Unfortunately, there is one caveat under Microsoft Windows. It is rather complicated to set up. You need to be technically oriented and willing to learn MIDI technologies. We thought this would be just a plug-and-play. It turned out otherwise. Therefore, you need to find a technically proficient person locally if you are not equipped with this skill set.
System Requirements:
Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, XP and Vista are supported. It has a very small computation requirement. In fact, it runs fine on old generation computers.
Windows Vista and XP (2000?) are equipped with Software MIDI Synthesizer. This is not usable for this application due to the latency. There is a lag between any MIDI signal and its response. The built-in Synthesizer has nearly 0.1 Second (100mS) delay. It should be under 5mS. Theoretically, you can use Software Synthesizer. It is just more difficult to find a right one. If you use an old computer, you might have a built-in (hardware) MIDI synthesizer on your sound card. It does not sound as good as what we have today, but it could be usable for this application. Even if your instrument is not GM compliant, it does not necessary mean that you are out of luck. Quite often, you can manually set each channel to the corresponding instrument sound. We also know that some MIDI synthesizers do not respond to MIDI Program Change commands. You have to manually set each channel in this case.
This can be any keyboard with a MIDI interface. Many of them are actually equipped with an USB interface, especially lower cost versions. That is ok as long as the entire latency does not exceed the acceptable level. If you use an instrument with a MIDI interface, you need a MIDI interface on your computer side and a MIDI cable to hook them up together. You will find a wide range of MIDI instruments these days. In theory, you can use any instrument. But, be sure to check if the tracking or the latency of your desired instrument is acceptable. We have a guitar set-up, which is not quite up to our standard. We do not know if the tracking is the source of the problem or the latency is aggravating the problem. It could be both. Keyboards are less prone to this problem since it is technically much simpler. It is just a bunch of switches.
