A Guide To USB Controllers, MIDI And Audio In Music Recording

Audio Interface Basics

The are numerous Control Surfaces (knobs, buttons and screens to you and me) and USB Controller Keyboards currently on the market, offering users a huge variety of products to hook up to their PC or MAC based recording platform. Many of these interfaces now offer tight integration with the big name audio/Midi sequencing and computer music packages, like Cubase, Ableton, Propellerhead Reason and Avid Pro Tools.

This is useful when you understand how to use them, but it may present barriers for potential users who are trying to select the best option for their particular needs. For example, someone looking to work predominantly with loops and samples may opt for Ableton, whilst a songwriting guitarist might opt for Presonus Studio. In this article, we're looking to shed some light on these products and hopefully take some of the undoubted mysticism that can surround computer recording. Essentially, we want to help users to better assess what products they need for the results they are striving to achieve.

USB MIDI Interfaces

There are currently more USB interfaces and products within the music industry than you can shake a stick at, with more being released on what feels like a daily basis. To me, it makes perfect sense to cover what constitutes a USB interface before we go any further, as moving forward without understanding this fundamental concept is akin to walking into a minefield.

In short, a USB interface can be classified as basically any device that plugs into a PC or Mac via USB, however some USB devices offer only MIDI support whereas others support both audio and MIDI interfacing (see this SoundonSound article for an interesting commentary on MIDI over USB speeds). This point is of fundamental importance as, if you buy a USB MIDI controller keyboard to run soft synthesizers on your computer, you are not going to hear anything unless you also have an audio interface, a pretty important point to note! So what is MIDI, how does it vary from audio and what products tend to only feature USB MIDI interfacing without support for any audio?

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Akai Pro LPK25

Sometimes using Garageband or any recording software on your PC or Mac can be difficult if you don't actually have any instruments to use. You can always put together a beat using the prerecorded functions in whatever program you are using, but for those of you who want to take recording your music a step further, you may want to consider the Akai Pro LPK25. Akai is a brand used by many well known bands and musicians, for example Foster The People. Akai makes a wide array of products ranging from full sized keyboards to minature midi keyboards much like the LPK25. It is plug and play so simply plug it into your PC or Mac and open your recording software and begin playing. It can even be connected to the iPad for use in Garage Band but this requires the camera connector kit.