Backing Tracks: MIDI & General Questions

[Jovix]

This is more a question on behalf of a family member, and I wanted to know what your guys opinions are. My father (As do I) plays guitar, and has expressed a desire for good backing tracks for accompaniment. He has been playing MIDIs through a Juno-G keyboard, but he desires a different solution due to a a few complications. First and foremost, the keyboard is kinda big. Secondly, the keyboard frequently behaves strangely, such as strange patch selections and errors. I attempted to record the stereo-out from the keyboard into a Mic jack in my laptop, but noise is present in my recording (Audacity). He has called up a salesman at Musician's Friend, and thinks he might buy what he calls a "digital converter box". To me it sounds like an external soundcard, that merely plugs in through USB. His main concern is to eventually have the backing tracks on an mp3 player, for ease of transportation, and any suggestions you guys can provide would be extremely welcomed. Thanks in advance.

[Zephyr]

Smaller Midi keyboard and laptop? I'm kind of confused, is he playing the midi's on the keyboard by hand? Or is he just running pre-recorded midi's through his keyboards soundbanks and speakers? If he's playing and/or recording them himself maybe he should just record them through midi onto a laptop or computer.

[dannthr]

Noise in the recording could indicate a poor analog to digital conversion, and you're right in thinking that this magical "digital converter box" is just an external soundcard, since you seem to be more sensible than the MFI salesman, you may want to explore replacing your current internal soundcard. It's likely that you'll be able to procure something much more cheaply than taking a salesman's spurious advice.

Most recording suites will easily save your recording in a format compatible with most mp3 players, so I wouldn't worry about that step too much unless you don't currently have a recording suite.

Can you give more information about your setup?

[Jovix]

Or is he just running pre-recorded midi's through his keyboards soundbanks and speakers?

This is exactly what the setup is. He downloaded some songs off of a free internet MIDI database (which I think were originally intended for cell phones) to use as backing tracks, and has them running through the keyboard's "sound engine". He does this as he dislikes the sound of the regular MIDI patches because they don't sound real enough.

you may want to explore replacing your current internal soundcard

It'd be the way I'd choose to go, except for the fact that the computer I do all this stuff on is a laptop. I'm not sure if this on-board audio, but would a replace sound card still be cheaper than one of these boxes.

The setup is essentially this:

The Juno-G has the MIDI files stored internally and plays them using its sound engine and then I run the audio out from the keyboard's headphones jack into the laptop's Microphone jack. I suspect the adapters are causing problems as well as the low end internal soundcard.

I also have a Peavey mixer, but I don't see any benefit from running the signal through that.

[Zephyr]

Here's my suggestion to you, get the demo version of a sequencer, fruity loops for example, open it up and put in the midi. Put in the sounds you want for the midi then export it to mp3 form. You now have mp3's that can be played through your laptop instead of keyboard and you can choose any sounds or midi's that you want.