Connect a yamaha keyboard to ableton live

Question

I have connected a yamaha psr e243 keyboard to my laptop, and live seems to be able to detect it:

Here is my midi settings:

But when I play the keyboard, there is no sound coming out. The same keyboard works ok with garageband.

What went wrong?

Answer 1

So it looks like that keyboard supports MIDI via USB, but I don't think it transmits audio as well. So you can use it as a MIDI controller for Ableton, but not as a sound source (at least not without additional connections).

There are two options:

1. Use the keyboard as a MIDI controller only, and use it to play Ableton's built in synthesizers (or any VST instruments you have)
2. Connect the audio output of your keyboard to the computer with some sort of audio interface

The simplest way of using it is to just use it as a standard MIDI controller. It looks like you are already set up for that. You just need to add an instrument to the project so you have something to play. Try adding an Analog or Operator instance to a track, then arm the track, and try playing the keyboard. You should be able to play the Ableton synths with the keyboard.

Secondly, if you have an audio interface, you can then plug the output of the keyboard's audio into the input of your audio interface, and record it that way. If you want to use Ableton to trigger notes in the keyboard or just record the keyboard's internal sounds, you need to send the audio from the keyboard to the computer. You need an audio interface for this, then you can set up the keyboard as an external instrument in Ableton. You can record MIDI notes by playing, then playback the notes and it will send the data to the keyboard, which will send the audio back to the computer.

More info on the keyboard:

http://download.yamaha.com/api/asset/file/?language=en&site=usa.yamaha.com&asset_id=59451