Installing a MIDI interface to work with your Mac should be an easy task, but what happens if it doesn't want to play ball? Apple Notes is here to help. Over the years there have been many ways to work with MIDI interfaces on a Mac — from simple devices that plugged into the Mac's now-defunct serial ports, to more advanced multi-port models requiring the user to tame the now-even-more-defunct OMS, the late Opcode's MIDI equivalent of a middle manager. (Come to think of it, how many years has it been since we mentioned OMS in Apple Notes?) These days, working with MIDI on a Mac is much simpler, thanks to one of Apple's many Core frameworks in Mac OS X, Core MIDI. This is the scheme that deals with how your MIDI interfaces communicate with the computer, and how the applications running on your computer communicate with the attached MIDI interfaces. For the most part, it's pretty easy. When you want to attach a new MIDI interface to your Mac, it's usually a question of installing the appropriate software and plugging in the interface.
In fact, with some simple MIDI interfaces you might not even have to install software, thanks to Core MIDI's built-in support for USB-class MIDI devices. But what happens when your sequencer (or other MIDI application) doesn't recognise the interface? This month, I helped out a friend who was having difficulties getting a MIDI interface to work with a Mac Pro. The Mac Pro was running Pro Tools and the goal was to slave this system via MIDI Timecode (MTC), using the newly attached interface, from a Power Mac running Logic Pro.
The MIDI interface in question was an old Emagic AMT8 and the Power Mac had been happily running with another AMT8 for some time without any issues. Here you can see the Get Info windows of the Power PC and Universal Binary versions of the Emagic USB MIDI driver for the AMT8, MT4 and Unitor 8 interfaces. Despite the Power PC version being incorrectly identified by Finder as a Pro Tools plug-in, notice how the 'Kind' value clearly shows what architecture a driver supports. The drivers for the AMT8 had been downloaded from Apple's Emagic Legacy Product Support page (which can be accessed via the old Emagic web address, ) and installed in the correct manner. However, the MIDI interface wouldn't show up in Pro Tools, and we confirmed that the Mac was indeed not recognising the interface by running Audio MIDI Setup (from the 'Applications / Utilities' folder) and checking to see if the interface showed up in the MIDI Devices page, which it didn't.
Professional MIDI to USB IN-OUT Cable Converter For PC/Mac/Laptop - 6FT, (Black) $7.99. Or Best Offer. Free Shipping. Connect the cable marked 'IN' to the MIDI 'OUT' socket of a MIDI device. Connect the cable marked 'OUT' to the MIDI 'IN' socket of a MIDI device. Set the music programs MIDI in and MIDI Out devices to.
A correctly installed and connected MIDI interface should show up in Audio MIDI Setup as a rounded rectangle with a blue title bar and arrows to represent the MIDI ports along the bottom. If you don't see your MIDI interface as such an object in this window (as we couldn't), you can often kick it into life by clicking the Rescan MIDI button in the toolbar. Another point to note is that if the MIDI interface has been correctly recognised once by the system but is now having problems, the round rectangular object by which it's identified in the MIDI Devices page will be translucent. Since the AMT8 wasn't showing up at all, the first thing I checked was the USB cable. It's amazing how many times a dodgy cable is the cause of a problem — and, actually, in the case of USB and Firewire cables, quite often a problem can be traced to the cable being too long when used with certain devices.
However, even after we'd tried another cable the MIDI interface still wasn't recognised. Given that the AMT8 was connected to an Intel-based Mac, it occurred to me that maybe my friend didn't have an Intel-compatible driver for the interface. Core MIDI drivers are installed into the 'Macintosh HD/Library/Audio/MIDI Drivers' folder on your computer, and when we checked this folder on the Mac Pro we found the correct EmagicUSBMIDIDriver.plugin file. However, by selecting this driver and pressing Apple+I to Get Info, we were able to see that under the Kind heading in the General section (see screenshot above) the file was described as 'Plug-in (Power PC)'. Although my friend thought he had downloaded the correct drivers from Apple's web site, it turns out that only the Power PC drivers can be downloaded from the Emagic Legacy Product Support page.
