Wizard: connecting USB keyboard

OWL Wizard
#1

Just got my Wizard yesterday, and played around with some of the patches online. I can play the synth patches with the onscreen keyboard in Chrome, but when I plugged in a USB keyboard (Keith McMillen K-Board), it didn’t do anything. What might be wrong?

The setup was:

MacBook Pro [Chrome] ⟶ Micro-USB jack ⟶ Wizard ⟶ USB Host jack ⟶ K-Board

The keyboard’s LEDs were on, so it was receiving power. IIRC it’s sending on MIDI channel 1.

PS: Is there going to be a dedicated category for posting Wizard topics?

#2

I’ll try this now - the Midi Test Tone and PolySub are patches I’ve tested already.

good call - category created!

#3

Just tested the MIDI keyboards we have here : Alesis Q49, Akai LPK25, Novation Impulse 61 confirmed working.

It says on the Keith McMillen website that the K-Board is class compliant, which means it should work perfectly with the Wizard. And the Wizard by default is configured to MIDI omni mode, so it can receive from any MIDI channel.

Are you seeing the Wizard LED flash when you activate keys on K-Board?

I was testing with our Poly Sub patch: https://www.rebeltech.org/patch-library/patch/Poly_Sub
I’ve updated the patch in the library with a newer version that responds to pitch bend, and lets you change the waveshape with parameter E.

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#4

No, no blinking on the Wizard.

I just remembered that I had a problem once with the micro-USB socket on my K-Board being flaky. Maybe it’s happened again. When I get home I’ll try re-plugging that end of the cable.

#5

Here’s a quick video

#6

Update: we’ve identified a memory corruption problem that happens frequently with certain MIDI controllers. It will cause the device to either hang or, best case scenario, self reset.

Expect a firmware update very soon!

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#7

Hey, at the risk of hijacking this thread, just got mine. First of all, this thing so so much fun! Right now it’ll all operational except I can’t get my Akai LPK25 to work with it. Testing it with the polysub patch it works with the onscreen keyboard, and the buttons below each pot play notes and chords, but the keyboard doesn’t appear to power up. When plugging it in the keyboard’s illuminated button flickers for a fraction of a second before it does nothing else, similar to when you plug a device into a power source that can’t handle the current draw. The Akai LPK25’s little octave button lights will normally stau on as long as the device has enough power, even if the MIDI comms aren’t work. I was going to ask what the max current draw of the USB host port was, but it seems you’ve used this exact controller with no problems. Any idea what the cause may be?

#8

I’m not sure if it really helps much with me adding another voice, but I’m having similar issues here.

Macbook Pro → Wizard → MIDI keyboard …

I’m able to load patches on to the Wizard (slick way of loading patches via the browser BTW - I like it!). I’m able to trigger notes on the Wizard using the virtual keyboard in Chrome … the knobs and buttons appear to work fine.

However, at the moment pressing keys on my [Roland] MIDI keyboard (connected via the USB host port) doesn’t appear to be triggering anything on the Wizard. No flashing light. No audio. Nada.

It’s definitely not resetting the device, or anything sinister like that (If I leave a note playing that’s been triggered by Chrome it keeps playing while I’m banging on the keyboard)…

I’ve verified all of the connections. Everything seems good. The MIDI keyboard is working fine as I can capture events using MIDI monitor when I plug it into my Mac.

I thought I’d found the issue when I checked the USB settings on the keyboard and they were set to use a “VENDOR” specific USB protocol rather than “GENERIC”. Unfortunately, I fixed that, and still no luck.

So, to confirm, I can trigger notes on the Wizard using the USB interface that’s exposed to the Mac, through Chrome, but it doesn’t appear to be listening on the other USB i/f.

If there’s anything that I can do to help debug, I’m more than happy to help.