Ableton Forum

My friend's got a cheap radio shack kybd w/ midi out running into a USB 1.1 jack on XP/Live5.0.1. It shows up under preferences -> midi/sync - under both input and output - but pressing a key doesn't do anything. I'm sure we're missing something simple, but I just don't know what. Any links or ideas? Thanks.

uncoolcentral wrote:My friend's got a cheap radio shack kybd w/ midi out running into a USB 1.1 jack on XP/Live5.0.1. It shows up under preferences -> midi/sync - under both input and output - but pressing a key doesn't do anything. I'm sure we're missing something simple, but I just don't know what. Any links or ideas? Thanks.

Did you arm the record button on the track and insert an instrument? Have to ask the simple questions.

Mike

I'll tell him to try this. (he doesn't have internet access!?!)
I'll hope it's something else though, b/c he's in school to be an audio engineer... sounds like basic stuff to me. Thank you.

He's done that before and still no dice. He's trying to use his external midi device to control the internal midi instrument. Tracks armed, remote in is on, etc (and I'm quoting here) and still nothing. When he uses his laptop's keyboard to control it, it works reasonably well, but he's looking to use the external kybd for obvious reasons.

What questions do you have?
Any advice?

Thanks.

At this point, I would be looking for some other device to plug the Radio Shack keyboard into to verify that it's actually generating Note On messages.

Just because Live sees it doesn't mean it works 100%.

If that's working, then get MidiOX installed to verify that Note On messages are getting into the 'puter.

If all that's true, and Live still doesn't trigger, then you'd have to get another device to send notes to Live.

If that doesn't work, then you'll know for sure that you have something misconfigured in Live.

Thanks. Iread this to him over the phone. He's going to borrow a friend's proven controller and see if that helps. and etc.

uncoolcentral wrote: remote in is on, etc

To be clear, "remote" is not what needs to be switched on in order to play a Live instrument. What you need to activate is "track". Remote is for MIDI-assinging to controls.