Recording MIDI..please help!

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simione916

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Greetings All.

I just bought a Midiman Audiophile 24/96, and am trying to record MIDI stuff using a keyboard controller. Here are my system details:

Pentium PIII Processor (1GHz)
129MB RAM
32MB NVIDIA GeForce2 Graphics card
Windows ME (don't laugh at me.haha)
SBLive soundcard (in addition to the Audiophile)

Software:
Cubase VST version 5
Cakewalk Sonar

Midi Controller:
Yamaha PSR-240

What I can't figure out for the life of me is why I can't record MIDI data in either Cubase or Sonar. The weird thing is that I can hear MIDI playback on my keyboard controller, but can't send midi into my sequencing software (either Cubase or Sonar).

I arm the track, press record, but nothing shows in the track view. In Cubase, I hear the metronome played back in the midi controller keyboard, but can't record anything. In Sonar, I followed all instructions for "Recording MIDI" from the tutorial in the help files, but the same thing happens.

I think that there may be something in the system settings that I'm missing. I'm trying to use the audiophile for recording, and the SB live for playback.

I've switched the midi cables to see if the "MIDI OUT" cable is bad, but this isn't the case.

Please...if anyone was as ignorant about this as I am once in their life, throw me a friggin bone.lol.

I'd appreciate any comments.

Thanks!
simione916
 
How do you have your midi and audio cables hooked up? Please be very exact.
 
the midi cables

Hi Tex. Thanks for your reply.

I have the "midi out" port from the Yamaha connected to the "midi in" of the audiophile interface. I have the "midi in" port from the Yamaha connected to the "midi out" of the audiophile interface.

I haven't hooked any audio cables up yet. I strictly want to play with midi for now.

Does this answer your question? Again, thank you for helping out.

simione916
 
Does that Yamaha have sounds in it or are you planning on playing the SB patches? If you want to hear the Yamaha you need to hook up the audio cables.

If Sonar isnt seeing an midi signal make sure you have selected the Audiophile as the recording device and are sending the midi signal back out to either the yamaha or the SB.

I dont have Sonar so I cant get too specific with setup instructions.

If Sonar is setup correctly then there may be one other very possible problem if you just installed the Audiophile. There is probably an IRQ conflict with the SoundBlaster. I would completely uninstall the SB until the audiophile is working properly and then reinstall the SB. I know it is a pain but it is the only way to really troubleshoot the Audiophile.

I had the same problem with my new card. Now they both work fine.
 
If you have no audio cables hooked up, how do you expect to hear anything?

Or am I confused, and you are wanting to use the SB Live as the sound module? Is there an audio cable from the SB Live's output?

Am I further off, since you said "I arm the track, press record, but nothing shows in the track view." That suggests MIDI Data is not getting to the track regardless of what audio cables are where.

Here's what need to happen:

You have a MIDI track set up to receive from your MIDI interface on either one of the 16 available MIDI channels, or on MIDI Omni (this will cause the track to record MIDI notes played on any of the sixteen channels). The keyboard then has to be configured to send MIDI on the same channel that you selected in the sequencer application, or on any channel if you chose MIDI Omni to be the source channel. I suspect that the Yamaha might not be sending messages out the MIDI Out Port, or if it is, your track is not set to recieve on the channel the keyboard is transmitting MIDI on, so the messages are ignored.

Let us know if you're still stuck.
 
still stuck:)

Greetings, Tex and AlChuck.

Thanks alot for your replies, and my apologies for not getting back to you sooner. I have been trying a host of solutions to no avail. Let me start by answering your questions:

AlChuck, you asked if I had no audio cables hooked up, how did I expect to hear anything. Well, my plan was to use the SB Live soundcard for audio playback only (not as a sound module). I'm also keeping my SB Live in there to play other my other pc multimedia with them (ie RealPlayer files, Quicktime, etc). I have speakers hooked up to the SB Live.

The only sound modules I will use are DXi and VST instruments.

And you're totally right, MIDI data is not getting in no matter where the audio cables are plugged. I don't see any graphical addition in the track when I press record and hit keys from the MIDI controller keyboard.

Tex, I believe you're on to something regarding the IRQ problem. I called the Guitar Center, and they said that the trick is to change the IRQ. But I've also learned that Dell has a funky way of not letting you reassign IRQs through Windows. So then I went into Safe mode and changed it to an unused IRQ number (5 in this case). Guess what? When I restarted the pc I got an error message saying there was a problem with the driver, and suggested that I install an updated version. So I did that, rebooted, and saw the same thing again.

This brought me to my next adventure- switching PCI slots. Tex, I know you mentioned moving the SB card out, then seeing if M Audio works. I instead tried to move the Audiophile to a different PCI slot. While the IRQ setting changed (to 11- and it was shared by two other devices), I still couldn't record midi.

So what do I do- keep moving the soundcards around until they work, or try to fix the IRQ settings over and over again?

I appreciate your help, guys. Please respond whenever you can:)

simione916

PS AlChuck I noticed that your profile location is San Mateo. I went to CSM back in the day:)
 
The next step would be to completely uninstall the SB physically and any trace of the drivers. Keep it out until the audiophile works perfectly.

Only then reinstall the SB.
 
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