Apple only supply the Universal Binary drivers for Emagic's interfaces with the Logic 7.2 installer. This means that, so far as I can tell, if you don't have Logic 7.2 and you want to use an old Emagic interface with an Intel Mac, you'd better find a friend who does have Logic 7.2! Once we had the correct version of the driver installed, the interface showed up just fine in Audio MIDI Setup. This underlines that it's crucial to check that you have the correct driver, and that you can't always rely on the manufacturer. Another important thing to bear in mind is that it's usually not a good idea to install the driver software that comes with your MIDI interface — or any piece of hardware, for that matter. The reason is that driver software tends to be updated quite frequently, especially if the product was released within the last six months. When you buy a device, it might have been sitting on a shelf for a few months, meaning that the driver software supplied with it is of a similar vintage.
Downloading the driver software from the manufacturers web site is always a good idea, although it's worth checking the release notes (where manufacturers often include a compatibility guide), as it's not uncommon to find that the latest version might not be the greatest version for your system. Apple recently released a 1.2 update to Boot Camp, the public beta that allows Intel-Mac users to run Windows on their Mac. This is actually a really significant update, partly because it now allows you to officially run Windows Vista natively on your Mac. Although it was possible to install Vista on a Mac before, it required having to hack around quite a bit, and personally I never got a system to smoothly dual-boot as you can when using Boot Camp.
As with the previous version of Boot Camp, only 32-bit versions of Windows (including Vista) are currently supported, which is a bit of shame for those Mac users with 64-bit processors like the Core 2 or Xeon. But hopefully this will be addressed in another beta update, or in the final version of Boot Camp due to be included in Mac OS X Leopard. Getting back to the story of trying to get the Mac Pro running Pro Tools to slave via MTC using the Emagic AMT8, we now had the interface accessible from within Pro Tools. However, when we started sending MTC from Logic to the Pro Tools computer via the MIDI interfaces, nothing happened. After checking to make sure the MIDI cables were correctly connected, the next stop was to check that the MTC messages were being sent correctly and not filtered out along the way (see the screenshot, right). Here are Audio MIDI Setup (AMS) and Unitor 8 Control running on a Mac Book Pro. Notice in the far-right window how the first four MIDI inputs are filtering MTC, stopping it from being received by the interface.
![Usb Midi Cable For Mac Usb Midi Cable For Mac](/uploads/1/2/4/1/124131154/971740627.jpg)
Also notice in AMS that the M Box 2 is currently displayed with translucency because it's no longer connected to the computer. Like many MIDI interfaces (especially the more expensive multi-port models), the AMT8 has the ability to filter certain types of MIDI messages.
![Midi to usb interface cable Midi to usb interface cable](http://www.yellow-price.com/ypadmin/i/1481695752.jpg)
This can be useful when you want to deliberately prevent certain devices from being flooded with unnecessary high-bandwidth MIDI data, such as timecode, but a real pain if you forget to disable such features when you use the interface for another purpose. If your MIDI interface has such filtering features, the manufacturer will usually supply software to configure the filtering with your interface.
As with the drivers, check the manufacturer's web site to see if a newer version is available before installing. In the case of the AMT8, Apple supply the Unitor 8 Control software on the legacy support page, and although there is no Universal Binary version the Power PC version will work fine for both Power PC and Intel Macs. If this sounds confusing — why does the Power PC version of Unitor 8 Control work on an Intel Mac when the PowerPC version of the driver doesn't? — there's actually a good reason. Unitor 8 Control is a regular application and is able to run in the same way that any Power PC application can run on an Intel Mac, thanks to Rosetta, Apple's translation technology that converts Power PC code to Intel code. Put simply, while Rosetta works with applications, it doesn't work with hardware drivers.
