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.

[qusp74]

jmcm,

'I would have thought that the 'midi in' plug would go into the 'midi in' socket, and ditto with the 'midi out'. When I did this none of the lights except the 'power' ones lit up. When I swapped the cables over I got lights on the 'midi in' indicators, but not the 'midi out' (feedback??). So I'm no wiser about which way is right!'

as philflood has said you must connect the 'midi in' plug on your emu to the 'midi out' port on your keyboard. its weird I know but thats the way it goes. So if you think about it that way the fact that you got some feedback on the 'midi in' the interface was working when you did this shows that there shouldn't be any problem; you just have some routing to do so as to be able to trigger your 'Audio device'; philflood is also correct in that you need something to produce the audio for you such as a Virtual instrument or quicktime as the keyboard on its own will not transport audio into the computer without plugging it into an audio interface on your machine.

you will need to Setup audition to receive midi on the same channel/s (usually 1-16) as you keyboard is setup to 'transmit' on. These settings will need to be mirrored in your OS X Audio/midi preferences setup pages.Then you will have to insert an 'audio instrument' track, (or whatever it's called in audition), and set that track up to receive midi data on the same midi channel as you have chosen on your keyboard. Unfortunately I can't give you any 'Audition specific' advice as I haven't used it before.

Hope this helps

and you should be able to use a USB hub; it just has to be a powered one so it isn't relying on the bus for power.

Ce message a été modifié par qusp74 - sam. 12 avril 2008, 10:19.

[jmcm]

Dear qusp74 and philflood,

Many thanks for your replies.
I've done all the things you suggest but absolutely nothing happens at the computer end - i'm just told that the computer can't detect a midi device when I go to the driver setup in the control panel. (I've got a powered hub, but used the direct connection as I know these things can cause problems.)

I actually don't want to hear my typeset music played back on the keyboard (Finale plays back whatever is input on the laptop's internal speakers), or record what I'm playing on the keyboard into the computer. What I want to use the keyboard for is specifying the pitch of the note I'm inputting to a Finale score. It probably works the same way in Sibelius, but just to clarify (sorry if you already know this!):

If I want to put the note middle-c (value: crotchet) in the score there are two ways of doing this using the 'Speedy entry' tool:
1. click in the relevant bar, cursor up or down until the cursor is over the right pitch, then hit '5' on the numberpad.
2. select 'use midi input' in the 'Speedy entry' menu, then hold down middle-c on my midi keyboard and hit the '5' on the numberpad.

The second system, as you can imagine is *much* faster than the first when you're inputting a long string of notes, particularly if they cover a wide pitch range, since you don't have to cursor up and down between notes. You can of course also play in using the keyboard for durations as well as pitches, but that has the added problem of maintaining a constant rhythm and so on, and for me is more trouble than it's worth as I'm nearly always typesetting from the editor's manuscript, and I sometimes spend several seconds trying to work out what they intend for a note. (I did a whole Donizetti opera for Covent Garden from his working manuscript - filled with personal abbreviations and crossings out - with method 2: the only way.)

There are various bits of software and plugins that should allow me to configure everything to work as I want, either via the system settings (Yamaha midi driver) or in Finale, but although all the right windows and icons appear, I can't get past the basic problem that none of my systems seem to be communicating with the midi device. At least I now know which sockets to put the plugs into, but I'm still getting nowhere with recognising the device.

Given that other people have had plug-and-play experiences with Mac and midi, I'm beginning to wonder if I have a faulty midi cable despite the encouraging lights on it? I have tried it on Leopard and on Tiger, but both return the same error: that there is no midi device plugged in, even after I restarted with the thing plugged in. I still think there is something I'm missing that would probably be obvious if one of you was looking over my shoulder!

Time is running out a bit for me to send these things back if either is faulty. I'll give it another go today, but it has taken so much time so far (without success) that it would have been quicker to input the score I need to typeset with my nose!!

Many thanks.