No midi keyboard input sound

[Judinkie]

Using M-Audio KeyStudio 49 midi keyboard, USB'd directly to pc, no driver required. Finale 2009, when using either speedy entry or hyperscribe the notes are notated on staff and play back fine (so apparently Finale recognizes the midi ok) but I cannot hear the notes as they are entered, only during playback. Nor can I "hear" the keyboard when playing it. The keyboard works fine in Sonar using the same Midi In and Midi out choices as in Finale. I've checked every volume control (mute) possibility that I can find with no luck. Tried all the suggestions I've found in the forums and I'm at a total loss. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Probably some dumb little overlook thingy. thanks in advance.

[GoGuard]

Have you checked to see if "Match On/Off" is checked? Make sure it is. Under MIDI/Audio, go to "Device Setup," then 'MIDI Setup." I use a similar keyboard (Evolution MK-425C).

[peterqd]

Also check the MIDI/Audio > Device Setup > MIDI Thru... is set to Smart. Finale needs MIDI Thru to be on so that commands for notes played on the keyboard are transmitted onwards to the synth.

[Judinkie]

Thank you for your help. It was the midi thru. Setting it to Smart and then setting Midi Out to Smartsynth gave me sounds!! Forums are the Bomb! thanks again.

[montedoro44]

All of a sudden I have a similar problem:

In Selection Tool mode, the keyboard plays. When I switch to Simple Entry, the notes appear but no sound. Then when I go back to Selection Tool there is no sound. If I Reload MIDI Driver, I get back to the beginning problem. I have been to MIDI/Audio Match On/Off and MIDI thru. Any ideas?

I don't have another MIDI keyboard that could discover if the problem is on the keyboard side. My computer has Windows 10, and I have the same M-Audio 49 as the prior sufferer.

P.S. Also Simple Entry > Playback notes on entry is checked.

[motet]

Does playback work?

Look at MIDI/AUDIO->Device setup->MIDI Thru, and also the sounds assigned to each instrument in the Score Manager. MIDI Thru = Smart, which means to play the sound the instrument plays back with, may or may not work with Simple Entry. If something is amiss, it might leave the output audio in a weird state when you go back to the Selection tool. Just a guess.

[montedoro44]

Thanks for getting back, motet.

Playback works. I have visited all of the MIDI/Audio settings, and the misbehavior persists. I have a laptop with Finale and I connected the keyboard -- it works perfectly; I just re-installed Finale (27) on my desktop and the problem persists; I used a different USB port; I visited M-Audio, and as I expected there is no driver update -- the Keystation49es is plug & play, has its own built-in driver -- I am running out of possible culprits. I am not doing anything musically that I have not done hundreds of times. I ordered a mini keyboard which hasn't arrived yet -- if it works, I will come back here with the news, but since the keyboard+Finale works on a different computer, I have no expectation that a new keyboard will work any differently.

Remember, the silence is only when entering notes from Simple Entry. In all cases, "Simple > Use MIDI device for input" is checked. In Selection mode, the keyboard is audible. And when Simple Entry fails, then Selection Tool also fails until Reload MIDI driver is detonated. - - - where is this MIDI driver? Finale, Windows?

addendum: I see that the MIDI driver for the KS49 appears & disappears from the list of devices every time the keyboard is turned on and off; so there is no ancient device driver that got corrupted. Also it isn't just Simple Entry -- Hyperscribe tool also goes silent.

[motet]

Turn on the keyboard before running Finale, wait several seconds, then launch Finale and leave they keyboard on for the duration. Not much to be gained by turning it off.

I have a Keystation-61 on Windows 10 and likely use the same driver you do. I just experimented with Finale 27, which I don't generally use, and found I had to do what's shown below to get it to work. In MIDI Setup, uncheck Auto-detect, then instead select your device from the pull-down below. Also pick Show Advanced and make sure those 7 pull-down menus are all set to None. Don't set MIDI Out to your keyboard.

Set MIDI Thru to Smart or Direct.

[montedoro44]

Thanks for this detailed instruction -- unfortunately it didn't change anything. Since we are using pretty much the same hardware, I'm surprised that you had to hand-set these toggles & choices to make yours work. Until now, everything worked for me without any adjustments, and afaik I didn't tinker with any settings.

I just changed the USB cord (didn't help), and I'm tempted to open the keyboard case to make sure that the USB port is intact, as the cord wiggles a bit. Hard to believe though that there would be a physical wire difference between playing in Select mode rather than Simple or other. Or why everything works on my other computer. When my new keyboard arrives, presumably that will rule in or out these possible culprits.

[motet]

I have another (virtual) MIDI device, which probably explains the difference.

[montedoro44]

Good news today -- problem solved. One change that it didn't occur to me to try was to toggle the "Play through VST/MIDI" choice to VST. When I switched to VST all was good. So, back to "Play through MIDI" and back to Device Manager, and the necessary change was that the "Device:" selection box wants "Default MIDI Output Device", not "Smartmusic Softsynth 1". It seems to me that's what I always had there, same as motet's example, but now when I try to Select SoftSynth 1 again, just to experiment, I get an error message "Can't open a device more than once!" I don't quite understand all this, I just want it up & running.

In my experimenting just now I was also able to achieve the opposite problem for a moment -- in Simple Entry, instead of notes print but don't play, the notes played but they didn't print.

Anyway, I appreciate all the help & patience here!

edit: I spoke too soon.