Connecting Yamaha Clavinova piano to Garageband on my Mac
I own two gorgeous but more-than-15-year-old Yamaha Clavinovas. One's a CVP 209. It's old enough that it has a floppy drive. The over is a CLP--slightly newer with an original generation USB port. Both have MIDI, fortunately.
My partner asked me to record a few pieces of original music to be used as intro and outro on her webcasts. I tried saving to the USB but the firmware is so old the move and copy functions don't work.
So...how to use Garageband with these two digital/acoustic pianos.
The first suggestion are headphone out to headphone/MIC jack on my MacAir. To date, I've not been able to get Garageband to see the Yamaha this way.
The second suggestion is to download the Yamaha drivers to the Mac. This suggestion has failed me in two ways---first, all of the current drivers are USB-MIDI, and of course my old keyboards only have regular old historical MIDI. Second, every one seems to agree that Garageband has entered the modern world, so, like printers, it doesn't need old drivers. It queries and identifies the instrument by itself. I don't want to mess things up with a new driver if I don't need to.
Third suggestion: hook up a USB/MIDI cable converter. This gives you USB on the Mac end, and straight MIDI on the instrument end. One jack goes to MIDI in, and the other to MIDI out. I ordered the Sanoxy USB/Midi Cable Converter, though Sweetwater has a much more expensive Yamaha-specific one.
The Sanoxy unit works perfectly, however...direct link to all the features in GarageBand...even from my older generation MIDI Yamaha.
My partner asked me to record a few pieces of original music to be used as intro and outro on her webcasts. I tried saving to the USB but the firmware is so old the move and copy functions don't work.
So...how to use Garageband with these two digital/acoustic pianos.
The first suggestion are headphone out to headphone/MIC jack on my MacAir. To date, I've not been able to get Garageband to see the Yamaha this way.
The second suggestion is to download the Yamaha drivers to the Mac. This suggestion has failed me in two ways---first, all of the current drivers are USB-MIDI, and of course my old keyboards only have regular old historical MIDI. Second, every one seems to agree that Garageband has entered the modern world, so, like printers, it doesn't need old drivers. It queries and identifies the instrument by itself. I don't want to mess things up with a new driver if I don't need to.
Third suggestion: hook up a USB/MIDI cable converter. This gives you USB on the Mac end, and straight MIDI on the instrument end. One jack goes to MIDI in, and the other to MIDI out. I ordered the Sanoxy USB/Midi Cable Converter, though Sweetwater has a much more expensive Yamaha-specific one.
The Sanoxy unit works perfectly, however...direct link to all the features in GarageBand...even from my older generation MIDI Yamaha.
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