[Hetfield72]

Mark – Thank you very much. That is super helpful to me!

My Alesis Surge module has a midi-USB out (USB-B – printer cable type) that I was planning to connect to my PC directly. Is there any advantage to using a MIDI cable out from the drum module to an audio interface before heading the the PC? Since it still needs to go to the PC to trigger SD3 and then head back to the audio interface it doesn’t seem like it adds much (unless the USB MIDI is much slower than the typical 5-pin MIDI out). Just curious in case this is a functionality I should look for if I decide I need to buy an audio interface.

I really do need to read up on this stuff! I like the idea of the audio interface if it reduces latency (i.e. more powerful processing that PC sound card) and would let me directly connect another audio source (e.g. an iPod) to play along with.

[Hetfield72]

Thanks Brad! Last question:

 

If I’m using an audio interface, do the edrums connect directly to it or do they go to the computer?

Since I am using them essentially as a midi controller through SD3, I’m not sure how I need to get everything connected. E-drum USB out to PC, then audio interface connected to PC by USB and headphone and/or iPod into audio interface?

[Hetfield72]

Thank you very much for the reply! I think my first try will be to set things up and try to just listen through the PC. From some articles alive read it seems that some people have latency with this and end up installing special drivers on their PC to reduce this. It looks like one downside of this is that you then can’t play music on the PC as those drivers only let one thing play at a time.

I don’t know if I’ll encounter the same issues or not. Usually in posts I see people saying an audio interface alleviates this, but I don’t fully understand why. Do you hook your edrums directly to the audio interface, or are they going to the computer and the computer goes to the audio interface?

 

Thanks again!

[Author]

Replies