MC5-playing instrument sounds without recording

I have an old Cakewalk home studio, version 3, that I have used with a midi keyboard controller. It worked fine with my old computer. My midi keyboard was connected to the sound card.
I now have a new computer that has windows Vista, and there is no connector on the sound card.  I understand that I must now use the USB to connect my keyboard, so I bought a cable that is for USB to Midi. It does not work, my version of cakewalk is not compatible with USB. I know the cable is okay because I tried it on a similiar program from a different company.
Okay so now it's time for me to upgrade, the program that I am considering  in my price range is Music Creator 5. But before I buy it there are a few questions I have.
1. When I play my Midi controller keyboard in Music Creator 5, can I hear it without recording.
2. And can I select any of the 128 midi instrument sounds, and use my keyboard to play that instrument sound without recording first?
3. If I record my keyboard playing on one track with an organ sound, can I copy that track and then paste it into another track, and then change the midi instrument voice of that second track to say a flute sound, and then play both tracks back at the same time. And how many tracks can I keep doing that, with a different instrument voice on each track? 

It's more likely that the operating system is the issue with MC3.....

Yes.... you can do all that and more.   MC5 has 48 audio tracks and 128 midi tracks....however, the actual number your computer will do at one time will depend on the hardware in it.

I would recommend that you buy a nice interface (external soundcard for USB or Firewire). As Greg said, the latency from your factory card will be unacceptable for all practical purposes.

You will need to learn about soft synths if you haven't already..... and you can get this info from the MC5 manual and from my website on MC4 & TTS.

Hi guys,
I've bought MC5 some days ago and I have a couple of similar questions as Yonder, thank you for answer.
1. Any external USB soundcard solve a problem with latency (MIDI and audio too)? Or it must be some hi-tech brand ?
2. Is it possible to clone/copy MIDI track as Soundcenter track ?

Is it possible to clone/copy MIDI track as Soundcenter track ?

 
You can clone the track, but since Sound Center is a single-input synth, you would probably have to manually insert a new instance of Sound Center. I don't think cloning would automatically insert the synth.
Good USB devices can be gotten for around $100 US. I don't know what you have available in the Czech Republic, but there's always mail order.
Welcome to the forum.

Ah - I think what you may be describing is a polyphony limit - we've heard others complain about it before.  I did go and look at the soundcenter and I can't find a way to increase the polyphony in it.  there's also no documentation on it that actually says what the polyphony limit is.  I think it may be time we found out more about this...

Filo..... what soundcard are you currently using? I think that may be a factor in the issues you are having.

No disrespect intended to my friend Herb, but if the problem is indeed polyphony of the softsynth then the soundcard doesn't matter.

the soundcard you have is a "onboard chip" and it's not the best for recording.  it will cause stuttering, popping, even dropout, but if it's actual "dropped notes" you're dealing with - then that's a function of the polyphony of the softsynth.

here's a way you can tell:  insert TTS-1 softsynth and change the output of your MIDI track to TTS-1 instead of Soundcenter.  if all of the notes still don't play, you can adjust the polyphony in TTS-1 (I'll have to look up the instructions on how to do that when I get home).  if that doesn't fix the problem, then the problem could be that your soundcard is actually not handling the processing, if it does fix the problem, then the problem is that soundcenter will not handle the polyphony for your MIDI track.

Did you try using TTS-1 and see if the note dropping stopped?  I'm curious to find out if this is indeed a polyphony problem.

Just to clarify - the external MIDI port doesn't have anything to do with it.  just insert TTS-1 from the INSERT>SOFTSYNTHS>TTS-1 menu options and set your MIDI output on the MIDI track to TTS-1 instead of the soundcenter.

OK!  just making sure!

What do you mean by "right thru MIDI."?

Filo - it's the "thru MIDI" part that I don't understand.  right channel is being sent to what?  "thru MIDI" doesn't make sense.  I'm assuming you mean both tracks are MIDI tracks and the left one's output is set to TTS-1, but the right one is being sent to "thru MIDI" doesn't make sense.  what is the output of the right one?

Ok - the problem is going to be because you're sending MIDI to the MS GS wavetable and TTS-1.  I can't listen to your song here at work, but I suspect that the MS GS Wavetable is actually faster than TTS-1 and since you're in MME driver mode you have no latency compensation available. 

MS GS Wavetable is the worst softsynth you could possibly use, tho.  what is the reason you're choosing it instead of making all of the MIDI tracks go thru TTS-1?  TTS-1 has much better sounds than MS GS Wavetable anyway.