Installing a USB or MIDI Cable Between Your Soundcard and Keyboard

Your external MIDI keyboard needs to be connected to your MIDI soundcard via one of these two types of cables:

     USB (Universal Serial Bus) cable

     MIDI cable with joystick connector

You might also need to connect a USB MIDI interface device between your computer and keyboard. To determine which kind of cable you need, and whether you will also need to add a USB MIDI interface between you compuer and keyboard, you should examine what kind of cable connectors are available on your keyboard and computer's soundcard.

Determine what kind of connector your MIDI keyboard has:

     Examine the back side of your MIDI keyboard for one or possibly both of the following two types of connectors:

If your MIDI keyboard has a USB connector and no MIDI connector(s), then connect a USB cable between it and your computer:

1.      Find an available USB female connector on the back side of your computer. It will look like this:

2.      Find the USB cable that came with your USB MIDI keyboard, or else purchase one. The two ends of the USB cable look like this:

3.      Connect the first of the above two ends of the USB cable to the USB connector on your MIDI keyboard.

4.      Connect the second of the above two ends of the USB cable to the USB connector on your computer.

Determine whether your computer's soundcard has a joystick connector:

     Find the soundcard on the backside of your computer. It might have a joystick connector and look like this:

However, your soundcard might have only the connectors for speakers, headphone, and microphone, and no joystick connector.

If your MIDI keyboard has one or two MIDI connectors and no USB connector, and if your soundcard has a joystick connector, then connect your keyboard to your soundcard with MIDI cables:

1.      If you do not already have one, obtain a MIDI joystick cable, which looks like this:

The above picture probably seems confusing because it has two joystick connectors, and two MIDI connectors. This is really just one cable. The second joystick connector is included in the cable so that a game joystick can share the same joystick connector on the soundcard with the external MIDI device. The two MIDI connectors at the other end are for MIDI In and MIDI Out, but there might not be labels indicating which connector is for MIDI In versus MIDI Out. In that case you will need to figure out which cable connector is for MIDI In versus MIDI Out experimentally.

2.      Attach the cable's joystick male connector to the soundcard's female joystick connector. At the other end of the cable, connect the round 5-pin male connector labeled MIDI In to the keyboard's round 5-pin female connector labeled MIDI Out. If the cable has two unlabeled 5-pin MIDI connectors, then you will have to experiment, by trying one, and if it does not work, then try the other.

3.      If your keyboard is capable of playing back MIDI sent to it from the computer, then connect the cable's other round 5-pin male connector to the keyboard round 5-pin female connector labeled MIDI In.

4.      If the MIDI joystick cable is not long enough to reach your keyboard, you may need to add one or a pair of MIDI extension cables, with a female connector on one end and a female connector on the other.

If your MIDI keyboard has one or two MIDI connectors and no USB connector, and if your soundcard has no joystick connector, then add a physical MIDI USB interface between your computer and keyboard:

A popular brand of USB MIDI interfaces are the Midisport^tm USB interfaces by Midiman^tm. The following diagram shows how you would connect a Midisport UNO 1x1 between your computer and your MIDI keyboard:

1.      Connect a USB cable between your computer and the MIDI USB interface.

2.      If your MIDI USB interface has female MIDI connectors rather than cables (as illustrated for the above Midisport UNO 1x1), then follow this step. A common example of such a MIDI USB interface is the Midisport 2x2 by Midiman.

Connect one or two MIDI cables between he MIDI USB interface and your MIDI keyboard. The MIDI cable will have male connectors on both ends, and look like this:

3.      If you have not done so already, install the MIDI device driver for the MIDI USB interface on your Windows system.

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