Hello I have a Casio CDP 130 Digital Piano and my daughters use it to practice their worship music for church and they need more sounds on it. They need string instrument sounds so that they can practice some of the songs. I think that you can hook up a USB cable to the Digital Piano and then hook it up to your laptop but I am unsure of the software that you need or even if it is possible to do. Also is there a way to hook it up to a cheaper model Casio electronic keyboard to use the sounds off of that? Hello and welcome to the forums.

1. Casio Cdp 120 Keyboard

Casio Cdp 120 Keyboard

The usb jack on the CDP-130 is for use with a computer. It will send note data to any midi software that you wish to use. This is called acting as a 'midi controller'. The software on your computer becomes the sound source and the keyboard acts as the keys for it. This let's you use external sounds that go beyond the built in tones on the Casio. The choice of software is huge.

These are often called 'software synthesizers'. They come in standalone applications or VST plug ins for use in host applications we like to call 'DAW's' (Digital Audio Workstations). Some are free, some are very expensive.

Let us know what you decide and we will see what we can do to help. As far as the CDP-130 controlling another Casio keyboard, that is not possible without additional hardware. Without going into the complex details, I think this is something you will want to avoid. As I mentioned in the other thread You CAN use your CDP as a controller for other MIDI hardware using a Kenton USB MIDI Host controller or your computer as a USB MIDI Router controlling, but not limited to other keyboards, (MIDI And/Or USB) as well as Hardware MIDI Rack Modules such as a Ketron SD1, SD2 or SD4 or a Peavey Musebox or a used or new Yamaha Motif Rack Module or even a used Korg Triton Rack.

Your daughter does not need to give up her CDP keyboard at all and you can add the sounds of $2000 synths to it for a fraction of the cost of buying another keyboard. Once you are hooked up with an appropriate MIDI router you will be able to control any other synth on the circuit to do layers, splits or single voices with the push of a few buttons. For a link to the Kenton MIDI Host see the other thread linked above. For a decent freeware MIDI Routing package take a look at the MIDIOx home page or sourceforge for another freeware named Catia. Do you know if casio has a download that you can download more sounds through the Midi cable on your laptop so that when the laptop is hooked up to the digtial piano the sounds will play through the laptop? It sounds to me like you need a standalone software instrument to make things easy.

Native Instruments and Arturia are two companies that make some really good ones. If you give me an idea of the sounds you are looking for I can suggest one. After you have the software installed, you just hook up a USB cable from the Casio to the computer and do a quick set-up in the software. When you play the Casio it will trigger the sounds on the computer, so you will need to run a cable from the computer to your amp or mixer. It's pretty simple. Again, give me an idea of what sounds you need and I can suggest a software title for you.

Welcome to the world of MIDI!