The more complex reason (which you can feel free to skip) is that Core MIDI drivers aren't real hardware drivers at all. Instead, a Core MIDI driver is a type of plug-in that talks to a real hardware driver and then deals with how Core MIDI sends and receives MIDI data to and from the hardware driver. So a MIDI interface may sometimes require two drivers: one hardware driver and one Core MIDI driver. However, in practice Mac OS X and Core MIDI can provide a great deal of generic functionality, so that quite often a USB hardware device can be handled by OS X and a simple USB-class MIDI interface can be handled by Core MIDI without requiring any drivers at all, as mentioned at the beginning of this article. You might remember from past columns about Rosetta and Intel Macs that if an application runs Intel-native, only Intel-native plug-ins can be used, whereas if an application runs with Power PC code via Rosetta, that application will only see Power PC plug-ins. Because Core MIDI runs natively on Intel systems, it can therefore only see Intel-native Core MIDI plug-ins.
However, when a Power PC MIDI application is run under Rosetta (such as Unitor 8 Control), Rosetta is still able to let that application talk to Core MIDI thanks to a clever abstraction layer. Getting back to the story, it turned out that both my friend's AMT8s had MTC filtered on the input and output ports, and once we'd disabled the filtering the Pro Tools Mac could finally be slaved to the Mac running Logic.
While Core MIDI's operation is pretty transparent, hopefully this month's column will give you a few ideas the next time you encounter a problem you can't quite see through. To summarise the steps given in the main text, if your MIDI interface isn't working correctly, bear the following in mind. Try changing cables. If possible, try using a shorter cable to connect your interface. Some MIDI interfaces are self-powered, but also have a power supply socket. If you have a number of devices on the same USB port, you might want to try powering your MIDI interface externally, in case there isn't enough power on the USB bus to go around. Make sure you have the correct version of the driver required by your interface.
Check for known problems from the manufacturer, and remember that the latest version may not always be the best one to use. Check that the driver you have is compatible with your system's architecture.
For example, if you're on an Intel Mac, do you have an Intel-compatible driver? (And vice-versa for Power PC-based Macs.). Does your MIDI interface have the ability to filter certain types of MIDI messages? If so, do you have these features enabled when they shouldn't be? All contents copyright © SOS Publications Group and/or its licensors, 1985-2019.
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Untitled Document Mac MIDI Studio Setup How to configure your MIDI studio on a MAC using a MIDI interface. By Ron Tongue Apple has done an excellent job in making Mac MIDI configurations quick and easy. Before you begin, you should make sure that your MIDI software is properly installed and all of your MIDI equipment is setup. Follow the steps below to begin. Step 1: Install your MIDI interface drivers. Before you can configure your operating system, you need to make sure that your Mac MIDI interface drivers are properly installed. Otherwise, your computer will not recognize the MIDI interface and won't know how to communicate with it.
Refer to your MIDI interface user documentation for more detailed information on this step. Step 2: Connect all of your MIDI components.
First connect your MIDI interface to your computer. A USB cable is normally used for this.
Then connect each MIDI instrument to your MIDI interface. Remember the 'IN' on your interface goes to the 'OUT' on your instrument and the 'OUT' on your interface goes to the 'IN' on your instrument. Once you've got it, go back and double check it. This is the most common mistake when setting up a MIDI studio.
Step 3: Turn the power on to all of your MIDI components. In order for your computer to determine what hardware you have, it must be turned on. This includes the computer, MIDI interface, and all MIDI instruments and/or Mac MIDI devices. Step 4: Launch your 'Audio MIDI Setup' utility.
The Audio MIDI Setup utility is where you will configure your computer to communicate with your MIDI equipment. Here, you will identify each piece of equipment in your MIDI studio and 'show' the computer how everything is connected. To launch the Audio MIDI Setup:. When you open the 'Utilities' folder, double click on the 'Audio MIDI Setup' icon. Step 5: Click on the 'MIDI Devices' tab. At the top of the Audio MIDI Setup window there are two tabs.
