Audacity Forum

Can someone tell me whether I can record using Audacity from a Roland Fp3 piano keyboard connected with a Edirol UM2 midi interface to a PC? Does Audacity support this? I am trying to compose on the keyboard & then play a song with the ability to enter the notes into some musical notation software. I have not done this before. Currently, I am composing on the keyboard & listening. Then making manual notations on a sheet of blank music paper! Very time consuming, and the noteation is not very accurate for others to read! Any help would be most appreciated. If Audacity doesn't allow for this, can you advise me on where to go for software with a limited budget?

I already responded to your similar thread yesterday (including making a support call to Roland on your behalf) - see: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 17#p130817

Please don't double post - it is considered very bad netiquette - and it only annoys the forum elves. Asking the same question twice is not a good way of getting an alternative answer. It is also considered bad form to hijack ann existing thread - much better to do as you have done here and start a new topic - accordingly I have deleted your original duplicate posting and copied my responses to you of yesterday to this thread.

WC

Copy of my first response to you yesterday

Madeleine,

the UM2 is a Midi device; on the Roland website it states "The UM-2 utilises the Fast Processing Technology (FPT) which makes transmission of MIDI information exceptionally fast. In response to a regular incoming MIDI data flow, FPT optimizes the USB data transmission. The great advantage is that FPT is compatible with all pro-acclaimed music and MIDI sequencing software."
From that description (and nor from the user manual or the Specs.) I can't work out if the device is just Midi an and Midi out - or if it is also a converter to take Midi and convert to a digital audio signal. I am about to log a support call withe the Roland technical support to try to shed some light on this - I will post back when I get a reply.

Audacity does not recognize and cannot deal with Midi data (well not yet anyway - there are lots of votes for this on the Feature Requests page in the Wiki - and I believe that one of the developers may be working on this).

Audacity is expecting to get a digital audio stream so if the UM2 does not produce such data, then you will need to use some software which will convert from Midi to digital audio and feed that signal to Audacity. Timidity has been mentioned recentlly for this task on the forum - search for Timidity and you should find the threads.

WC

Copy of my second response to you yesterday

Response fron Roland Tech Support:
<<<The UM series are MIDI interfaces – not Audio Interfaces. This includes the UM1G, UM2G and UM3G. No audio signal is used here – just MIDI data….. >>>

Which is as I thought - so you will need either a hardware or software converter to turn your Midi sigal into sound (digital sound preferrably).

There is no way that you can (currently) plug this device into Audacity and get it to record audio, sorry.

WC

Dear WC,
I regret any lack of etiquette: I am very new to this business of Forums, and wasn't sure how to list a new topic at first, so I used the closest topic I could find. Then I discovered the proper way to introduce a new topic. Thank you for your reply and for your assistance. Yes, Roland got back to me as well & it would seem as if the correct solution is to follow your thread. Thank you.
Madeleine

No worries Madeleine - the posting was to advise others (just as much as you) how, and how not to, go about things. You are not alone in this you are not the first - and you won't be the last.

One of the things I love about Roland is how very helpful and prompt they normally are at tech support - always good when buying hi-tech kit.

If you do get it all working perhaps you could post back here so that other future readers/poster may benefit from your solution.

Thanks,

WC