Connecting up my Roland TD9K...

[reflux]

I've got a Roland TD9K VDrums kit that I want to plug into my PC and fiddle about with. I've got no idea about any of this kind of thing really but since I don't have a midi port on my PC I'm presuming I need a MIDI>USB converter or something like that?

If I can plug it in, what software do I need to actually read the MIDI signals and let me mess about with them?

 

[OzZie]

Well you need either:

1) A MIDI USB adapter and a seperate ASIO soundcard.

2) A seperate ASIO soundcard with MIDI I/O ports.

Without the soundcard you will get terrible latency (and i mean really bad), so getting something low enough will be at least £100, if not nearing £150. Most of the £150+ soundcard have MIDI I/O ports, but not all of them, so if they dont, you need to get a MIDI - USB coverter like you said which are about £22.

Then you need to get hold of some drum sampling software such as EZ Drummer, Superior 2.0 or BFD2. Beware though, these take up quite a lot of storage space (over 50GB for BFD2) but the samples are the best around and sound a million times more realistic than those on the roland. You can then mix and match whatever kits you want to, and also trigger pads to trigger other parts of the drums (such as Tom 3 triggering ride cymbal)

If you have msn, add me to msn as there is a whole shed load of stuff to discuss if you have the time.