Using digital piano as MIDI keyboard in Reaper

Question

I have a HP302 Roland digital piano. It has a usb connector that easily plugs into my computer. The problem is, Reaper is not picking up the piano. It sometimes will say something along the lines of:you've disconnected Roland digital piano but that is it. Im not looking to spend money on an actual MIDI keyboard since Im on a budget. Why won't Reaper pick it up when Garage Band picks it up fine? I would use the audio recorded in Garage Band and upload it in Reaper but for some reason, when I play it in Reaper, the recording is much slower and at a strange pitch. So I feel my only option is to record in Reaper itself. Does anyone know how to get Reaper to detect the piano?

Edit: @Caleb Hines: here is what it looks like now. Im following the tutorial by Kenny here http://www.reaper.fm/videos.php#ztr7B-PrUHY and if you go to the 33 second mark, the MIDI is detected there. The one problem solved so far is that at least reaper is detecting the piano. I got rid of the screenshot. This site needs 10 reputation points for me to post 2 links.

Still trying to get it to record. I tried recording, but Reaper used the built in mic on my computer instead. Ok it's recording now but I cant hear it when I play the recording back. Here is what I have right now:

Edit 2: @Caleb Hines:Ok so I did have a VSTi connected to the track but I did not have an output so that works now. Thank you! But the solution you mention at Reaper playing at a slower and weird pitch being fixed with adjusting the rate:

1. Is there a way to adjust the rate by typing in the numbers instead of adjusting the switch itself? The switch jumps around a bit and itd be great to have some precision over it.

2. The recording came from Garage Band. I have a piano recording of a song and was hoping to embellish it with different layers of sound. But when I insert the Garage Band media file, it plays at a strange pitch and much slower. If I use the rate to fix it, it still sounds off, but a bit better. Have you tried inserting a Garage Band file into reaper and listen to it playback there? It's also happening with my VSTi actually. Im using Native Instrument's Massive, and Reaper plays the sounds at a lower pitch than I configured them to be

Answer 1

You mention that when you record with a microphone, the playback is slower and at a strange pitch. I'm guessing that's caused by the "Rate" slider. It's the green bar in the center of the screenshot (to the right of the word "[Paused]"). In your screenshot, it says "Rate: 0.949" which may be causing your recording to play back slowly.

As for the MIDI playback causing no sound, you'll need to check at least two things. I haven't watched the video you linked, so I don't know if it already mentions these or not.

• In the [FX] dialog for your track, you need to have a VSTi selected (a virtual instrument) in order to produce sound. If you don't have any custom VSTi's, you can try playing with Reaper's built-in ReaSynth. It'll give you a cheesy 8-bit synth sound sound, but it's a starting point, until you start collecting your own VSTi's.

• Back in the Preference dialog, under Audio > Devices (not MIDI Devices), you'll need to have a proper output device selected.