Click on the tab named 'MIDI Devices.' Step 6: Make sure your MIDI interface is recognized.
If you configured your MIDI interface properly (refer to step 1), you should see an icon in the Audio MIDI Setup window. If you don't see your MIDI interface icon, first make sure the power is turned on and the USB cable is properly connected. Second, click the 'Rescan MIDI' button (toolbar) at the top right of the Audio MIDI Setup window. Step 7 (Optional): Create a new configuration from the drop down menu. Locate the 'Configuration' drop down menu along the toolbar at the top of the window.
Select 'New Configuration' from this menu. Then give your configuration a name. When you are finished, click the 'OK' button. Step 8: Customize your MIDI interface information. Double-click the icon that represents your USB MIDI interface.
A window should open where you can configure your MIDI interface. If it was not done automatically for you, first give your Mac MIDI interface a name. Then choose the manufacturer and model from the two drop down menus.
Note: Some MIDI interface manufacturers include advanced configuration software (such as the image above). When you first double-click on the USB MIDI interface icon it may open a more detailed configuration panel specific to your interface. These are more advanced options that mostly likely will NOT need to be changed for your current use. For more detailed information, you may need to refer to the user documentation for your MIDI interface. Close this window when you are done making changes. Step 9: Add your MIDI Instruments and Devices: A MIDI device in this case will be your MIDI keyboard.
Other Mac MIDI devices include effects units, digital recording units, stage lighting units. To add a device:. Click the small red circular button in the far upper left corner of the device window (this will close the window). Step 10: Repeat step 8 for each of your MIDI devices.
Step 11: Drag to connect all your 'INS' and 'OUTS.' Along the bottom of your MIDI interface icon there should be two or more small arrowheads. These represent the 'inputs' and 'outputs' of your USB MIDI interface. Locate the far left arrowhead that points down. When you click and drag it with your mouse you should notice a black line, which will appear to be coming out of the MIDI interface. This is supposed to represent an actual Mac MIDI cable.
Click and drag to connect the down arrows together and the up arrows together. If you make a mistake, you can easily clear the cables and start over. To do this, click on the 'MIDI' menu at the very top of your computer monitor. From that menu, choose 'Clear All Connections.' A small window will appear asking you if you are sure.
Click 'OK' to confirm. At this point you may want to test your configuration by clicking the 'Test Setup' icon in the Audio MIDI Setup window. Don't rely too much on this option though. You may or may not hear anything. With my setup, the 'Test Setup' button has no effect, but when I launch my MIDI software, it works fine. Before your MIDI keyboard will respond to a MIDI signal you may have to configure your instrument and put it in a 'MIDI' mode.
Step 12: Repeat Step 11 for each of your MIDI devices. Step 13: Close the Audio MIDI Setup utility. Every time you make a change in the Audio MIDI Setup utility, it is automatically saved. So when you are finished, simply choose 'Audio MIDI Setup' menu at the very top of your computer monitor. Then choose 'Quit Audio MIDI Setup' to quit the software. Step 14: Configure your MIDI software. You may or may not need to do this step.
Most likely your Mac MIDI software will automatically detect your MIDI instruments based on the settings you just made in the Audio MIDI Setup. Just make sure within your software that you choose the correct Mac MIDI channel for each MIDI track you plan to record to. You are finished configuring your operating system. Keep in mind that any software you operate that uses your MIDI hardware will automatically refer to this configuration. Whenever you make a physical change in your studio (such as a new keyboard) you need to update this change in the 'Audio MIDI Setup' utility. Troubleshooting: Also, check the 'help' options available for the Audio MIDI Setup utility.
You can either click the small question mark in the toolbar or choose the 'help' menu at the very top of your computer monitor. Be sure to check the user documentation that came with your Mac MIDI interface.
Many manufacturers also provide driver updates on their websites. Be sure to check there from time to time to keep your hardware drivers are up to date. For specific problems related to the Audio MIDI Setup utility, check out Apple's website for all kinds of useful information. You can access their support page.