Im Confused

Can I assign sounds to the keys on my keyboard and record them that way?

you can with beatscape..i dont think its in mc..

If I read you correctly:

Yes. You can use software sampler or sample player in which you can build instruments that use the sounds you want. Then you can play the softsampler  with your MIDI-controller keyboard. Kontakt is the mother-sampler, a brilliant tool, but you can look for others, both free and commercial, at www.kvraudio.com

However, the wording of your question does indeed imply that you are not familiar with MIDI and these things in general. Visiting for example www.tweakheadz.com and reading the well written guides there about samplers, soft synths etc. is very recommendable.
Don't forget to read through the MC help files and do the utorials.

tooMUCHinformation


Can I assign sounds to the keys on my keyboard and record them that way?

Welcome to the forum.
If your keyboard supports loading samples into it, then you can.
You can use your keyboard to play almost any sound known to man using software synthesizers in Music Creator 5. Sound Center and TTS-1 have a great number of traditional instrument sounds available and Drop Zone is a sampler/sample player that you can load any short audio clip into and trigger with your keyboard. There are also electric synthesizer instruments like Square 1 and Triangle II. Lots of other synths available on line for free or for cash.
But you don't actually 'record' the soft synths, you just record the MIDI data, which triggers the soft synths. Once the MIDI data is in MC, you can use a soft synth and Bounce the synth to an audio track, giving you a 'recorded' audio track.

or do i absolutely need a midi controller if i dont want 2 b confined to piano roll?

tooMUCHinformation


My question is can i assign soft synth sounds to keys on my cpu keyboard?

Yes and no. It requires a 3rd party program that is tricky to set up, and somewhat awkward to use. At this point, I would not consider that a viable option.
I strongly agree with Guitarhacker. Get a MIDI controller, or keyboard with MIDI output.
It will be much easier to set up and use, and you whole experience will be better.

i bought the akai lpk 25 at guitar center..its on sale right now for under 50 bucks usa coin..if you are contemplating using your cpu keyboard then this is about as good as that only much better..there is a program out there but i dont know if its avail.on windows 7.last time i checked i couldnt download it..so i bought the akia instead..the korg nanokey is a cheapy too.but breaks easily