Problems getting MIDI Keyboard working via USB

phunni · 2014-12-05 15:10:43

Apologies for the long post - I wanted to give as much information as possible.

I have an old Evolution MK-125 that has been sitting around in my office gathering dust for years now.

I finally decided to try and get it working by purchasing a MIDI-USB adapter (the keyboard came with a MIDI to Gameport cable) and bought this one mainly because a couple of the reviews stated that it worked easily with Linux. Also, it was cheap!

I have tried connecting it to my computer, and connecting it to various synths via JACK.

Following the instruction on the wiki I ran "aseqdump -p" and got the expected results. When I ran "lsusb" the only relevant item listed was:

Bus 001 Device 012: ID 1a86:752d QinHeng Electronics CH345 MIDI adapter

- which is my MIDI/USB adaper. The Keyboard itself was not listed, but I wasn't surprised.

I then ran "aconnect -i" and got the following results:

client 0: 'System' [type=kernel]
    0 'Timer           '
    1 'Announce        '
client 14: 'Midi Through' [type=kernel]
    0 'Midi Through Port-0'
client 24: 'USB2.0-MIDI' [type=kernel]
    0 'USB2.0-MIDI MIDI 1'

The "Client 24" line looked promising. However, when I ran "aseqdump -p 24" I get something like the following:

Waiting for data. Press Ctrl+C to end.
Source  Event                  Ch  Data
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0
 24:0   Note off                0, note 0

Some of those appeared even when nothing was pressed on the keyboard. By frantically hitting various keys I could occasionally get a different "note" value - but nothing consistent. Many of the keys send no event at all.

The complication here is that I have no idea whether the problem is with the keyboard, the adapter or my setup - although my suspicions lie with the keyboard, but that's no more than a hunch.. Not having alternate adapters or keyboards, it's difficult to test this.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could try to help me figure this out?

drcouzelis · 2014-12-05 17:43:25

In order to rule out your setup being the problem, you could try using your keyboard from a live "media creation" Linux distribution, such as Ubuntu Studio.

Sorry I can't help more. I love MIDI and enjoy writing music but am woefully inexperienced on the technical side.

Edit: Just reading about a game port is enough to be hit with a tidal wave of nostalgia.

Last edited by drcouzelis (2014-12-05 17:44:26)

phunni · 2014-12-05 17:48:58

Well, if nothing else is achieved through this thread than giving you that moment - it wasn't wasted :-)

Thanks for the live distro suggestion - that's worth a try.

satanselbow · 2014-12-05 18:00:34

I use my keyboard so infrequently that it has never been attached to my current machine - although I seem to remember getting it working properly on a previous machine, through same style midi->USB adapter, involves getting JACK setup properly and then hooking it all together with a big dose of luck and midi voodoo via a2jmidid and qmidiroute - I don't seem to have retained any exact details of how or what I did to get it all running though... sorry ahhhh! midi game-ports...

Just found this in my bookmarks

Last edited by satanselbow (2014-12-05 18:06:39)

phunni · 2014-12-05 18:19:49

Thanks - I'll take a good look at that. I've already tried a2midid, but qmidiroute might be worth a look.

phunni · 2014-12-05 19:37:59

OK - here's an interesting twist. One thing that I didn't mention before - simply because it didn't occur to me, is that my audio interface is a firewire one and that jack is therefore loading with the firewire driver and then I use "jack_load audioadapter" to get access to my alsa inputs and outputs.

I just tried my keyboard with alsa as the jack driver and tried to connect everything up that way. The first thing I notice is there are more options in the MIDI tab in qjackctl.

I connected the USB midi capture to the midi through in the ALSA tab and then midi_capture connected to qsynth midi input in the MIDI tab.

This caused all sorts of crazy sounds - random notes, digital distortion etc and all the programs in my soundfont bank started randomly switching around!

This makes me suspect even more strongly that this is an issue with the keyboard or the adapter.

Incidentally, I've tried using jack-keyboard as a midi controller with my old setup and it works perfectly. I've also tried it with alsa setup as the jack driver and it also works as expected.

My hope was that I could use the firewire driver along with a2midid to ge tit all working together.

I'm now going to try and play with a2midid and qmidiroute - just in case I can make progress - but I'm not holding my breath!

drcouzelis · 2014-12-05 20:00:01

phunni wrote:

but I'm not holding my breath!

Instrument #121.

phunni · 2014-12-06 19:15:30

drcouzelis wrote:

phunni wrote:
but I'm not holding my breath!
Instrument #121.

In other news: I actually remembered that we have a massive keyboard in our loft - far bigger than I need, but I figured I could use it for testing. I was therefore able to confirm that my trusty old 2 octave keyboard was well and truly dead.

The cable seems to work perfectly well, although it's constantly sending lots of signals that qmidiroute said were unrecognised. These don't appear to have any affect on the performance of any MIDI work, although I'll keep an eye on it.

owain · 2014-12-06 20:36:51

A couple of packages handy for troubleshooting situations sutch as this: patchage, for graphical drag-and-drop routing of Alsa and Jack, and vkeybd (AUR), a virtual keyboard to provide an 'internal' source of MIDI input.

Last edited by owain (2014-12-06 20:37:25)

phunni · 2014-12-06 20:40:14

Thanks - package certainly sounds worth a look!

Arch Linux

#1 2014-12-05 15:10:43

Problems getting MIDI Keyboard working via USB

#2 2014-12-05 17:43:25

Re: Problems getting MIDI Keyboard working via USB

#3 2014-12-05 17:48:58

Re: Problems getting MIDI Keyboard working via USB

#4 2014-12-05 18:00:34

Re: Problems getting MIDI Keyboard working via USB

#5 2014-12-05 18:19:49

Re: Problems getting MIDI Keyboard working via USB

#6 2014-12-05 19:37:59

Re: Problems getting MIDI Keyboard working via USB

#7 2014-12-05 20:00:01

Re: Problems getting MIDI Keyboard working via USB

#8 2014-12-06 19:15:30

Re: Problems getting MIDI Keyboard working via USB

#9 2014-12-06 20:36:51

Re: Problems getting MIDI Keyboard working via USB

#10 2014-12-06 20:40:14

Re: Problems getting MIDI Keyboard working via USB

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