USB connected midi keyboard

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coates86

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This is going to be a very stupid sounding question but figured I should check before I splash the cash...

I want to buy a midi keyboard and the one's I'm looking at are usb connected. Am I able to input midi notes into cubase using a usb connected keyboard straight into the laptop? The keyboards all have midi output jacks so if I did it that way how would I connect it to my laptop as obviously there's no midi input on my laptop.

Thanks in advance for your time and patience!
 
Yes. Midi is just transmitted over the usb pipe instead of the old serial ports.
usb is far far faster and fatter pipe than the old ports midi was designed on.

You'll be fine.
 
u could also hook the midiup to ur interface if u have one. lot of iterface sound cards will have midi
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. I ended up buying an alesis q49 which arrived today. I have a problem though...I've plugged it in and opened cubase, added a midi track and the q49 shows up in the input section. However, when I play any notes there's no sound and there's nothing showing up on the midi activity bar. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? Cheers.
 
I don't know about cubase, but logic and protools want you to use an instrument track.
Make sure you have chosen the right type of track for cubase and make sure you have it record armed.

Also, make sure you have a virtual instrument added as an insert on that track.
 
I'm using cubase sx5. I added a midi track prior to your reply. I just tried using an instrument track instead, both times adding a vst instrument, and still no luck. It's seems odd that it shows up in the input section but there's no midi activity. Both times I've armed and monitored the tracks.
 
check your audio preferences for midi playback......

it might be turned off or not correctly assigned.
 
Still not working unfortunately. I tried something different and opened fm8 synth as a standalone, checked the midi settings and saw that 'q49' was listed but it's status was 'off' - changed it to 'on' but still no obvious midi activity. It just seems strange to me that the keyboard is clearly registering with my laptop yet still doesn't work...
 
coates86 said:
Still not working unfortunately. I tried something different and opened fm8 synth as a standalone, checked the midi settings and saw that 'q49' was listed but it's status was 'off' - changed it to 'on' but still no obvious midi activity. It just seems strange to me that the keyboard is clearly registering with my laptop yet still doesn't work...
Click to expand...

I don't use midi........... but, I do know that you have to assign the location of your soundfonts from within your recording software preferences
 
Sorry can u explain what you mean by that? This is so frustrating, I'm tearing my hair out! On the cubase midi device manager it says that my Q49 is there and 'active'...I feel like I'm so close to have it working but don't know the last bit!
 
Actually it's in the device setup > midi port setup that its showing up. There's nothing showing up in midi device manager.
 
ok...so the Q49 is being recognized by Cubase but, I doubt if your Q49 has a library of soundfonts...they are usually located on your computer....the midi data does not have sounds attached from your device......... they need to be assigned on your computer through Cubase and your audio preferences on your computer...the Q49 just creates a file within Cubase that links to the soundfont somewhere on your computer......that is more than likely why you can see it but not hear anything.

like I said, I am not a MIDI guy at all .....hopefully someone else can help you.
 
you say you can see it but you cant hear it, if you arm the instrument track , press the record button. Press some keys on your keyboard, can you see the midi notes being inputed into the track. If you can, it sounds like you have problems with your sound output, or you may not have loaded a patch on whatever vst you are using.
 
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