USB midi to external gear

A friend of mine bought a yamaha p105 stage piano recently. I warned her that it has no midi in/out so she couldn’t connect external synths etc to it on stage. It does have MIDI over USB though. I was wondering if there was a simple (doesn’t involve bringing a pc/laptop with midi interface) and cheap way of getting that USB midi to work with external gear. I know there are plenty of midi to usb cables but that’s the other way around :wink:.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

edit: to answer my own question:

that’s quite expensive though :frowning:

I don’t have an answer, but I know my Roland rack mount midi sound module has a USB connection to it…doesn’t it mean that a keyboard with USB can connect to it? Or are these only designed to connect to a computer?

Personally, anything I’ve ever dealt with with USB is screwy …exept say and external HDD

I doubt it, and even if that’s the case that wouldn’t really help her because the synth she would be using doesn’t have a USB port.
I personally also prefer using regular midi cables, I’ve got 11 USB ports in use without using any midi over USB (Except the MIDEX of course) and I feel that’s enough :wink:

You WILL need a host that can take MIDI over USB and an interface that provides MIDI out if needed.


which the latter also is.

Strophoid, I thought you said your friend’s keyboard has USB in your 1st post? Then you say it does not? Did I misread it :confused:

I bought one of those cheap USB to standard midi thingy’s about a year ago +…I actually have never tried it.

I think it’s designed to go from a regular midi out, into a computers USB…if it works the other way around at all (?), it would obviously have to go into a midi router 1st…

BTW, I use Motu MTP AV’s… I have both serial & USB versions…but I connecte even the USB versions from it’s regular midi ports to my sound cards regular midi I/O ports, which works fine & very reliably…unlike USB, where I get tired of issues not being recognized, losing connection, can’t seeing connection :unamused:

A MIDI receiver is opto-isolated, which means that such a device CANNOT be used in reverse. MIDI is NOT a bus protocol like USB.

Opto-isolation is irrelevant. This thingy SYNC owns (probably) has both MIDI IN and OUT, which makes it two-directional. But the problem is, it’s USB must be connected to USB HOST (a computer) while Strophoid’s problem is that USB must be connected to USB DEVICE (a keyboard)… which is exactly what the device Strophoid found (Kenton thingy) does.

I originally bought that cheapo USB/Midi thingy to experiment & connect to my laptop to run VSTi’s from. I ended up building a 2nd desktop for that task, that’s why I haven’t used it. And yes, it’s got 5-Pin midi DIN I/O.

I didn’t think that Kenton was THAT expensive, if that’s the solution needed. It’s like $130 on ebay…at least here in the US. I don’t know why Strop’s friend bought that particular keyboard …if midi out to other gear is needed in a ‘LIVE’ setting.

Personally, I would never buy a keyboard that ‘only’ had USB for midi, for any purpose. I have 4 Motu MTP AV 8X8’s (got’em CHEAP)…enough to do anything I’ll ever need midi wise.

My bad :blush: re the Kenton thing (I misread something somewhere, which I couldn’t find again), but from this description, it would appear to be EXACTLY the thing required!

Cheers guys, I guess the Kenton device is our best option.

@SYNC, I can see the confusion now, piano = master controller, synth is what she’s trying to control over MIDI :wink:
I agree I would’ve gone with a piano with native MIDI out, but the budget was quite tight and this Yamaha ticked all the other boxes. She was picky over the keybed and sounds so the options were very limited, and to be honest this is by no means a bad choice. She played it live today and she was clearly very happy with it :slight_smile:

Well, if she’s happy that’s all that matters then :slight_smile: The price of the keyboard/controller must have been so fantastic, that having to now buy the Kenton midi device more than makes up for it :question:

I guess so, I don’t think she’d have bought a different piano if her budget included the additional €100,-.