How to get MIDI input to work

• Apr 9, 2016 - 17:40

Is there a words of one syllable explanation of how to use a keyboard via MIDI with Musescore? I've never used a keyboard MIDI connection with any music software before, so I'm a complete novice at it, but I can't get it to work with Musescore 2.0.

I've followed the instructions in the YouTube video "MuseScore in 10 Easy Steps: Part 4 Note Entry with a MIDI Keyboard and Playback" as follows:

* "Plug keyboard into computer and turn it on." OK, I've got my keyboard turned off, I plug in one end of the manufacturere-supplied MIDI connection cable to the MIDI jacks on the keyboard, making sure that the IN is connected to IN and OUT to OUT. I plug the other end of the cable into my desktop computer's USB port. I turn the keyboard on. To be sure it is on, I hit a key and I hear a note.

* "Then launch Musescore." Done. (And I open a random score.)

* "Look at the top of your screen, and make sure the MIDI Input button is pressed" Done "and that the Enable Sound While Editing button is pressed." Whoops, no Enable Sound While Editing button in Musescore 2.0. But I'm clever enough to think of going into Edit/Preferences/Note Input, where I find boxes for Enable MIDI Input and Play Notes When Editing, and I see that they are both already checked.

* "Select a bar, press N, press 5 and dot for dotted quarter note." All done, fine and dandy.

* "Press the note D on your MIDI keyboard, and hey, presto! a dotted quarter note D will magically appear in your score and play via Musescore playback." Nope, think twice fellow. I press a D on my keyboard, the keyboard sounds the note D, but Musescore displays no note in the bar, plays no sound by playback, nothing zilch nada.

What am I doing wrong?

Comments

• Apr 9, 2016 - 18:05

Thanks for the response, but I just tried the whole above process again from the start, this time plugging IN to OUT and vice-versa but got the same result: when I hit the keyboard key the keyboard plays a note but Musescore does not respond in any way shape or form.

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• Apr 10, 2016 - 03:24

Is the sound coming from the keybaord or from MuseScore? Turn the volume all the way down on the keybaord to check. If there is no sound coming from MuseScore, then something is wrong with the connection or perhaps the device driver - which is to say, the problem is probably at the hardware or OS level. What OS? What model of keyboard? Did it come with device driver software, or did you download some from somewhere?

If you are getting sound from MuseScore but still no note is appearing, then we need to understand more about what MuseScore could be in. You can verify that it says "Note input mode" at the bottom of the screen? And if you press a "D" on your computer keybaord, it works?

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• Apr 10, 2016 - 17:55

Thanks for the response. I'd forgotten that since I got the keyboard I'd replaced my computer and hadn't installed the Yamaha driver on the new one.

So I went to the Yamaha site and got their current MIDI driver for W10, and now note input from my keyboard to Musescore seems at least basically to work. I haven't done much with it yet though.

Since it's come up, I'll report for everyone's information that the Yamaha MIDI interface twin cable indeed won't work unless you plug the cable marked IN into the jack marked OUT and the cable marked OUT into the jack marked IN.

(Well silly me. I'd foolishly thought that the cable marked IN should go into the jack marked IN and the cable marked OUT should go into the jack marked OUT, when of course it ought to be obvious to anyone that a cable marked IN should go into a jack marked OUT and a cable marked OUT should go into a jack marked IN.)

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• Apr 10, 2016 - 18:06

In order to understand why it works that way, it helps to remember that MIDI was invented not for connecting a syntehszier to a computer, but instead, for connecting multiple synthesizers. It was to allow you to press a key on one synthesizer and have it play sounds on a different synthesizer. So it made total sense that you needed to send the *output* of one synthesizer to the *input* of another - that was indeed the whole point. If you wanted to press a button on the Yamaha and have sound come out the Korg, you connected the Out of the Yamaha to the In of the Korg. If you connected In to In, then botm synthesizers would be listening for input, but no one would be sending any output, so nothing would happen. Likewise, if you connected Out to Out, then both synthesizers would be sending information at once, but no one would be listening.

When computers entered the pictures, the same principle applied. You want the *output* of the Yamaha to be routed to the *input* on the computer. So the Yamaha talks, the computer listens.

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