OK, I just picked up a Sounblaster MP3 keyboard. It was in a second hand store for very little money so if it doesn't work out, no real loss, it was a donation to a good cause anyway. Having said that, I need to find a manual and at least ask about midi cable advice. I have an email in to Creative as well but I am hoping I will find Mac friendly folk here that may know more about the Mac side of things.

This keyboard appears to have no battery/power hook up so I am assuming that MIDI is like USB in that it can carry current as well as data. Is this true? I have also seen threads on mac that suggest there is a midi to usb dongle which can be purchased to do this with this unit.

But, I already have a FocusRite Saffire DSP Interface and that allows me to use a "real" midi solution, as far as I know. The keyboard has a 5 pin MIDI out, which would be good enough to connect to the FocusRite Saffire Firewire Interface, "IF" this is what the keyboard needs for power as well.

The keyboard also has a game port and a midi port, which are very different looking than the round 5 pin midi port (out). This second midi port is trapezoidal and appears to use 15 pins. It is male and the game port looks just the same but is female. Both of these last two ports look like a monitor output port - well, the game port looks like a monitor output port where the "midi" is the same shape and size but is all pins (male).

Can anyone please help by pointing me to a manual and perhaps commenting on the different kinds of ports I am referring to here? And most of all, can anyone say if a round 5 wire midi cable (standard) will carry power?

Thanks

ADDED: I found the manual online. It says it is powered ONLY from a PC sound card. It says the 5 pin midi cable is for external midi controllers.. Am I out of luck here? I will borrow a midi cable tonight when I play but if that doesn't work, are there cheap cards that will work in a Mac and allow me to plug power into this board? I do have an MDD with LOTS of empty PCI slots.

BlasterKey MP3 consists of the BlasterKey MP3 MIDI keyboard and the BlasterKey
MP3 control panel software. The BlasterKey MP3 keyboard must be connected to an
audio card in your computer. The audio card should be connected to your computer
speakers or to a headphone. BlasterKey MP3 functions solely on the power supplied to
it by its connection to your audio card.

System Requirements
Your BlasterKey MP3 requires:

❑Pentium 133MHz or faster processor
❑Intel or 100% compatible motherboard chipset
❑16MB system RAM (32 MB strongly recommended)
❑ Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT 4.0
❑Sound Blaster Live! audio card installed

All I want is a working Midi keyboard. I assume this will let me compose songs in Logic or transpose for music for those I sing with. I am NOT assuming the software that came with this board will do me ANY good, just the working MIDI keyboard will make me quite happy. - Merci

This post has been edited by leelbest: Fri 4 Apr 2008, 22:59

IMHO it smell fishy…

Powered thru the MIDI cable from an audio card, looks like some smorgasbord from PC audio card makers that…
Now, there's always the possibility to make some DIY to power it but it may be too much ado about nothing.

AFAIK, I don't know of a mac compatible card that does that trick.

Any other opinion?

Here is the link to the manual:
http://ie.europe.creative.com/support/down...Blaster+Key+MP3

It looks like, if I can put a .5V charge on the right pins ...

Sounds like a long shot but it would be nice to have a keyboard to patch into Logic (express). I write songs and play guitar but all my notation is in tablature. As I start asking friends to play with me it would be very helpful to actually write down the notes, and on occasion, transpose.

The keyboard was $5 at a Goodwill so if I can figure out a way to put a spare power-brick on the right pins, I am cool with that. Otherwise, it goes back to Goodwill. (I can live with making a $5 donation to Goodwill)

Thanks

This post has been edited by leelbest: Mon 7 Apr 2008, 17:17