Connect Epiano to a notebook - so it'll work

There are various ways to connect your electric piano to your notebook. We'll show you how to do it.

E-piano on a notebook: 3 options

There are three ways to connect your electric piano or keyboard to your laptop.

Almost all electric pianos, keyboards and synthesizers have a small or large jack or headphone output that transmits analog audio material.
Modern electric pianos, keyboards and synthesizers in particular have a USB interface for transferring audio or MIDI data to the computer.
Since the 1980s, many electric pianos have had a MIDI input and output each to transmit data to sequencers or to play back from sequencers.

Connect the electric piano to the notebook via a jack

Direct connection to the jack input of your sound card is one of the easiest ways. If you are using an external sound card, the picture gallery will help you.

Check the size of the jack or line-out connector of your electric piano (a). The "small" jack is usually 3.5 mm, the "large" 6.3.
If your electric piano has a small jack output, you only need a jack cable. With a large jack you need an adapter cable from large to small jack. If your electric piano has a cinch output, there are also adapter cables.
Connect this to the often blue marked line-in of the laptop (b) or to the line mic input (c). Make sure that the volume control of your electric piano is turned up properly.
Now the sound of the electric piano is transferred to the PC. If necessary, you still have to activate the sound of the lin-in. This is usually done using the loudspeaker icon in the lower right corner of the taskbar.
If there is still no sound, this guide will help you as well as special articles for Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Connect the electric piano to the notebook via USB

Modern e-pianos and keyboards in particular have a USB connection to send MIDI data to the PC:

First install the drivers of the electric piano. These are either included with the purchase or can be downloaded from the Internet. Some electric pianos can also do without drivers.
Now connect the electric piano to your notebook via USB.
Since only control data and no sound is transmitted via MIDI, you need MIDI-capable software to generate a sound. You can create MIDI sounds via Asio4All, use the built-in piano with the freeware MuLab.
Paid virtual instruments, such as Steinberg's The Grand, Garritan Personal Orchestra, sound much nicer and more realistic. These work as a standalone application or as a Direct-X or VST plug-in.

Connect the electric piano to the notebook via MIDI

If your electric piano has a MIDI output, you can also connect it to your laptop via USB.

With a USB midi interface you can connect the MIDI out of the electric piano to the USB port of your laptop. If your notebook has a gameport, there is also a special cable.
As described above, you now need software that outputs the MIDI data as piano sounds.