Hi,

My new Kawai MP5 arrived on Friday, and will write a review of it soon.

Meanwhile, a question for anyone with an MP series Kawai: Any luck connecting to your computer via USB??

When I connect the MP5, Windows XP recognizes it, and installs the driver automatically---fine. But, when I'm in the sequencer or in Midi test programs, the MP5 cannot be seen. It's as if the MP5 is not connected.

Anyone else have experience with these USB connections?

The way my project studio is set up, a USB connection would be easiest. But, if I must go via standard midi cable, then so be it.

Searching on Google, I notice that USB and audio don't seem to mix very well...

Cheers,
J

I should add that I've tried numerous things to get it to work: restarting, re-installing the whole operating system, disabling various devices, making sure not too many audio devices were installed...

Some internet sites mentioned a registry edit, but my registry didn't have the variables/values in the places they mentioned.

Another post I saw was in direct reference to a Kawai. Someone was having trouble connecting their (older) model Kawai DP via USB. The response from Kawai was, apparently, "sometimes that's just the way it is. Haven't been able to find a reason."

Indeed, in my search of the internet, I have found that MIDI USB connections---from all manufacturers---are often problematic. So much so, I wonder why manufactueres even bother to include USB.

Still, I wondered if anyone here got their USB connection to work. Hopefully, I can get mine to, too.

Cheers,
J

Have you tried plugging your keyboard in through different USB ports? I find that my mouse and keyboard only works on specific ones out of my 8 USB ports for some odd reason. I never tried a keyboard though, but this is just a suggestion.

Also, does anything appear on the device manager or Control Panel after you hooked up your keyboard? I have a USB adapter for Playstation controllers, so when I plug it in, I can go to the Control Panel, then Game Controllers, and my controller will be listed where I can test out the individual buttons, pad, and joysticks. Not sure if there is anything like that for a keyboard, but you should check it out.

Thanks for the suggestion.

I did try different USB ports.

It installs OK, and it does appear in the device manager as a generic USB audio midi device---just like it's supposed it. But, it's a generic driver, so there is no built-in test.

When you say generic driver - do you mean the one that windows supplies by default?
If so, what you should do is manually remove that driver, and replace it with Kawai USB driver. (You can do that by clicking on Update inside the Device Manager).

Another thing to try, is going through an external USB hub - but I'd first try the real Kawai driver, instead of default Windows one.

And here is the link to download the driver if you don't have it already.

http://www.kawaius.com/archive/k_archive/software_drivers/KAWAI-USB-MIDI.zip

The manual states that the generic Windows driver should be used when in XP.

In fact, I tried installing the Kawai driver anyway (designed for people with Win98)---wouldn't complete, because of incompatibility issues.

I'll try calling Kawai tomorrow and see what they say. Can post the response here so people can find it on a search later on.

J