Midi Keyboard Question

That MIDI interface is supported by Core MIDI, which is all it needs to work with GarageBand. You should be all set with that stuff.

I'm using a PSR270 with a Yamaha UX-16 and I like it well enough. The drivers haven't been updated since OS X 10.1.x days, but they still work with Tiger. Midiman makes very high-quality stuff and it'd be hard to go wrong with them.

Oh, hey, they updated the UX16 driver in may
http://www.yamahasynth.com/download/midi_driver.html

Product page for UX16 shows OS X, but also says that it requires OMS, which is only required for pre-X OS's

I got the same cable, the UX16, and it's been driving me nuts. I have a P70 Yamaha keyboard and I can't get it to work with the cable and my powerbook. I've got OS X 10.4.7 and the cable stops support at 10.4.5. My Mac recognizes that there is a midi device, but then I can't get it to do anything with garageband. I would GREATLY appreciate any advice.

I had the same problem...

bmw9t said:

I got the same cable, the UX16, and it's been driving me nuts. I have a P70 Yamaha keyboard and I can't get it to work with the cable and my powerbook. I've got OS X 10.4.7 and the cable stops support at 10.4.5. My Mac recognizes that there is a midi device, but then I can't get it to do anything with garageband. I would GREATLY appreciate any advice.

Click to expand...

I experienced exactly the same thing (exception for de midi port witch is a Uno M-Audio). I was very frustrated...

I report the problem to my salesman and we tried (in the store) many other keyboards (on my ibook) to find that all other brand worked just fine and were perfectly recognized by Garagebang. It wa simply "plug and play" (witch is what I always expect from my Mac).

In fact, he had never seen that kind of midi troubles. So he went to his yamaha representative this week, who told him to forget about that. There is, according to that yamaha representative, a business conflict between Apple and Yamaha, and they dont provide Apple anymore whit the internal source code...!

Then I was furious!... They should have wrote on the box that the piano was'nt compatible whit Mac. It would have saved me a lot of time and frustration !

The good news is that I found on the net a strange receipe that worked just fine for me with Garageband (remember that I use a M-Audio Uno interface - I don't know if it will work with the ux16). Here is the quote

"The interface works fine. It`s really plug and play. The included software is really easy to install. In one minute you are connected.
I had a problem with my Yamaha P70 digital piano and Garageband. Garageband recognized wrong notes while I was pl... Read more >ayng. I solved the problem setting my Yamaha p70 in that way: dual voces at the same time (grand piano 1 and 2) and both +0 octaves, so the two voices are perfectly overlapped.
With this setting, Garageband is working fine, and recognize correclty the notes.
Be aware that this product may not work properly with your Yamaha keyboard. "

I dont know if it will wotk with other software and I'm thionking to maybe change my keyboard. Unfortunatly I just love it, so I dont exactly know what I'm going to do.

Let me Know if you hear something else and if this helped you.

Goood luck.

using yamaha keyboard with garageband

I need serious help. I have a yamaha keyboard psr 275 that I want to connect to my macbook. I have a midisport uno interface to do the connection. The macbook recognizes the midisport. Now what? How do I play on my keyboard and record that in garageband? When I try playing I get no recording at all. I am sure I have neglected to do something. (I did install the newest drivers!) Help!

jollyfrau said:

I need serious help. I have a yamaha keyboard psr 275 that I want to connect to my macbook. I have a midisport uno interface to do the connection. The macbook recognizes the midisport. Now what? How do I play on my keyboard and record that in garageband? When I try playing I get no recording at all. I am sure I have neglected to do something. (I did install the newest drivers!) Help!

Click to expand...

Do you have the "PC mode" button or something similar on your keyboard? There should be a switch that lets the keyboard act as a controller. Might be buried within settings somewhere. Pretty sure yours has the button, because my last Yamaha did, and it was similar to yours. PC2 mode is what you want.

jollyfrau said:

I need serious help. I have a yamaha keyboard psr 275 that I want to connect to my macbook. I have a midisport uno interface to do the connection. The macbook recognizes the midisport. Now what? How do I play on my keyboard and record that in garageband? When I try playing I get no recording at all. I am sure I have neglected to do something. (I did install the newest drivers!) Help!

