Yamaha, Finale, And Mac Osx Leopard - Idiot Guide?, Never installed midi before on OSX, need guidance Options

[jmcm]

Essentials:
System - Mac OS X Leopard OR Tiger (or have older machines running Panther);
Typesetting software - Finale;
Midi device - Yamaha PortableGrand NP-30

I typeset for years on OS9 with Finale, and an old Roland plugged into my Mac via the serial connection, but after a couple of years doing no typesetting I am restarting, and had to pension off the old OS9 machine and Roland and upgrade Finale to run on my OSX machines. With the OS9 machine I just plugged in the Roland and it worked (with a bit of fiddling in Finale), but that approach isn't working with OSX. I have very little idea even where to start to get this working, so I'm looking for someone who could walk me through the steps as a complete beginner in installing a midi device to work with my Mac. Sorry.

(I did do a search of the threads to see if this had already been gone over, but couldn't find anything. If you can point me to a relevant thread I can go through that to see if I can get my devices working.)

What I've done:
I've installed the Yamaha USB Midi driver 1.1.0 and the update 1.1.1 - I can't find a newer one by searching with google. This appears in my System prefs, but when I start it up it tells me there is no USB midi device attached (oh yes there is). I've checked the cables, restarted, tried switching the plugs on my midi cable around and I'm getting lights on the cable, so something is working. I've also gone through the well-documented steps in Finale to try and reach the midi device that way, but failed as it's obviously not communicating with the system. I also started up Garage Band to see if it might find the keyboard for me, but it didn't.

The obvious possibilities are a) the Yamaha model I have is never going to talk to a Mac and I should have bought something more expensive; b) Leopard (which has issues with just about every software) has issues with 3rd party midi drivers, and I should try this on Tiger (which means a tedious reinstall, but I'll do it if I have to) or panther. On the other hand I may just have no idea what I'm doing and there's something completely obvious (to someone in the know) that I have missed.

I'm hoping someone has some experience that would save me a lot of time fiddling around and getting frustrated, and wouldn't mind helping me out. I'm not new to Macs, so am reasonably competent, but unfortunately it seems I'm a total deadhead with midi.

[philflood]

Midi can be frustrating. According to the information I have been able to find, your interface should work without any additional drivers. Plug it directly into a USB port on the computer. Do not go through a USB hub. Connect the midi in of the EMU interface to the midi out of your keyboard. You could connect the midi out of the EMU to the midi in of the NP30 if you want to use the NP30 sounds to audition your music. However, that is not necessary, as you could also just use the Quicktime instruments to play back, in which case you will hear the sound through your computer speakers. You need to go to the control panel for sound and make the appropriate sound input and output settings. But remember, midi itself is not sound, it is a set of instructions. The midi in gets recorded to your composition in Finale. When you play back from finale the midi instruction are sent to the keyboard if you have it select, or to the Quicktime instruments, and it plays back. I believe you also have to select the midi in and out location from within Finale to enable to recording and playback. And, I'm still not sure about Leopard, although I did not see anything on the EMU site indicating that your device would not work with Leopard.

Good luck!