Recording and Composing Program

[Peter]

Hello everybody !

I got my xw-p1 this summer, and I'm looking for a PC program that would record the notes I play, like a notation program AND simultaneously record the exact sound from my synthesizer. I tried some programs, some of them were for notation, the others were for recording and some of them were a bit complicated to handle. I'm a newbie to all this stuff so I need a little bit of advice from more experienced users.

[Null]

I'd recommend Cakewalk Music Creator 6. It's not too pricey, it's fully featured, and the XW-P1 is fully supported with an INS file so all the patches and contrrollers are recognized by Cakewalk products.

And if you find it trickey to work with, it's also well documented with How To videos on their website and on youtube.

[Peter]

Thanks mate, I'll give it a try !

And one more question: Is the USB connection enough for the whole thing to work or do I need to connect it with audio cables too? My PC accepts only those mini audio jacks. Do I need a new sound card for the bigger jacks, or a converter is enough?

Edited November 28, 2012 by Double P

[Null]

To record and sequence MIDI files you only need the USB connection.

To record the audio out onto your computer you can hook the audio line outs on the XW directly to the computer's audio in with a proper adapter cable, recvord it as a WAV file and then convert it to MP3 or OGG or FLAC or whatever compressed format suits you.

The line level outputs on the XW are directly compatible with the line level input plug (blue jack) on your computer's sound card so a direct connection is doable, though I find it preferable to use a small mixing console to simultaneously feed my studio monitors with the sound output and the computer's line input at the same time. It's up to you how much you want to spend on your rig.

Here's a proper adapter cable if you want to hook to computer directly:

http://www.amazon.co...male mono cable

And here's the mixer I use with a slightly more elaborate hookup to feed my studio monitors and computer at the same time.

http://www.amazon.co...keywords=1202fx

Either layout would work for you, but you'd have to rely on your computer speakers to hear your XW while using the simple cable adapter solution.

Ffor clarity's sake I've attached a flowchart diagramming how my own studio is laid out.

Regards,

Gary

[lookin4]

Hello how are ya all.......... ok good to hear lol...... so I guess what im tryin to do is to play the sounds i here on my headphones from my xw-p1 to a line in to my pc so i can recorde tracks of my ......... its not really music its just sounds im makin and tryin to record.oh and i got music creator 6 lastnight

Thanks,Andrew

[Null]

You're going to need this file to get your cakewalk to recognize all of the XW-p1's voices. It's a simple text file you can open and examine in notepad if you want to take a peek inside it.

http://acapella.harm...47&d=1341648791

Just unzip it and save it to wherever you plan to save your MIDI files and then once you set up your Options/MIDI Devices and Options/Instruments, add it to your instruments list and it will recognize all the patches your XW is capable of.

Then you'll be able to start recording and playing back MIDI sequence files.

To record Audio you'll need a cable like I linked above from Amazon and you can record the audio tracks directly in Music Creator or using a separate program like WAV recorder and an MP3 conversion program like LAME.

Here's a sample youtube search with a whole mess of videos on setting up and using Music Creator 6.

http://www.youtube.c...urce=opensearch

And here's the Cakewalk Online Video Tutorials on using the program.

http://www.cakewalk....ic-Creator.aspx

If you still have any questions about recording after these, then just ask them in here.

Gary

[Guest Paul Tyson]

Hi Guys,

I bought the Gold version of the XW-P1 on Black Fri. 2012 - and I absolutely love the sounds that it creates. Just fantastic.

I have it connected to my PC which has the full version of Cubase Sequencing software.

I am having difficulty understanding how to set up multi-timbre "Performances" on the XW-P1..... which, in my mind, seems like a very simple thing - but finding myself overwhelmed by all the other parameters that I really don't need right now.

I've set up many other synths by Yamaha, Korg, Roland for this same purpose in the past.... without much trouble.

I just want to assign "Tones" on the XW-P1 to MIDI channels........ but it seems that "Performance Mode" only allows me to designate a total of 4 MIDI channels - ea. w/ a "Tone" assigned to it.

From reading the manual - it appears that this is done using "Performance Mode" - but I am hoping that I can get more than 4 MIDI channels going simultaneously.

[Guest Paul Tyson]

Nevermind - I figured out the answer. I'm using Casio Software Editor to setup multitimbre Performance setups w/ the "Mixer". Apparently the Mixer section of the Casio software allows me to designate Tones to all 16 MIDI channels. I think I'm all set at this point. I also found that I needed to turn "Local Setting" to "Off" when using this w/ a sequencer like Cubase. This seems to be standard method when working w/ a Sequencer and is the same thing I've done in the past w/ other MIDI keyboards.