4tlomusic


Just thought I'd let you know: SamAshMusic agree to order the Cakewalk UA-25EX for me and even price-matched the best price I could find online! I'm waiting for it to arrive - should be here in the next couple of weeks!

Nice one! congrats! let us know how you get on :)

Norrie

no.  don't listen to sam ash sales drones.  they obviously are idiots.

you don't need a USB to MIDI cable.  you just plug the keyboard up directly from it to the computer usb port and not use the MIDI ports on the saffire.  that will NOT cause extra latency.  the latency is due to the soundcard and its drivers NOT the MIDI cable or the keyboard itself.  changing out the keyboard or the MIDI cable will NOT decrease your latency.  any twenty something at sam ash who tells you that doesn't have a clue about what causes latency.

DON'T listen to the sales drones. 

if just plug the yamaha up to the computer USB directly.  trust me - I have the EXACT same keyboard you do and I KNOW what I'm talking about and I'm not even getting paid for my advice!

after you get the saffire, don't worry about using the MIDI ports on it at all.  you don't need them with the yamaha using the USB port directly.

after you get the saffire installed, go into MC  and change the driver mode to ASIO (OPTIONS>AUDIO>DRIVER MODE = ASIO, click APPLY)
then you should have decent latency at the normal settings.  if it's still high, let us know and we'll work on it.

but don't listen to the sales drones.  listen to Beagle.  I KNOW.  They're idiots.

I apologize for being such a novice - it's pretty easy to confuse me I guess. I did explain to them that I was using it as an external soundcard but I guess I got confused about the set up and they couldn't figure out how the audio interface could serve as an external soundcard - they just kept saying that there was no way to run my keyboard through the interface into my computer.
I'll pick the Saffire up in the next day or so (and I guess I'll need a MIDI-to-USB cable to connect the interface and the computer because I looked in the box and there wasn't a cable included) and once I get a chance to try it out, I'll be back with questions/updates.
Thanks for your patience...

4tlomusic


I apologize for being such a novice - it's pretty easy to confuse me I guess. I did explain to them that I was using it as an external soundcard but I guess I got confused about the set up and they couldn't figure out how the audio interface could serve as an external soundcard - they just kept saying that there was no way to run my keyboard through the interface into my computer.
I'll pick the Saffire up in the next day or so (and I guess I'll need a MIDI-to-USB cable to connect the interface and the computer because I looked in the box and there wasn't a cable included) and once I get a chance to try it out, I'll be back with questions/updates.
Thanks for your patience...

no apology necessary - it's not your fault.  it's the sales people at sam ashe.  if they can't figure out what an external soundcard is for a laptop then they have no business giving advice on how to resolve latency.
 
But again - you do NOT need a MIDI to USB cable!   you DO NOT NEED A MIDI CABLE AT ALL.  the yamaha psr-295 does not have a 5 pin MIDI port.  it uses USB ONLY.  you will NOT connect the yamaha directly to the saffire and it's NOT NECESSARY.  Connect the yamaha with a regular USB cable DIRECTLY TO THE COMPUTER.  buying a MIDI cable of any kind for the yamaha psr-295 will be a WASTE OF MONEY because it's not going to work!  you only need a regular USB cable (or the USB cable that came with the yamaha psr-295 is even better because it has a filter on it, but even that isn't necessary).
 
and doing that will not affect the latency at all!  the latency has nothing to do with whether you connect the keyboard up to the soundcard directly or not! 
 Herb (guitarhacker), his keyboard is USB ONLY, no 5pin MIDI ports are on it.  he only needs a USB cable.

just a standard USB cable.  same as the keyboard.

Well, the Sam Ash folks were right on one point; there's no way to connect your USB keyboard to the Saffire.
But you don't need to, as Beagle wrote. Later, when you've got the money, you can get another keyboard with MIDI ports, or a MIDI drum machine or sound module to connect to the Saffire's MIDI ports. Until then, ignore them.

So, I thought I'd look at the Saffire 6 USB interface that we discussed above,

he's talking about the USB one (from post #33)

I agree that they were right that he can't plug the keyboard into the saffire, but what they didn't tell him (whether they understood it or not) is that he didn't need to.

Ok - bought Saffire, installed driver, went to MC5 and changed the driver mode to ASIO (OPTIONS>AUDIO>DRIVER MODE = ASIO, click APPLY).
Now, when I try to record, I get the following error message: "Unable to open audio playback device. Device may not support the current project's audio format or may be in use."
What now?

Actually, are there some good threads already out there that I can explore that go over hardware configuration and set-up for use with MC5?
Don't really know what I'm doing, but I played around and already can see that this fixes the latency problem as somehow I stumbled through a 3-track experiment and it all synced up perfectly! (now I just have to practice)

Thanks everyone - especially Beagle for helping me figure this stuff out. Wasn't sure at first about spending $200 on the advice of an online pooch, but it would seem that all the advice I got here was WAY better than what I got at SamAsh! Now that I can actually make some progress with MC5, I'll be back with more questions etc soon!

'Kay