The clavinova is quite old so no drivers from Yamaha. The cable installs in windows devices ok and appears in Cubase. when I select the cable in Cubase there is no midi signal.
I have tried an identical setup with a windows 7 pc and it all works fine. I have read on some websites that midi is unsupported in win 8 unless the hardware has a specific driver. So basically any midi hardware over say 10 years old is incompatible with windows 8?
I have read on some websites that midi is unsupported in win 8 unless the hardware has a specific driver. So basically any midi hardware over say 10 years old is incompatible with windows 8?
The age of your MIDI hardware has nothing to do with it. And MIDI support in Win8 (desktop) is identical to MIDI support in Win7.
MIDI is supported under Windows 8 (for desktops) via a "USB class driver", so any "USB MIDI class compliant" MIDI device should work fine. If the device is a keyboard with a USB port then the keyboard must be "USB MIDI class compliant", otherwise it must come with it's own driver. If the "device" is a USB to MIDI adapter (like what you described) then the adapter needs to be class compliant, or come with it's own driver... but the MIDI instruments you plug into the adapter are just MIDI instruments, no matter how old they are.
My recommendation is you try a different USB-MIDI adapter... the kind you have is known to be unreliable.
Horsefeathers. Unsupported OFFICIALLY, without a doubt. But MIDI plays the hardware, nonetheless.
I haven't tried Windows 8.1 with my Clavinova, and I probably won't. Windows 95 OSR2 and Cakewalk do just fine for me with that setup.
But I've never had any Yamaha or Yamaha Clavinova drivers in Windows 95, just program numbers 1 through 6, and I don't need drivers to tell me that program #1 is "Piano 1" and program #4 is "Clavinova". I see no need or reason for device-specific drivers to use MIDI, besides providing music software with an instrument name for each program number. MIDI was developed to be equipment-independent, plain vanilla, just bits and bytes triggering universal events. At once, elegant and simple. Keyboard, instrument, and sound module manufacturers use it as is, take it or leave it.
I think that Roland did depart from the standard orchestral instrumentation of General MIDI to the extent of creating their own selection of 128 instruments and sounds, and since then, obviously others have as well. However, if you download your Clavinova instrument list (in the device driver from Yamaha), Cubase or Cakewalk or Finale or ??? will display your instrument nomenclature for program #1, #2, etc.. MIDI allows "customization" of only the names of the instruments, and actually, that is not in the MIDI specification or data stream itself, but only on the screen, printer, and file output of your music software, as identified by the device driver for your instrument. The MIDI data stream just signals program changes (#1, #2, #192, #512, etc.) for individual channels. Our ears interpret each program # as the sound of a specific instrument (or other tone).
Everything else is universal in the General MIDI specification, I think. But to utilize the full capabilities of their instruments and modules, manufacturers may implement enhanced MIDI specifications, of which I am ignorant or at least unacquainted.
What basic drumkit computer file do you recommend, and what collection of popular drumkit patterns?
