Hi,

Yep, what Justin said. USB is probably the best way to go. No additional power supply needed and no hassle. Connecting via the MIDI port on the Midistart 2 requires an external power supply. Plus, you'd have to have a MIDI port on your machine/audio interface, of course. Below, I've outlined the procedure of using a MIDI keyboard with Music Maker 14 in more details.

By the way, the Midistart 2 is not a synthesizer. It doesn't even feature any kind of sound generation. It's a pure MIDI master keyboard. You should use it to control software synths in your Music Maker.

Start up Music Maker 14. Open the program settings ("Audio/MIDI tab") by pressing the "P" key on your computer keyboard. Double-check that the proper driver appears in the "Input device" drop-down list under the MIDI section. Now, find the VSTi object in the "Synthesizer" tab and drag & drop it up into one of the tracks to create a Midi object. When you release the mouse button, a drop-down menu should come up, where you can pick the VST instrument associated with this Midi track. Pick e.g. one of the Vital instruments, just for the purpose of testing. Now the actual Midi Editor should open up, where you can edit the Midi track. You should now (while the Midi Editor is open) be able to hear your input from the keyboard being replayed by the VST instruments you have chosen. You can also change that VST instrument again in the Midi Editor, using the "Instr." drop-down list at the top. Once you're done testing and setting up everything, you can start recording your Midi track.

On a side note: You might want to make sure that your Music Maker is configured to use an ASIO driver to avoid latency related problems. You can change the driver model when you're in the main screen of Music Maker and press "P" on your computer's keyboard to bring up the "Playback parameters" dialogue. Pick "ASIO" under "Device" and choose a suitable ASIO driver from the two drop-down lists. If your sound hardware doesn't provide ASIO drivers, you can opt for the generic "Magix Low Latency (2008)" driver.

I hope this helps getting started!

Hi again,

What version of the Midistart 2 do you have? Does it feature the plug & play sticker at the bottom of the device? Also, what version of Vista are you running? 32 bit or 64 bit Vista?

Hi,

There are two different versions of the Midistart 2 - one is marked with said "plug & play" sticker and should work under Vista 32, the other won't. I guess you could still give it a shot: Download and install the appropriate driver from the Miditech website (direct link below) and see whether you can get it to be detected and show up on your Vista system:

http://miditech.de/drivers/miditech_01_vista_driver_WIN32_1.0.0.zip

Good luck!

Oh, by the way, I almost forgot: Rather than just looking at this in terms of keyboard driver compatibility with your particular operating system, you might also want to have a brief look at some other common problems and troubleshooting advice:

- Avoid connecting the keyboard via additional USB extension cords or USB hubs (especially passive hubs without power supply). Connect the keyboard directly to a USB port on your PC using the supplied lead.

- Try different USB ports on your PC.

- Make sure your main board chipset and USB controller drivers are up-to-date.

- Disconnect other USB devices from your system that might interfere with the proper detection of the USB keyboard. Especially Logitech webcams are known troublemakers here.