G'day! Most certainly a good day! Today I'm gonna order my M-Audio Delta 1010! But before I placed my order in all my happiness, I had a quick look at the specs. I seemed to have everything needed for recording music from my keyboard. A card, a keyboard, and both with MIDI ports. Not. I need a MIDI cable. At least, I don't think it's included with the card, and thus I need one. But I have no clue about which cables to buy, I have no knowledge about it, and all cables on the site (same site as) I ordered my card, have some USB thingies on it. USB? I don't need no USB. Or do I? Take this one for example, it's the first cable I find when I do a search on MIDI cable: It has a MIDI In & Out, but then they're both going into an USB. I don't get it! What should I buy?! Are there any cables you guys suggest, for a reasonable price (read: as cheap as possible with still good quality). -Stenny

Stenny,

Many modern keyboards offer both MIDI ports and a USB connection. If you use USB connection then it will handle everything (sometimes even power!)

Check and see if your keyboard supports USB and your card already does. If they do, I'd go for that option because it is one less cord to mess with.

I hope that helps!

I'm almost certain my keyboard doesn't support USB, it's rather old. I got it when I was appr. 8 years old, and I'm 16 now. Let's have a look. I'll edit in a sec.

Nope it doesn't. Now what (apart from getting a new keyboard, but I'm sorta broke right now, after buying a 400 € sound card)?

Also, you say my card does already have an USB input, but is that on the break-out box of on the card itself?

-Stenny

[Edited by - stenny on May 26, 2007 7:37:31 AM]

Sounds like you just need a pair of regular old MIDI cables (the ones with the 5 pin DIN connector on both ends). I don't know what site you ordered off of, but you can get a pair of cables like these and they'll do the job just fine.

Thanks :), that's probably what I'm looking for yes. Thanks, again[smile].

I haven't found any reference to an USB in/output on my card though, at www.maudio.co.uk.

-Stenny

As romer said, a standard MIDI cable is just a 5-pin DIN cable. A while ago I purchased several of them under the 'computer keyboard cable' moniker from some non-musical site, and consequently got them for about $1 USD each. Music stores like to jack up the prices for 'premium' cables, but any standard 5-pin DIN should do for MIDI.

The Delta 1010 is PCI only. Having USB on it additionally would be kind of silly, but in my experience its MIDI ports work great. Of course the audio inputs are all killer as well. Have fun with it :-)

Quote: Have fun with it :-)

Oh, that's no problem ;). Thanks :)

-Stenny

The thing in your photo looks like a standalone MIDI interface, with the usual in and out ports in a compact pigtail format.
These interfaces communicate through the USB port with their own drivers and have nothing to do with audio cards, which have generally no business providing USB sockets because they would be expensive and no better than built-in ones.