Can you use a MIDI controller as a keyboard? It’s a good question with a short answer. In almost all cases, yes.
In order to better understand the question, let’s take a quick look at the differences between a MIDI controller and a keyboard.
So, First, What is a MIDI Controller?
A MIDI controller essentially is a keyboard, only with the added ability to transmit MIDI data.
All keyboards, technically, could also be MIDI controllers, but because MIDI controllers do not necessarily have a space for audio output, not all MIDI controllers are keyboards.
So, it’s possible that your MIDI controller is a keyboard, in which case you can absolutely use it both as a keyboard and as a MIDI controller.
Still, the answer is a bit more puzzling to those who own a MIDI controller that is a marketed and sold as a MIDI controller and not as a keyboard, because this particular class of MIDI controller does not necessarily have audio output built in. Instead of transmitting audio, of course, a MIDI controller that is not a keyboard transmits MIDI data — electronic data, which processed and turned into sound by various software programs.
Electronic artists use MIDI controllers to create their own unique brand of music, but what happens when an electronic artist (perhaps it’s you, dear reader) decides he/she wants to make traditional piano-style music with their MIDI controller keyboard?
Where there is a will, there is inevitably a way, and it is theoretically possible to configure your MIDI controller in such a way that the electronic data it transmits to your computer translates into traditional piano-style music.
The easiest way to get your MIDI controller to play music — we should note — is simply to buy a keyboard (Yamaha makes many) with MIDI output capabilities.
This way, your MIDI controller is already set up to play like a keyboard by default, and, as such, there’s no extra tinkering to be done on your end when you decide that you want your MIDI controller to play like a traditional keyboard (since your MIDI controller already is a traditional keyboard).
This is, in a sense, the best answer to the initial question and the best solution to the problem is poses, though this solution also requires a certain amount of foresight, and offers little assistance to the MIDI controller user who has already purchased a MIDI controller to use as a non-traditional electronic instrument, and who now wants to use this device as a traditional keyboard style instrument.
This latter category of musician is not without hope, since, as we’ve said, it is possible to make a MIDI controller sound like a keyboard, albeit not without quite a bit of digging and extra effort on the musician’s end.
The question also gets at the core of why exactly we love the MIDI controller, and allows us to summarize briefly what makes the MIDI controller so cool. We love the MIDI controller, in short, because its capabilities are almost limitless, and can sound any number of different ways, fitting in with an endless variety of musical styles.
So, if you’ve already bought a MIDI controller that isn’t a traditional keyboard and now want to use your MIDI controller as if it were a traditional keyboard, you’re in luck, because it’s possible. Still, the easiest and in many ways the best way around this problem — the problem of wanting to use one’s MIDI controller as a keyboard, but being unable to immediately do so — is avoidable.
Before Buying
Before purchasing a MIDI controller, all prospective buyers would be wise to ask themselves whether they want just a MIDI controller, or whether they want a MIDI controller and a keyboard.
If the answer is the latter, as is sometimes the case, then customers would be wise to buy an electronic keyboard with MIDI output capabilities, that way, as we’ve said, this sort of problem would never occur; one would always be able to use one’s MIDI controller both to transmit MIDI data, and to output more traditional sounds that are directly perceptible by the human ear.
While it may cost the buyer extra to connect the keyboard to an electronic apparatus, the costs associated with this process are relatively minor, and pale in comparison to the costs and labor needed to turn your MIDI controller into a keyboard.
A MIDI controller can make just about any sound with the help of a computer, piano-style keyboard music included. Still, consumers are better asking whether a keyboard is something they desire before purchasing their MIDI device.