MacOS – Connecting the Roll Up Piano via USB to record MIDI

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I have a roll up piano (see the image) that has an USB output.

An USB cable comes with it: it is able to connect the roll up piano with the computer.

I have connected it to my macbook.

What are the steps to record MIDI on OSX using the roll up piano and the USB cable?

Relevant output:

❯ ioreg -p IOUSB
+-o Root  <class IORegistryEntry, id 0x100000100, retain 14>
  +-o Root Hub Simulation Simulation@14000000  <class AppleUSBRootHubDevice, id 0x100000322, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (2 ms), retain 8>
    +-o BRCM20702 Hub@14300000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100000dcd, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (2 ms), retain 12>
    | +-o Bluetooth USB Host Controller@14330000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100000e25, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (2224 ms), retain 17>
    +-o USB MIDI Interface @14100000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x1000016a9, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (14 ms), retain 20>

I would like to use GarageBand or so to record it, but for some reason, there is no data coming from my piano.

However, it is detected by the software:

Is there any low-level way to test if the the machine gets data from the piano (e.g. a terminal command etc)? How to fix this problem? Should I install any drivers?

Best Answer

In the Ubuntu terminal, you can use amidi or aseqdump to monitor MIDI messages.

OS X has no command-line tool to monitor MIDI messages. You have to use some graphical tool like MIDI Monitor or MIDI-OX. You can also test it in the Audio/MIDI Setup windows with the "Test Setup" button; when you are playing something, the port icon (the triangle) should turn red.

To record MIDI data, use any MIDI sequencer. There is no reason why GarageBand should not work, but you could try Ardour instead.

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