CVP-205 hook up to Toshiba

[Laura Ellwein]

I saw some general posts on this but hope someone can help me specifically with my issue.
I have a CVP-205 and a very new Toshiba laptop with Windows XP Media Center. I purchase the Voyetra brand Digital Music Starter Kit. It comes with a MIDI-joystick connection cable. Since the laptop does not have any serial ports I thought purchasing a joystick-USB adapter would work just fine.
I hooked up the MIDI end to the piano according to instructions both given by the Yamaha instructions and the software package. When I run the software's Sound Check MIDI Input Test, it does not pass the test. The users' guide says the computer should have an "External MIDI" that shows up on the list of MIDI devices, but all I have is "Microsoft MIDI Mapper" and "Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth".

So I'm trying to diagnose the problem. Do I need a MIDI-USB cable? If so, will that solve the problem or is there something else in the computer that I'm either missing or not configuring correctly? I can't imagine the computer's sound card is incompatible but I don't know enough to know how to start figuring that out.

I'm debating whether to then just purchase a new cable, or to get a newer version of this software designed for, and including, the correct cable.

Thanks for advice!

[ragvand]

Does your laptop have a game port? It's a 15 pin port that the Midi-Joystick conversion cable plugs into. I'm assuming the cable has the 15 pin port on one end a midi connections (in and out) on the other. It sounds like to me you are connectiong a USB to Game port (USB on one end 15 pin on the other) cable (or converter) to your Midi-Joystick conversion cable. Not sure if this is going to work. The drivers of the Digital Music Starter Kit most likely operate on the game port and not the USB port. You should plug the Midi-Joystick conversion cable into the 15 pin game port on your laptop. If you don't have a game port on your laptop then what you need is get one of the Midi to USB conversion cables (such as the UM-1X) from edirol (www.edirol.com). I found a cable such as this as MicroCenter. Hope this helps.