Moog Music Forum

Hi guys,

I was wondering if I can plug a usb style keyboard (typically a microKey 25) into the minitaur?

Will that work? Will the minitaur provide enough phantom power?

Kind Regards

I have an Alesis Q25, it's powered by USB. I had to buy a converter - from wall outlet to USB. I got it for $15 at Walgreens (Energizer brand). You can get 'em for less, I was in a hurry. It plugs into the MIDI port of the Minitaur. I don't know if the MicroKey 25 will be both powered by USB and still do MIDI. Maybe it will, but I haven't heard of it. I remember researching this and that's why I ended up getting the adapter.

General answer concerning USB-only MIDI controllers:

The quick answer is "no", and has more to do with the USB signal than power requirements.

Most synthesizers (Moog included) or other musical instruments equipped with a USB port are NOT considered to be USB "hosts", which means you have to have a host device (computer, iPad with CCK, or specialized device such as the iConnect MIDI) between your controller and the synth in order to use the USB connection.

Even if the USB MIDI controller is connected through a powered USB hub (which would provide power to your USB-only controller), the hub itself would still need to connect to a host device.

The USB cable connections on a piece of equipment can be a good indicator if you're not familiar with how USB works -
If the USB cable connection is anything other than a USB port like you would normally find on a computer, chances are the equipment is a USB peripheral device, not a "host", and requires the connections I mentioned above.

The 5-pin MIDI DIN ports, on the other hand, CAN be used to directly connect a MIDI controller to a MIDI DIN-equipped synth.

That's why the keyboard mentioned in the post above works ~
It looks like he's powering it through a USB power adapter, but connecting to the Minitaur via MIDI DIN.

Randy

Okay thanks,

now another question then:

which small midi keyboard do you guys use? 25 / 32 keys... not on a budget, so if there is one with aftertouch ...
Arturia has the keylab 25 which is close to what I am after but it's slightly too big (and too many knobs).
the microKey 25 really is bang on, too bad it cannot speak Taurus without a computer in between.

Alesis Q25 is a candidate, what else is there in this league?

edit 1:
Important factor: if that keyboard could have an ARP, that would be lovely.

edit 2:
I have found this, but then that defeats a bit the portability side of things:
http://www.kentonuk.com/products/items/ ... host.shtml

Cheers

I have a Novation Impulse 49, and an Akai MPK 25.

Both have full-size keys (which is something I wanted, but it definitely impacts the "portability"), fully programmable faders/encoders (great for accessing "under the hood" features of synths), aftertouch, programmable velocity-sensitive pads, programmable arpeggiator, USB, and MIDI DIN.

The Akai can act as a MIDI Clock source for connected equipment, so you can use it to sync (with or without a computer) any outboard sequencers, delays, LFO's, etc. to the onboard arpeggiator.

Cool stuff...

R