MIDI Keyboard not recognised on PC

[Paladin]

Hi,

I recently purchased the M-Audio Oxygen 8 V2 midi keyboard. I plugged it into the family PC, hardware was installed (XP service pack 1) and it worked fine in my sequencer, Cubase VST 5 - all keys and knobs were responding as they should.

However, when trying to do the same thing on my laptop, XP (service pack 2) seemed to install the hardware fine (got the "your hardware is now ready for use" message). However, upon opening up my sequencer program (Cubase VST 5) the keyboard was not even showing up in the INPUT devices box, let alone sending any midi data!

I also tried it in Reason 4 and Sibelius 5 with no joy. Any help, no matter how small, would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Alex.

[Kanthos]

Have you tried removing the drivers and reinstalling them? What version of the M-Audio MIDI drivers are you using, and did you even install them? I've got an Axiom 61 and Prokeys 88es (just got the latter yesterday), and the Prokeys manual didn't tell me to install the M-Audio drivers first. I ignored it and used the drivers, and had both keyboards working at the same time without problems. FYI, they released version 4.3.00 of the drivers on something like December 31st.

[Moseph]

You're not connecting it through a USB hub, are you? I have an M-Audio keyboard that does funny things unless I connect it directly to the laptop without going through the hub.

[Paladin]

I installed the drivers, but there's a few files in program files (where I installed the drivers). Should they go somewhere else instead, such as the Windows directory?

I'm not going through a hub, just straight into the laptop.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll update the drivers and see if it makes a difference.

The funny thing is that, as I mentioned, the keyboard works fine on another PC.

There is this other "MIDI-USB DRIVER" in the control panel, from my old keyboard. However, I'm not sure where to remove this. I've looked in device manager, sounds video and game controllers but couldn't locate it.

Any further help would be bery much appreciated.

Thanks,

Alex.

[Antipode]

If you have Windows Media Center Edition, that'd be your problem right there - nothing by M-Audio is compatible with MCE. Just saying, because I went through hell dealing with that problem. If you don't have MCE, I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of suggestions for you...

[Kanthos]

Does the keyboard turn on properly when powered by USB only? Does it show up in M-Audio's Enigma software (a free download from their site that lets you program the controls of their keyboards from your PC and then dump it to the keyboard via MIDI SysEx)?

You could also try asking their tech support directly, if they don't have anything in their online knowledge base (go to Support on their site). I've asked them a couple questions before, like whether I could use two keyboards together, and they responded quickly.

[Paladin]

No I don't have Media Center edition of xp. Thanks for the suggestion though.

The keyboard does not show up in the Enigma inputs either. Could it be that somehow the driver files are installed, but in the wrong place?

Thanks again,

Alex.

[Kanthos]

When I installed the drivers on my laptop, there wasn't a choice of where to put them. Drivers generally don't install to a user-specified location like programs do (although additional software needed to use the hardware, such as an application for controlling volume and mixing and so on for a surround-sound sound card will typically be put under C:\Program Files), so I doubt that's an issue.

Assuming you've done everything right so far, I suspect that your problem is either with old drivers or with the USB port itself. Do you have another USB device, ideally a mouse (since drivers won't matter in that case, at least for basic "move the cursor around the screen" functionality) that you can plug into the USB port? I've seen machines with fried ports before that work fine in all other ways.

Worst case, if you're not intending to use your keyboard and laptop for live performance, you could put your DAW on both machines, record MIDI data from your keyboard on your family PC, and edit it and apply effects and so on using your laptop.

[Paladin]

Thanks your reply.

Definately not the usb port - all the ports seem to be working fine. I think it's the old usb driver from my previous keyboard that's causing the problem. The icon for my old Yamaha keyboard driver is still in the control panel, eventhough it doesn't show up in the device manager.

Does this mean that my old Yamaha MIDI-USB Driver is still installed? When I click the icon (in the control panel) a message pops up that says: "Yamaha USB-MIDI Device is not connected", as if it's still looking for the keyboard (meaning the driver is still installed?)

Cheers, sorry to drag this on. Any further help would be fantastic.

Alex

[Kanthos]

Some drivers have their own uninstallation program, or might show up under Add and Remove Programs (some "driver" installation programs install a driver as well as other software).

What was your old keyboard?

I'm running out of ideas here. As a last resort, you could consider reformatting the computer, since it's likely something weird with your current setup, since your keyboard and USB cable work on your desktop and your laptop's USB port is functional.

Does your soundcard or PC have any kind of MIDI input? You might want to try running the MIDI Out from your Oxygen into the MIDI In on your soundcard/PC. You'd have to power the Oxygen via DC this way (according to the Oxygen V2 manual, you'd need a power adapter with 12V DC output, 250-300 mA, center positive, which I'm sure you could get at any reasonable electronics store).