Can I play other digital sounds (e.g. flute, trumpet) off a digital piano? How?

Question

I'm looking to buy a digital piano so that I can play around with different instruments (not for recording purposes, although that would be an added benefit). There's two that I'm currently looking at buying secondhand (Casio AP10 or Casio Privia 110), and both seem to have midi in/out ports.

Would I be able to download a cheap/free program onto my laptop and connect that to the digital piano to play basic sounds (e.g. flute, trumpet), with the audio still coming out of the digital piano?

I'm totally new in this area, having only played acoustic piano for years, so any help would be appreciated.

Cheers!

Answer 1

The answer is no. The reason is that the two keyboards you have mentioned (Casio AP10 or Casio Privia 110) have no audio in. They can still be useful of course.

First you need to get a midi interface for your computer. You should be able to find a USB midi interface for something like 15 to 30 USD. Secondly you need some program in your computer. For the Mac Garageband is a good example. For a Windows or Linux computer you will have to search a bit more.

Then connect the keyboard to the midi/USB converter (in to out, out to in). What you can do now is:

• play on the keyboard and hear the inbuilt sounds
• play on the keyboard and record midi in the computer
• play back the recorded or other midi on the keyboard (using its inbuilt sounds)
• play on the keyboard and create sounds in the computer. You can listen to them on the computer speaker.

What you cannot do is send sound from the computer to the keyboard speakers -- there simply is no connection on the keyboard.