Possible to use KeyStep to translate drum machine CV triggers to GarageBand?

[cerulean]

I'm coming from the world of CV/Gate synths where I would work with an analogue drum machine (e.g. a 606) providing triggers/gates to a synth.

I don't have access to my synths at the moment (I had to sell them) so would like to explore using computer software to compose in a similar manner.

A friend of mine showed me the KeyStep yesterday -- he uses the arpeggiator to trigger his analogue synths, using an analog drum machine into the KeyStep as the master clock.  Seemed awesome.

But is it possible to use the KeyStep to trigger software synths, like GarageBand?  That is, if you send in gate to the KeyStep from a drum machine, can the KeyStep send out MIDI to the computer that will trigger the software synth?  That is if I have a rhythm pattern coming from the trigger out of a 606, will that pattern be replicated in the software synth?  Will this also work with the KeyStep sequencers and arpeggiator -- that is, the rhythm pattern would be the same, but the notes would be either the sequenced notes or the arpeggiator.

I don't know if I'm making myself clear -- basically I'm hoping the KeyStep will allow me to duplicate my analogue composing style, which made great use of drum machine triggers to provide interesting and varied rhythm patterns, with a software synth.  If it were not to work with GarageBand, is there another software synth package -- preferably free like Reaper, or paid, like Logic -- that would allow me to do what I want (that is, if it's a limitation of GarageBand, not the KeyStep).

Thanks very much for your help.

[megamarkd]

Oh my, I do have pity for you going from hardware synths to Garage Band.
I'm not a computer user for music, but I do know that you would have to have some sort of box or plug-in to translate the analogue voltages into digital information, such as MIDI.  From the little bits and pieces I've read about people struggling to get their hardware to work with DAWs such as Live, there are plugins to get old CV/Gate synths to work with them.  Gates have various forms, from voltage pulses and dips to actual audible clicks.  The latter is easily recordable for playback as a timing track similar to the old way of synchronising a sequencer to tape, but dunno about working it the other way around.  Using a CVtoMIDI converter, there would be the need to filter the note info from the MIDI so that you can just have the synth triggering, but then it would come down to how the softsynth behaved with the absence of a note number along side the note-on/off instruction.

[cerulean]

Thanks -- but the KeyStep itself can't serve as a CV to MIDI converter, at least in the sense of gates?

I know the KS can take a trigger in, and can do MIDI out, so I thought that perhaps it could…

[megamarkd]

Doh!  I thought that last night, I forget that just because I don't use that function.  I was focusing on the part where the softsynth needs a note number to play as well as a note-on and off message.  My MS-20 (and Fatman, before my brother pulled it apart then lost the bits) plays the last note it received when being triggered by an external source.  I suppose that a similar thing would happen with a softsynth triggered minus a note number.