Hooking up 3 keyboards

FrogLegs · Post by **FrogLegs** » Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:24 am

I have the x-50, another korg synthesizer/keyboard, and a controller keyboard...with midi out only. i want to use the sounds on the x-50 but be able to hook up the 2 other keyboards, to assign sounds to those, in order to play 3 keyboards live.

x-50 has midi in/out.....other korg has in/out/thru....and 3rd keyboard only has 2 midi outs.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

X-Trade · Post by **X-Trade** » Wed Feb 03, 2010 12:44 pm

It isn't clear from your post exactly what you are trying to do.

you've got:
A: an X50
B: something else (would possibly be helpful to know what tat is as it may do something useful)
C: a controller (doesn't really matter what that is.

now are you saying you only want to use the X50's sounds? or you want to use some sounds from B too? do you want to be able to control A and B from C? or control A from B and C? do you want to use B to control A or A to control B at all?

FrogLegs · Post by **FrogLegs** » Wed Feb 03, 2010 4:04 pm

have korg x-50.......call it A (mid in/out)
have korg dw-8000......call it B (midi in/out/thru)
have 1 other keyboard, controller only, no sounds (midi out/out)

i want to use the sounds from A only, and use all 3 keyboards to assign 3 midi channels to so i can assign different sounds to each keyboard.

kanthos · Post by **kanthos** » Wed Feb 03, 2010 5:09 pm

Easy. Get a MIDI merger to combine the out from the controller and out from the dw-8000 and connect that to the X-50's IN.

MIDI Solutions makes one for something like $35, though it requires that one of your other keyboards provides it with power through the MIDI cable; all keyboards *should* do this, some do not; see the MIDI Solutions website for a list of known bad keyboards.

The catch is that you'll hit polyphony limits really quickly if you're not careful about how many sounds you have layered together at once.

FrogLegs · Post by **FrogLegs** » Wed Feb 03, 2010 5:53 pm

thankyou...i figured i'd have to buy something like that. i will only be playing 2 sounds at once at any given time, since i'm playing live. i just want to be able to access all 3 keyboards at any given time. so will i still have problems with too many layered sounds? or is it only a problem if they are going off at the same time? e.i. using a sequencer.....?

kanthos · Post by **kanthos** » Wed Feb 03, 2010 7:02 pm

I don't know what the polyphony would be, and it would also depend on how many notes you're playing at once and whether or not you're sustaining more as well. If you're only ever playing two programs at once, one in each hand, I'd think you'd be fine.

Bigs · Post by **Bigs** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 9:21 pm

If you're only going to play on your controller you can just connect the MIDI OUT of your controller to the IN on your DW-8000 and connect the THRU of your DW-8000 to your X50. That's what the MIDI THRU port's for

X-Trade · Post by **X-Trade** » Fri Feb 12, 2010 12:07 am

Bigs wrote:If you're only going to play on your controller you can just connect the MIDI OUT of your controller to the IN on your DW-8000 and connect the THRU of your DW-8000 to your X50. That's what the MIDI THRU port's for

That doesn't work because he wants to use the DW8000 to control the microX as well as using the Controller to control the MicroX. Your suggestion allows the controler to control either the DW8000 or the MicroX, the DW8000 only controls itself.

THRU in most keyboards does not mix the input with the output, it simply echos the input back to the THRU port unchanged, to allow daisy-chaining of modules. A small number of keyboards or modules (for example my Alesis DM5) do offer the option of merging the in to the out, however that still comes out from the out. The THRU usually doesn't even touch a processor - it is not a managed output, just electrically connected to the IN with some buffer resistors or diodes or something. and usually opto-isolators.

I have a feeling MIDI was originally developed with a singular 'master keyboard' in mind, controling multiple modules, rather than multi-keyboard setups, which always require merger units.