Clueless MIDI ?

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Khaki

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I purchased USB midi interface (1-1). Better known as The Uno. I have the USB going to my motherboard since my Soundblaster 5.1 only has the joystick/ midi port not the USB. The Midi jacks going to my Casio WK1630 keyboard. I'm trying to send a drum pattern from the keyboard to Cakewalk Pro audio 9 on my PC. When I try to record a track I get no drum wave at all but if I play the keys I do. In both cases the "in" led is pulsating to my instructions but still don't hear the drums. I also tried running my Line 6 POD to my PC to record my guitar via Midi with no luck. The interface "in" led does nothing at all in this scenario. Am I missing the boat with MIDI? Or is it some silly setting I need to change. Thanks in advance.
 
Midi is data only. {not audio}
Your keyboard is sending data to the sequencer and being recorded as data only. {Note, pitch, velocity, on-off}
When you play the midi track back it will play your keyboard exactly as you had recorded it, or play soundfonts from your soundcard {your choice}
In the case with your pod, once again no audio will be recorded, only data such as program or sysex changes.

Go here to learn about midi

www.midi.com
 
Stealthtech said:
Midi is data only. {not audio}

Then why do I hear my keyboards being recorded but sending a pre-recorded drum pattern the same way I can't.
 
When I try to record a track I get no drum wave at all but if I play the keys I do.

The only way that could happen is that you are recording the keyboard part to audio (either off the keyboard itself or the SoundBlaster's synth) and not recording the drum part.

Are you sure that it's a WAV you've recorded?

Let's see, what else could be going on here. When you play the keys you are sending MIDI data and Cakewalk is recording. When you play the drum pattern you're also sending MIDI data, presumably (the keyboard is playing the pattern, right?).

I suspect that you are sending MIDI messages on only one channel. Drum parts are typically on Channel 10, following the General MIDI specification, and so perhaps those messages are not being sent out the MIDI cable. But you say you see the little LED shows MIDI traffic... the other side of the coin is that you might not be receiving signals into the track because they are coming in on Channel 10 and you are recording messages off Channel 1 or some other channel.

If you set the source for the MIDI track to 10, or OMNI (which will record all MIDI messages to this track regardless of channel), and start your keyboard's sequencer, you should get drum parts.

If you don't know from channels, tracks, etc. then do what James suggests and read read read. Don't worry, it ain't rocket science (it's more like accounting).

Re the POD, all you can do with the MIDI ports on the POD is change settings on it by sending it controller messages or patch changes from your computer or other sequencer, and transfer patch data over to your computer so you can save it to disk. (Patch data is the collective settings for a particular sound saved with a unique name -- like all the presets on the POD or the patches you can download from Line 6's Tone Transfer library). But the only way you can record your guitar through the POD is to send its audio output into your computer's audio input, arm a track for audio recording, and start recording while you play.
 
"Then why do I hearmy keyboards being recorded but sending a pre-recorded drum pattern the same way I can't." -

A couple years ago I tried to "borrow" one of the rhythm tracks from a Casio, might even have been the same model as it sounds familiar - what I found, was that for some reason the Casio sends MIDI info when you play the keys, but NOT when you use the internal sequences.

You might play the sequence into Cake with cake set for [midi-omni] and then check the event editor for any signs of midi info - it may not be there because of the quirk in the Casio... Steve
 
Ok, I get the idea behind the POD as a controller. I have also used 'omni' as my channel so I don't think thats the issue. I have been reading various articles on this stuff for a while but until I see the results its frustrating. Thanks for all your tips. I'm sure I'll eventually get a handle on this stuff.
 
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