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I pre-ordered this adapter with the assumption it will support any MIDI keyboard (or drums or guitar) and was a little shocked when I read in the manual it was only tested and guaranteed to work with 5 keyboard and 4 drum sets. That was not mentioned in the product description, and my keyboard is not even a synth like you see in electronics stores, it is a silent MIDI controller I bought in the late 1990s with which to write music on my computer. I began to worry.
I really started to worry when I first hooked it up and nothing happened. Had I been paying more attention I would have noticed the adapter's MIDI activity light was blinking "SOS" in Morse code (cute!), and had I read the manual I would have known that meant it wasn't getting an Active Sense signal from my keyboard. Once I changed a setting on my keyboard to look for an external MIDI device it worked perfectly. After that the activity light blinked for every key down, key up, and pitch change.
In Pro Keyboard mode the keys map from C3 to C5 which is the top half of my keyboard, but even my ancient keyboard lets me move up and down octaves so you can probably locate the notes further down if you prefer. The manual says that in Keyboard mode the 5 keys map to C4 to G4, but in my experience they also map to C3 to G3 with one extra green note at C5 (which is where my keyboard ends, perhaps there are more notes if I shift octaves?). The pitch shift wheel lets me gain more power for overdrive, much like the whammy bar in guitar.
RB3 includes lessons on how to play the keyboard and I've gone through a few of them. They teach you the basics and don't get impatient with you. Between that and the guitar lessons I may be a real musician soon! I still find it easier to play keys on the RB guitar, and easier with my left hand than right, but hopefully that will change. After a few days of using it, the only problems have been from accidentally shifting octaves during play and one momentarily stuck key.
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For starters, this product works very well with keyboard and I'm sure it will be fine with drums. If I have one criticism, it is the necessity of the game forcing you, at times, to press the overdrive button on the controller, which is rather inconvenient. Darting for overdrive, whilst trying to play with the other hand is difficult some times the game will want overdrive, then pitch bend. Another headache. I have not yet tested my drums with it but if I have to hit the overdrive whilst drumming, I'm going to be a little disappointed. The lead that it comes with is long enough that you can have the controller sat next to you, but it's still a difficult prospect.To clarify to the previous reviewer, this unit will not work with guitar midi systems such as the Roland / Yamaha systems and so forth. The rock band guitar controllers use SYSEX messages to refer "note pressed" commands (ie, where on the fretboard you are) and not just general "note pressed" vanilla midi commands. As a result, you cannot, for instance, transcribe parts and play them on different places on your fretboard, as the game knows exactly where you are it also means that you cannot use your keyboard to play the guitar parts. Whilst this was clearly stated on the Rockband forums, to have to dig for information to that degree betrays a failure on the part of the manufacturer to provide adequate information.
Conceivably, you might be able to use your guitar->midi system for playing the keyboard parts, but you cannot use the guitar side.
Despite all this, the product is excellent. It does exactly what it is billed to do.
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Wanting to add keyboards to Rock Band 3, you have a choice between the keytar and this unit. Since we already had a MIDI capable keyboard, and the adapter was the cheaper option, this was the one we chose. This is for the Wii version, by the way.The unit is a little lightweight (but since I'm in Australia that helped with shipping costs, I guess...) but then it isn't going to get pounded like a guitar controller or drums. It connects to the console using a long USB cable (about 3m) and to the MIDI instrument using a standard MIDI cable. One is NOT supplied with the unit, but these are quite cheap to buy if your MIDI instrument did not come with one. From a Wii perspective, it's nice that the unit doesn't use up a wiimote.
On the back is a bi-directional clip that can be set to either clip on a belt (for guitar use) or to make a right angle with the case (for placing it on a ledge, such as with a keyboard). This seems reasonably sturdy.
Buttons mimic the standard wiimote ones: A, B, 1, 2, +, -. As well there is a power button (labelled with the Rock Band "RB"), a direction pad, a volume wheel and an overdrive button on the lower right corner. This latter may be a questionable design choice, since it is quite easy to knock the unit off the keyboard in the heat of the moment. A possible solution is to look at attaching your adapter more firmly, perhaps with velcro dots? There is also a switch to set the unit to Keyboard, Guitar or Drums.
Had no problems with the unit connecting and using it, but did discover a limit on Rock Band 3 itself which was NOT documented in either the game or the adapter. In normal play mode you are limited to any two of guitar, bass and keyboard. To play with all three at once you need to set "all instruments mode" (which the game DOES ask you about as soon as you connect the third instrument it's user friendly that way), but that itself has a couple of limitations. Firstly, no online play, though you can access other modes fine. Secondly, and more annoyingly, vocals are set to Easy mode and lose both scoring and overdrive. Sure, you no longer need a wiimote for them, and you can have three people (lead and two backups), but that doesn't help if you wanted to have (scoring) Vocals, Keys, Guitar and Bass. Harmonix should fix this. However this is not a point against the unit itself, but the game, and a minor one at that.
In use, the unit works fine. Since most of the actual hands on stuff is with your connected instrument, mileage will vary. As usual you can tweak the response times within the game, anyway. Easy keys are just one note at a time with five keys (c through g) assigned to each of the five notes. Medium adds chords. Have yet to try higher levels or Pro mode (I'm a wimp).
The adapter can also be used to make your keyboard play guitar or drum parts have not investigated this in detail yet since we have all the other instruments.
In all, a very good little unit that does exactly what it is meant to. I also see it as the blueprint for future music games in bringing together real instruments with the game itself. In theory there's no reason something like this couldn't be made cross platform, too.
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The instructions were a bit vague, but it works.There were some questions about whether the Pyle PED02M works with the MadCatz. I can attest that it does work! I connected the Pyle Ped02M to our Wii using a MadCatz MIDI adapter for Wii and a MIDI cable and played Lego Rock Band for Wii. No configuration pf the drum kit or changing of "Midi Notes" required; just plug it in, change the MadCatz to the "D" setting (D for drum) and use it.
It acts like an additional Wii remote. It has the four blue lights at the bottom and will register as one of the up to four Wii remotes that can connect to the Wii.
I also successfully used a 15 foot active USB cable to extend the range.
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So, this thing is fairly basic.It is supposed to take a midi signal and feed it into Rock Band, and it seems able to do that job well enough.
I got this for use with my keyboard so I won't be touching on drums or pro-guitar.
I think though that it deserves fewer stars for coming out two months after the game itself came out. I was beginning to think that it didn't actually exist.
one little thing I don't care for is that the game doesn't recognize any octaves above the one starting with middle C. Not a big deal, I was just expecting to be playing in the middle of the keyboard, but it seems that the game sticks you on the low end. I understand that is because the game was made for the keyboard accessory and they didn't really put a lot of thought into people playing the keyboards with their own midi compatible keyboard.
That just means that they didn't really care too much about this product and people that would use it with their keyboard.
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