Click to expand...

i also have the same exact keyboard and would like to know this so that i buy the proper MIDI interface. thanx

getting there with my keyboard, but not quite

I have a choice of pc on or off on my keyboard. I have tried both ways. I did finally figure out how to adjust the audio settings on the mac to connect the keyboard to the uno...but I still don't see it in garageband. When I test the connection in the audio screen, that works.

jollyfrau said:

I have a choice of pc on or off on my keyboard. I have tried both ways. I did finally figure out how to adjust the audio settings on the mac to connect the keyboard to the uno...but I still don't see it in garageband. When I test the connection in the audio screen, that works.

Click to expand...

any luck with this i just got the same interface and keyboard and dont have any luck at all. the midi in on the interface turns on,but only if i connect it to the midi out on my keyboard, and garageband has the little blinking light but im getting no sound or anything out of this thing.

MezicanGangxtah said:

any luck with this i just got the same interface and keyboard and dont have any luck at all. the midi in on the interface turns on,but only if i connect it to the midi out on my keyboard, and garageband has the little blinking light but im getting no sound or anything out of this thing.

Click to expand...

That out MIDI works, out one unit's "out" goes to the other unit's "in" and vice versa.

Midi does NOT transmit sounds. It is a data interface. What goes over is a description of what keys are pressed, when and how hard you pressed.

Garage band can record the midi data, you can edit the data, add loops and so on to it and then play it.

OK, GB will "play the data. Turn on the red "record button" on the track and turn up the system and track volumes and it will play the incomming midi data in real time.

I'm using the "Uno" interface connected to my Roland keyboard and it works fine. There is some times an option inside the keyboard wetter to transmit midi or not. Likely it is on by default but you can check the activity lights on the "Uno" to see if data is send when you press a key.

One more thing. There are 16 midi channels. you have to tell GB which channel to listen to and the keyboard has to be set to xx-mit on that channel. But GB's default is to listen to "all channels".

louis_sx said:

I'm using a PSR270 with a Yamaha UX-16 and I like it well enough. The drivers haven't been updated since OS X 10.1.x days, but they still work with Tiger. Midiman makes very high-quality stuff and it'd be hard to go wrong with them.

Click to expand...

10.2. Core Audio and Core MIDI were introduced in 10.2. All MIDI data is now controlled by the core system itself. Unless the driver is adding other features (if it was a smart interface) you should not need to even have the drivers installed.

ChrisA said:

That out MIDI works, out one unit's "out" goes to the other unit's "in" and vice versa.

Midi does NOT transmit sounds. It is a data interface. What goes over is a description of what keys are pressed, when and how hard you pressed.

Garage band can record the midi data, you can edit the data, add loops and so on to it and then play it.

OK, GB will "play the data. Turn on the red "record button" on the track and turn up the system and track volumes and it will play the incomming midi data in real time.

I'm using the "Uno" interface connected to my Roland keyboard and it works fine. There is some times an option inside the keyboard wetter to transmit midi or not. Likely it is on by default but you can check the activity lights on the "Uno" to see if data is send when you press a key.

One more thing. There are 16 midi channels. you have to tell GB which channel to listen to and the keyboard has to be set to xx-mit on that channel. But GB's default is to listen to "all channels".

Click to expand...

Yes I know how MIDI works and that it is only data and not actual audio, but what im trying to say is that no data was sending from the keyboard to the interface and into garageband.Only when I went to the MIDI setup utility and pressed the test thing and clicked on the out arrow did my keyboard recive data. but that is of no use becuase garageband cant send MIDI data only recieve it, and as I searched online I found that that specific interface and my specific keyboard really dont like each other, so i returned it.

Thanks for your response though.

Latest Yamaha UX16 Driver for Mac OSX

I just bought a Yamaha UX16 MIDI interface for my Mac (OSX) and the driver that came with it (v1.0.3) was already out of date and would not work with my Mac. I found this thread while looking for the newest driver.

Yamaha's sites are a confusing, maze-like mess and even though they have little links that say 'download the latest drivers here' they did not have this product specifically listed. I tried a couple of downloads related to other MIDI-USB type products to no avail. Finally, I searched for "Yamaha USB MIDI driver" hoping for any kind of driver (rather than something labeled specifically "UX16") and found this page:


I downloaded and installed the file (v1.1.1; um111mx.zip) and it worked well.