Do it yourself USB MIDI cable?

STAT1STICK

Active member
I tried posting this in the MIDI section but something kept screwing up when I went to submit it. I kept getting this prompt to download a .php file.

I have (had) a Voyetra MIDI cable that hooked into the joystick port of a sound card. The cable worked great with my old computer. When I bought a new computer, it did not come with a joystick port. I removed the sound card from the old comp and installed it into the new one and for some reason or another, it would not work. I ended up giving the sound card away. Now I have a MIDI cable that just sits and collects dust. I have no way of connecting my keyboard or GNX2 to my computer.

I am aware of the USB MIDI interfaces and will probably buy one to use with my new computer. But, since I have this old MIDI cable, I was wondering if it would be possible to take a spare USB cable and merge it with the MIDI cable to make a USB MIDI interface.

I have already cut the cables and noticed that they both have the same ammount of cables inside. The IN of the MIDI cable has the outer ground wire and one brown and one black wire. The OUT of the MIDI cable has the outer ground wire and one orange and one red wire. The USB cable has the outer ground wire and one black, one white, one red, and one green wire.

I did a test configuration of the wires in this way: MIDI IN = black to black, brown to white, and ground to ground; MIDI OUT = red to red, orange to green, and ground to ground. When I hooked it up to my computer and my keyboard, a bubble on the task bar popped up and said that it recognized that a USB interface was connected and that it was installed and ready to use. Then, another bubble came up and said that the interface had malfunctioned and that there were no drivers installed for the hardware.

Could this be a simple case of misconnected wires or is it just not compatible all togethger?

Has anyone ever made one of these before? Does it work? Can it even be done? Can you give me a few pointers if it can?

If all else fails, I'll just go buy a new cable but if it will save me about $40, I'll do the work.
 
Okay... I take the 0 responses that this is not possible. No biggie. I'll just buy a new one from zZounds.
 
I was wondering if it would be possible to take a spare USB cable and merge it with the MIDI cable to make a USB MIDI interface.

no. :) thats what a usb to midi interface does. There would need to be a USB chip and more hardware since usb is serial, but not like serial RS232 or V24. There is alot more going on (handshakes etc) that just bits going back and forth
 
altitude909 said:
no. :) thats what a usb to midi interface does. There would need to be a USB chip and more hardware since usb is serial, but not like serial RS232 or V24. There is alot more going on (handshakes etc) that just bits going back and forth

Okay, thanks. That's all I needed to know.
 
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