SE/30 not seeing Roland SC-88 Pro

[Macobyte]

Hello! Posting a desperate plea for help here as I’m not sure what’s going wrong or what I’m missing from the equation.

I have an SE/30 running 7.5.5. Installed I have Ballade for playing MIDI tracks, MIDI Manager, and OMS. I deactivated AppleTalk. I have a Roland SC-88 Pro I can’t get the Mac to talk to. I have it connected over serial (on both devices, the SC’s serial switch on “Mac”) and via a serial connection to a Midiman Mini Macman MIDI interface (with a MIDI cable from the Mini MacMan’s OUT port to the SC’s MIDI IN A port, and its serial switch on “MIDI”).

No matter how I connect the two hardware devices or whether I uninstall MIDI Manager, OMS, or have both installed, my Mac refuses to see anything MIDI, outside of the power light for the Mini Macman turning on. When I start Ballade, I get the following error dialog: “MIDI Manager returned error. Please check the connection to your MIDI interface.”

What am I doing wrong? Has anyone here used MIDI devices, particularly a Sound Canvas or the like, with their old Mac? I keep banging my head against the wall troubleshooting and never making any progress.

Thanks in advance!

(Images of my SE/30’s screen we’re taken with Live Photo long exposures to cut down on the banding. The screen looks bright and crisp in reality.)

 

[LaPorta]

Might sound ridiculous, but any chance you tried different serial cables? One or both could be bad. Also, there's always the possibility they could actually be printer cables...but probably not.

 

[Macobyte]

I bought them from Amazon… Two lengths but the same thing. I’ve interchanged them and I’m pretty sure they’re standard serial cables, unless a modern replacement wouldn’t work for some reason.

8 Pin Mini Din Male Male Cable 6 Ft in Black https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Y4WRF...t_i_B0K1P3KQ35DQXTHKEG4B?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

 

[mdeverhart]

According to this thread, it looks like the RSC-15APL cable (which the SC manual specifies to use with a Mac) is wired as a cross-over/null-modem/“Mac printer” cable (with RX and TX swapped), while the cable you bought is wired straight through/“Mac modem” cable:
https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/rsc-15apl-cable.36891/

According to this thread, the Macman also requires a cable with the RX and TX swapped:

Macman midiman serial cable type

Hi all, I got a macman midiman MIDI interface but it came without a serial cable. Does anyone knows if it requires a null-modem (local talk) cable or a straight wired serial cable? Thanks:)

68kmla.org

 

[LaPorta]

Ok....so just the reverse of what I said!

 

[Byrd]

I'm new to Mac MIDI too, but I've an SC-88 and confirm it works fine on my Macs with a bog standard Apple serial cable, switch set to "MAC" on the back of the device plugged straight into the printer port ... but on later Macs, I've not tried any Compacts yet.

Also my rookie error was the MIDI IN jacks on the SC88 you need to plug in the MIDI OUT connector x 2 - I'd had mine connected to MIDI IN to IN of the cable and MIDI OUT to OUT cable.

 

[Macobyte]

Okay, thanks y’all! I’m going to dig up or order a real Apple serial cable instead of a nondescript modern Amazon replacement and see what that does.

 

[Skate323k137]

Yeah, with the right serial cable, you should be able to get this going both with the direct connection to the midi module, or via the macman if you wanted.

I've used an SE with a Macman plenty of times so it should be no worries there. If using the macman, it's Power LED should illuminate when you launch the compatible application.

 

[Macobyte]

Yeah, with the right serial cable, you should be able to get this going both with the direct connection to the midi module, or via the macman if you wanted.

I've used an SE with a Macman plenty of times so it should be no worries there. If using the macman, it's Power LED should illuminate when you launch the compatible application.

That’s the interesting thing… the Mini Macman power light comes on now when I open Ballade. So I guess the cable is partially compatible, just not the pins carrying the data.

 

[Skate323k137]

That would make sense if it's a straight thru cable, so once you have a proper one let's hope you're in business!