Cheap USB Mid Cable?

c0wb0y19

New member
I am using a cheap USB Midi Cable to connect to GarageBand. I can connect my ancient Yamaha PSR-300 Keyboard to my mac just fine, it plays and records wonderfully. I tried using the same cable on my Alesis DM5 Drum kit, no output. Tried various configurations, swapping ins and outs, channel 00 out of DM5, etc. Also tried sending Sysex to Librarian from DM5, no output at all.

Everything else out of the DM5 is fine, analog sounds to line out no problem. Just won't connect to my mac via midi.

Could the Cable be the problem? or has anyone else experienced problems connecting a DM5 to your computer? A google search turns up a lot of responses on DM5 Midi Issues.

Thanks
 
USB has a physical limit on length that's very dependent on not just what is going down the cable as digits, but also related to voltage drop on the 5V line. I have a heavy duty 5m cable, which is on the edge of go/no go. It works on some USB devices but fails on any of the clever and hard working USB devices. The voltage drops to 4.6V, a tiny drop - but some USB devices don't even handshake (my M-audio 8x8 midi device, for example), while an RF device I use powers up fine, gets recognised and yet the software cannot find it.

In your case with the DM5, you really need to try another computer to confirm it's the cable - thinner cheap cables suffer more volt drop than chunkier ones. The other issue could simply be the driver the mac is trying to use is not compatible? Lots of people seem to have issues with this device, I see.
 
I sold my dm5, so i cant check, but my brain seems to remember a midi on/off thing in the menu. Go through the menu and make sure everything is the way it should be.
 
Back
Top