Operation Manual

2.2 Tutorial 2 Playing a Synth with a Keyboard 29
used by most electronic musical instruments, computers and sound cards. Using MIDI, the key-
board sends messages such as the notes played, the status of the pitch or modulation wheel. The
keyboard communicates with your computer through a MIDI cable connecting the MIDI output of
the keyboard to the MIDI connector of the computer sound card. Some keyboards also use USB to
communicate with the sound card.
It is assumed in this tutorial that you have a MIDI keyboard which can be connected to your
computer. This is, of course, the best way to take full advantage of the Tassman. This is not a limit,
however, since there are lots of things to do with the Tassman even without a keyboard. In the next
tutorial we will replace the Keyboard module by a Sequencer module. But read this one first,
even if you do not have a keyboard.
Construction
• We will first open the instrument we constructed in the last tutorial. Double-click on it in the
Browser, this will open the instrument in the Player view, hit Ctrl-T/Apple-T to switch to
the Builder view. If you did not save the preceding synth open the “Tutorial1 Step6” in the
Tutorial folder of the instrument section.
• Select the wire linking the LFO to the VCO and delete it.
• In the module library section, select the Keyboard module from the MIDI folder in the
In/Out section. You will notice that there are four different types of keyboard: a Keyboard,
a Vkeyboard, a Polykey and a Polyvkey first select the Keyboard module and place it in
the construction area.
• Pull a wire between the second Keyboard output (pitch signal) and the first input of the
VCO.
Figure 14: Tutorial 2, step 1
Playing
Use your keyboard to play melodies. The Keyboard module we have selected behaves like a
classic monophonic keyboard, which means that it can only play one note at a time. The note