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Hi i have just purchased a new laptop and i am looking to start producing my own tunes. i have a keyboard with a midi output but was just wondering the best way to connect it to my laptop. would it be best through a USB interface? or are there any other ways that are better? how do you connect yours?

Any insights would be greatly appreciated

Hi, Does your midi controller (keyboard) have a USB on it?

If it does, you should conect it to the laptop using a UAB cable.

If it doesn't, you will need to buy a MIDI interface. I use a edorial uno for this and it converts the MIDI - USB.

Otherwise, you need to buy a soundcard with Midi.
You really do need a soundcard anyway for your laptop.

And if you experience a long latency via usb and haven't got any external soundcard, just use asio4all driver to get quite sufficient results.

Will i need an external sound card then? i was told its better if you have software with your interface wether it be sound card or midi interface as this helps latency problems?

You just need a USB Midi interface so you can connect your Midi keyboard to your laptop.

They are cheap.

Latency comes from your sound card. Also depends how high the soundcards buffer is.

I would advise anyone serious about music production to get a soundcard that is made for music. You dont have to spend £1000 but If you could get something like a Audiophile2496 (think it is) it would do the job.

If you have a laptop - dont even bother thinking of using an onboard soundcard unless you really have no choice. Check out the many soundcards for laptops.

Somewhere like Digital Village (dv247.com) would have them.

ok thanks everyone for all your advice. I think i am going to get an external sound card as i think i will need one anyway for the future and i have also heard not to use the ones that come with laptops.

Cheers guys