Hello! I'm an absolute newbie at MIDI (though a long-time Mac user), and I could really use a little help getting started.

My wife has an interest in learning to play piano, so I bought her eMedia's Piano& Keyboard Method software and an M-Audio Radium 49 keyboard. She has an iMac running OS X (Panther), and I just can't seem to get them to play together.

I installed the Panther patch for the keyboard from M-Audio and connected the keyboard to the iMac via USB. The power switch is set to draw power over the USB line. Things start to go wrong in Apple's Audio MIDI Setup control panel. Often, nothing shows up under devices at all. If I unplug the USB cable from the keyboard and reattach it, a device identified as [1x1] will appear. The device's properties show that it is recognized as an M-Audio "Keystation Series." Nothing is visible in the Properties tab, and the Ports tab shows a "Port 1."

If I click on "Test Setup", the cursor changes to a musical note. Otherwise, I get no reaction except that the "out arrow" from the device turns red when I click on it. I'm baffled by this interface ... should I be hearing music? Should anything happen when I click "Test Setup?"

When I click "Rescan MIDI", invariably the device dims, which I gather means that it is no longer recognized. It goes without saying that I can't seem to get it to work with any music program. What am I missing here?

Any help is appreciated!

The fact that the device goes grey when you push rescan simply means there is a bug in the M-Audio driver. This is a known problem. As long as the device shows up in AMS though, you should be able to get it to work. You will not hear sounds in AMS though, since the keyboard does not produce sounds by itself. You must have music software properly configured to accept input from your keyboard and to produce output (music) from your computer's audio output.

I have similar problems with a Audiophile 24/96 PCI card under OS 10.2.8. I'm none too pleased with M-Audio's lack of compatibility with OS X, even though they provide drivers for it and say they are compatible.

~Tene