Question about USB MIDI

[kinnylandrum]

I have a rather convoluted but necessary (to me) question about USB MIDI.

I do a gig where I want to get a set of MIDI drum pads to play a remote Alesis drum machine in real time from near my keyboard. There are lots of new drum pads that are small, cheap, and will fit on top of my Kurzweil keyboard. But all of them use USB for MIDI, no MIDI connectors. My Kurzweil keyboard has a USB connector I never use, one of those "rounded square" types.

My question is, could I plug a USB cable from the the Kurzweil to the pads, supplying power and MIDI? And then would the pads send messages to the drum machine from my MIDI thru jack on the Kurzweil to the Alesis Drum machine, presumably on channel 10, to play the drum sounds on the machine from my pads?

If anyone who knows the answer to this, it would be greatly appreciated.

[adriano]

I have a rather convoluted but necessary (to me) question about USB MIDI.

I do a gig where I want to get a set of MIDI drum pads to play a remote Alesis drum machine in real time from near my keyboard. There are lots of new drum pads that are small, cheap, and will fit on top of my Kurzweil keyboard. But all of them use USB for MIDI, no MIDI connectors. My Kurzweil keyboard has a USB connector I never use, one of those "rounded square" types.

My question is, could I plug a USB cable from the the Kurzweil to the pads, supplying power and MIDI? And then would the pads send messages to the drum machine from my MIDI thru jack on the Kurzweil to the Alesis Drum machine, presumably on channel 10, to play the drum sounds on the machine from my pads?

If anyone who knows the answer to this, it would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know if the Kurz has enough power to supply to the pads, via USB.
All the other info you're asking about, you will need to consult the MIDI IMPLEMENTATION charts in the respective manuals. If you haven't bought the pads yet, go to the manufacture website, sometime they have the manuals available online and look at the MIDI implementation info.

Adriano

[mikehalloran]

If it is the Alesis SR-16, good luck. I could never make mine work properly as a MIDI slave and eventually gave it away to a friend who encountered the same problem.

I had no problems making any of my other MIDI modules and keyboards (with percussion) work in that configuration. This includes my HR-16.

Alesis promised firmware upgrades for the SR-16 that were never released. I notice that you can buy many different EPROMs for the HR-16 on eBay.

[kinnylandrum]

Thanks for the replies so far. In reply to Mike Halloran, no, its an Alesis SR-18, not 16. And I will look up about the power requirements of the Korg nano pad 2, which is what I am considering. Do those "rounded square" USB jacks send out power to connected devices? If anyone has first hand knowledge, I would appreciate it.

[mikehalloran]

Do those "rounded square" USB jacks send out power to connected devices? If anyone has first hand knowledge, I would appreciate it.

No. That jack is always the receiving end in a usb connection.

If buss power is available, it comes from the other end that looks like a blade. Not all ports supply buss power, btw, even on a MacBook. If both your devices have that jack, you require a usb hub to connect. Most powered hubs can supply buss power but not all do. You will have to check mfrs power requirements against the specs of a powered hub.

[kinnylandrum]

Thanks. So I guess you're saying this could work by buying a powered hub, with a USB A cable (the blade connector) going to the pads to supply power and a USB B connector cable to the Kurzweil to supply MIDI to the Kurzweil's MIDI thru port to connect to the Alesis. Right? Or is there some other way NOT involving a computer?