can buy virtual instruments that are software downloads to you computer. Once downloaded, these tones now become available to your yamaha by connecting the pc/mac to your keyboard via usb cable. This technique is widely used in recording studios.

 

[snafu7x7]

He's referring to your keyboads midi capabilities. You can buy virtual instruments that are software downloads to you computer. Once downloaded, these tones now become available to your yamaha by connecting the pc/mac to your keyboard via usb cable. This technique is widely used in recording studios.

I don't think I'm properly communicating my question. I think I'm good on the midi output, I read up on it a bit so I understand the principal. What I'm asking is exactly how this works in practice because I've never done it?

So again, take my cheesy 80s synth example...say we are recording such a track, I lay down a bass line, some drums and a little guitar. Now my wife wants to record her keyboard part along with the rough mix we've already got down. Assuming I have these virtual instruments installed on the PC and the keyboard jacked into the midi input, what exactly will she hear while recording? Is she able to hear the notes she is playing thru the virtual voice on the PC? Or can she only hear it as one of the voices on the CP33? And second to that, what does the chain of devices look like? I have an mbox2 so is it Keyboard --> mbox2 --> PC? Do I need a mixer in there somewhere?

thanks