I recorded my music keyboard accompaniment directly onto a flashdrive. I need to know how to transfer the flashdrive through Audacity so that I can convert it to WAVE in order to put it on CD to in turn play it on a regular CD player on our church’s sound system. Can this be done, and if so, how?
It depends what format the music was recorded in. If it was recorded directly from the keyboard onto the flash drive then it may be recorded as MIDI or some format that is specific to the keyboard that records only the “key presses” rather than the actual audio, in which case it will not be supported by Audacity. Do you know what format the files are?
Steve, I will have to call Yamaha to get the format. But, if it is any help, the flash has to be formatted on the keyboard before it can write to it. Larry
Steve, Yamaha said that it is recorded as a MIDI and that I would have to plug the keyboard directly into the computer, run it through Audacity to convert it to WAVE, then to CD. Getting my computer into the same room as all my music equipment presents an insurrmountable problem at this time. Do you have any ideas on how to circumvent this problem? Larry
Audacity to convert it to WAVE,
Audacity doesn’t handle MIDI, so Audacity can’t “convert” it. But, you can plug the audio-output from your keyboard into your soundcard and digitally record the sound. As you may know, MIDI files are not sound files. MIDI files are the notes, timing, and instructions (something like sheet music) for a computer or MIDI instrument to play.
There are other solutions, but the other methods are probably even more “insurmountable” than moving your keyboard near your computer. 
Or, if it’s not too far, maybe you can get some longer cables… You probably will need some adapter cable(s) to connect the audio out from the keyboard (1/4" phone plug or RCA?) to line-in on your soundcard (3.5mm phone-jack). (Most laptops only have microphone-in, so don’t use a laptop unless you have the proper USB-audio interface with a line-level input.)
Your computer can probably play MIDI files (Windows Media Player can do it, it think). Have you tried it? Then, if your soundcard/driver supports recording “What-U-Hear” or “Stereo Mix”, you can record the playback with Audacity (or other recording software). Or, if you don’t have those options, you can use a loopback cable to connect line-out (or headphone-out) on your soundcard to line-in on your soundcard, and record that way. The downside to that is, you’ll be using whatever MIDI instrument sounds that are on your computer and it won’t sound the same as your keyboard, and it may not be acceptable to you.
There are specialized DAW and MIDI sequencer software applications that will allow you to use VSTi MIDI instruments of your choice to render a WAV file (or other audio format). Besides choosing any instrument you like, you can also edit the MIDI file. The downsides are cost and a fairly steep learning curve.
Everybody thinks MIDI is real sound because of the built-in MIDI support on most computers. It’s very nearly transparent. Play a MIDI song on the computer and the computer builds a piano for you and then plays the piano. There is no sound file. Each computer will sound different because each builds the piano in a different way. Keyboard are rated on how well they make the piano. You can mess with MIDI. You can tell the computer to play the piano part on a trombone, and so it builds a trombone and plays that. It’s very accommodating to the needs of the musician, but it falls apart pretty quickly when you actually need a sound file for something.
You have to walk up to the keyboard or other MIDI device and grab the sound on the way out to the speakers or headphones. The test sound clips I post were all done with the headphone connection of various Yamaha keyboards.
http://www.kozco.com/tech/organfinale.mp3
Macs, until fairly recently had Stereo Line-In connections, so I didn’t need any USB sound cards or other electronics. Most Windows laptops need devices such as the UCA202.
http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/peaveyUCA202Lenovo.jpg
Koz