I'm not super knowledgeable about this stuff so maybe I'm missing something but I'm trying to get the Rock Band keyboard hooked to my PC as a midi keyboard. I have the midi to usb adapter, the light flashes on it when i hit the keys, when I check my device manager USB MIDI Interface is listed. Everything seems like it should be working, but it's not. Googling hasn't helped and I've been at it all night trying to figure it out and I want to hurt myself or someone else. Anyone know how to make this work? Or should I give up.

Is it a drive issue?

@e30bmw: I'm not sure. It seems like the drivers are up to date and I checked it on my old mac mini and it seemed to work fine on there. Googling hasn't been helpful at all but I'm gathering Win 8 at one point didn't play nice with MIDI and I don't know if that's still the case. And the Rock Band forums are down so no help there.

I'ma bump this once to see if anybody on today can help. If not i'll let it go. Sigh.

You could try a generic hid program like joy2key or xpadder to see if it's detecting the inputs, and then remap keys.

@glacialhelmnun: I dl joy2key and it's not even reading anything when I try to rebind keys. Maybe this adapter I picked up is the problem, that's the only point of failure I can figure aside from win 8 just being a turd. Ah well.

I've no particular idea what your setup is and I've never used the Rockband keyboard / adapter, so I'm of limited help, but if you're curious whether there's a problem with Windows 8 recognising midi devices when hooked up through a working interface, then I can at least tell you that's not your problem. My production computer (which I upgraded to 8 for performance a few months ago, and which is running 8.1 currently) has well over 10-15 midi devices hooked up and they transmit midi-cc flawlessly through any software that supports it.

Sorry I've no more specific experience with that keyboard / adapter. I'd say the most likely point of failure's the adapter if everything's properly configured in whatever software you're trying to use

@jukezypoo: Ok cool, that's good to know. I'm pretty sure it's the adapter then, I'll probably just return it and pay a bit more for something that's likely to work. What do you use? The Roland UM-ONE seems like a good investment.

Oh! Has Microsoft gone and made what was once a simple process, a confusing, broken mess again. Imagine that!

/bitter

What software are you trying to use that keyboard in?

Are you plugging it in to your Win8 machine and expecting it to play sounds? Are you using something like Finale or Cakewalk to record? You said it works on your Mac, what software were you using there?

@thesoutherndandy:

Alas what I use would probably be excessive (I've a few audio interfaces / a mixer that it runs through). That Roland's probably a good choice though: I'm a pretty big believer in Roland in general (I use an octa-capture as my daily portable, and they had drivers for 8.1 within days); just make sure, if that interface requires drivers, that they're still releasing them (they're usually good but worth checking), given that you're on 8.1.

Out of curiosity do you have a specific program in mind or are you just looking for a way to have midi control for a variety of software? I only ask because if you're running it through a DAW (Ableton, Reason, FL Studio, ETC) then setup can be weird.

Also, it's worth noting that Windows is AWFUL at hot-swapping Midi devices / their control destinations, so always make sure to plug in / power on the keyboard / adapter (if it has a power switch) BEFORE you run whatever software you're hoping to control with it.

@jukezypoo: I just picked up the entry level Sonar X3, I'm committing to learning how to use it. That's the only program I'm planning to use right now, wrapping my head around more then that would be a bad idea I think.

Ah okay cool. Yeah no choosing a single workflow to start from's definitely the way to go. And assuming you followed the instructions they gave then I can't think of any notable weirdness with Sonar. I haven't worked much with it but it was always fairly plug and play so long as I selected which controllers I wanted to use. I only asked because Ableton, for example, is kind of a mess when it comes to configuring some midi controllers and can introduce its own problems.

And it's awesome you're getting into this (i.e working with computers to make music); I know a lot of people who want to but never get started because they get intimidated by the initial learning curve and never give it a shot.

Yeah it's pretty intimidating just getting into it trying to figure out what everything does. I've tried before and given up but part of the problem was my PC wasn't up to the task. I have a pretty beefy one now and I know how to play and write some music so it's just getting it onto a computer and put together that's the tricky part.