midi on a7n8x dlx

[Bushy]

just been thinking about playing with midi stuff, and connecting a (musical)
keyboard. Now, the problem is, on the asus website the a7n8x deluxe specs
page doesn;t say anything about midi connection through the joystick
connector, however for the a7n8x-e deluxe, it does mention midi.

looking through the manual for my a7n8x dlx (not E) it makes no specific
reference to midi availability through the gameport, but i am confused
because in the diagram depicting the actual connectors on the mb one wire is
labelled midi_in and another midi_out.

i've never used the midi connection through a gameport before, and it all
seems quite frustrating. another problem i have is that midi connectors on
keyborads are round five pin jobbies, and i have buggar all idea how that
can connect to the 16 pin gameport. any help would be very appreciated.

cheers.
Bushy

 

[GSeals]

You need an adaptor that connects to your gameport. The adaptor will
have a connector for a joystick, plus the two midi ports, one in, one
out. You'll also need midi cables to run to your keyboard. The MIDI
Out from the joystick will go to the MIDI In for your keyboard. The
keyboards MIDI Out will connect to your MIDI In on the adaptor. You
should have no trouble finding the adaptor and cables at larger music
stores that sell MIDI keyboards and such. Some computer stores will
probably have them also.

Search the usenet keyboard and midi sites such as alt.music.midi.
There are others too, that offer information, but I can't remember
their names just yet. You will find plenty of suggestions for things
such as software to use for expanding the capabilities of your midi
setup on these sites.

GSeals

 

[Ed]

just been thinking about playing with midi stuff, and connecting a (musical)
keyboard. Now, the problem is, on the asus website the a7n8x deluxe specs
page doesn;t say anything about midi connection through the joystick
connector, however for the a7n8x-e deluxe, it does mention midi.

looking through the manual for my a7n8x dlx (not E) it makes no specific
reference to midi availability through the gameport, but i am confused
because in the diagram depicting the actual connectors on the mb one wire is
labelled midi_in and another midi_out.

i've never used the midi connection through a gameport before, and it all
seems quite frustrating. another problem i have is that midi connectors on
keyborads are round five pin jobbies, and i have buggar all idea how that
can connect to the 16 pin gameport. any help would be very appreciated.

cheers.
Bushy

You need a cable, like this...,(shop around!)
http://12.129.78.160/iwwida.pvx?;item?item_no=260-702 1?comp=cct?">
http://www.axiontech.com/prdt.php?src=PW&item=2387

On my A7N8X v2.00 Non-Deluxe (and VIA-KT133/133A boards for that matter)
the MIDI-IN has a delay, I press a key on the keyboards and I hear it
about 300ms later, so I use Creative Labs sound cards in all my PCs, no
MIDI delays In or Out.

btw, I have a Roland Pro-E and a Casio CT-680.
Cheers,
Ed

 

[kronk]

"The MIDI
Out from the joystick will go to the MIDI In for your keyboard"
Not correct.

The Midi out from the midi adaptor goes to midi in on the keyboard, and NOT
from the joystick.
Also not all midi adaptors have joystick connectors(game port)where you
connect a joystick to when the adaptor is connected to the game port.
Creative were the company who had the idea to have a game port on their so
called midi adaptor and a few copied it.

 

[kronk]

"Ed" said "You need a cable, like this...,(shop around!)"
No, he does not need a cable like that unless he also plays games and uses a
joystick.
He needs a midi adaptor that connects to the game port with midi in and out
and midi through.

 

[Ed]

"Ed" said "You need a cable, like this...,(shop around!)"
No, he does not need a cable like that unless he also plays games and uses a
joystick.
He needs a midi adaptor that connects to the game port with midi in and out
and midi through.

MIDI-THRU is used to pass the MIDI-IN signal along to another MIDI
device.

Ed

 

[GSeals]

You're somewhat correct, that should have been out from the joystick
adaptor, but I thought that step would be clear once he had the
adaptor in hand. I think the important point to get across is that he
needs an adaptor. Yes, there are different types of adaptors
available, and the more common ones for novice use has the joystick
connector as well as the midi connectors. If you want to nitpick, you
don't even need a joystick adapator, depending on your keyboard or
tone module. For instance, the setup we use in our studio is a
serial cable from Com 1 to the Host In connector on keyboards sound
modules. I wouldn't know, and could not care less about Creatives
development, we use M-Audio recording cards and Cakewalk software.

GSeals

 

[Bushy]

thanks all for your help...i thought an adapter might have been necessary.
is it true to say that all gameports on all systems have midi capabilities?
or is it just asus or what? this question is less important to me, but it is
interesting that the manual for my a7n8x-dlx makes no mention of midi.

 

[Ed]

thanks all for your help...i thought an adapter might have been necessary.
is it true to say that all gameports on all systems have midi capabilities?
or is it just asus or what? this question is less important to me, but it is
interesting that the manual for my a7n8x-dlx makes no mention of midi.

Not sure but I have a couple of older VIA KT133A boards (non ASUS
brands) that do MIDI IN/OUT from the game ports.

In the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe manual I have (PDF file page 60) it shows the
BIOS under the Integrated Peripherals section has an Onboard MIDI I/O
setting and an Onboard MIDI IRQ setting.

HTH,
Ed

 

[GSeals]

I would say that is true for the computers on todays market as long as
it has either a sound card or onboard audio chipset. In fact, even
computers without onboard audio, a soundcard, or gameport can play
MIDI with a direct connection to a sound module or MIDI Keyboard.
(Think of a sound module, also called a tone generator, as a keyboard
without the keys.) For more information on the basics, you should
check out http://www.midi.com/

The real fun comes when you start authoring, or sequencing your own
songs. If you decide to go that route, you'll want to install a
software sequencing program on your computer. There are a number of
good programs, from inexpensive to very expensive. Among the top
names for the pros are Cakewalk and Cubase-Steinberg. I don't mean to
open a can of worms, but I'm sure some will disagree with that last
statement. Some versions are MIDI only while the more expensive
programs now will let you mix MIDI and recorded Audio. The advantage
of MIDI is that the files are quite small when compared to Audio
files. This is because MIDI does not record the actual sounds, only
data.

Since MIDI does not record the sounds, there are certain limitations.
One of the main disadvantages comes when playing the files back on
setups other than the one used for the sequencing. One example here
is a song sequenced for a Yamaha XG setup will not sound as the
author intended when played back on a Roland system and vice versa.
There is a General MIDI standard, but even then the songs tend to
sound a little different from system to system.

Get your adaptor, start experimenting, and be sure to check out the
MIDI web sites,

Cheer,
GSeals