Newb Q: EZ-250i/Keyboard Mania still supported?

vtnwesley · 12-14-2007, 05:33 PM

Hello. I realize I'm only a few years too late, but I have always been interested in picking up the keyboard/piano. I am not very musically inclined, but am willing to put in the effort. I noticed the Yamaha EZ-250i Keyboard (which is likely OOP by now) includes what may be the only North American version of Keyboard Mania.

Does anyone have any (preferably first hand) experience with EZ-250i and opinions on the quality of said product?

Does the keyboard and software work in Vista or XP Media Center?

If not, might anyone have any other suggestions on what products I might start with? I realize there are more recent Yamaha keyboards which probably come with non-Keyboard Mania learning software. The light-up keys inparticular looked like something that might genuinely help the process.

I've looked into M-Audio products as well, which show promise, but do not support Windows XP Media Center 2005 in any way, shape, or form. This is a significant problem for me, though I will upgrade to Vista if it would help things (as I have it for free and can simply utilize it whenever I choose).

Alexx5 · 12-16-2007, 11:35 AM

I don't really have anything to compare it to, but IMO it's a very high quality product with lots of usefull features. It's aimed at beginners of course but that's not a bad thing. It has some unique features you wont find in most other keyboards because of the lack of highted keys. You can send midi-files to the internal memory and watch the keys light up to as the song plays. either channel 1 (right hand), 2 (left hand) or both. Actually you dont even need to send midi files to it to watch the lighted keys guide you. All you need to do is connect it to your PC and play any midi-file in any program like windows mediaplayer, and it lights up in realtime. Really usefull and userfriendly.

If you send it though, theres a few more features you get. Like you can mute the played channel, let the song pause untill the correct key is pressed like in KBM. or you can activate the anykey mode for timing practice. There are 80 familiar songs built-in so even without custom midi's you'll have lots of fun playing.

To be honest, the only thing I didn't like about this keyboard is the fact that it's incompatible with the PS2 version of KBM, ironically enough

KBM "runs" in both XP and vista but there is one problem when running it in vista and that is that vista wont let you choose what MIDI device to use as input/output. This means that the keys wont work at all, and it will use its internal midi driver for the sound output (bad). I didn't try very hard so there might be a workaround though. I dont know about Media Center but if it lets you choose the midi input/output like XP I dont see why it shouldn't work.

vtnwesley · 12-16-2007, 10:44 PM

Good to know. Can the PC KM be used with other midi controller keyboards too? I notice the one that actually comes with KM is OOP, so getting it might be troublesome or even impossible.

Yeah, it seems a little weird they make all these USB devices, but don't bother making them work on anything they can. The PS2 unit should definitely be Windows/OSX compatible.

Since you seem to have personal experience with this, do you know what other software that keyboard came with? I'd like to know more about any piano instruction software they may have included.

Alexx5 · 12-17-2007, 08:05 AM

With the hack it can be used with pretty much any midi keyboard. But if you're going to get another keyboard I recommend you get a XG-midi compatible one or the sound quality will be really bad.

The keyboard comes with KBM PC, Drivers, and Song Filer which is a utility to transfer songs to and from the keyboard. So other than KBM, there are no learning programs bundled. Other than what's built into the keyboard of course.

That said, theres nothing stopping you from using it with whatever PC software you'll find on the net. I'm using the keyboard with DoReMi Mania, Cakewalk Sonar, and ModPlug Tracker and all of it worked perfectly out of the box.

vtnwesley · 12-17-2007, 09:57 AM

Hack? How involved is this hack? Getting into territory I'm not too fond of here. Recipe for disaster lol. I assume this is to say it won't even work with other Yamaha keyboards?

Alexx5 · 12-17-2007, 02:58 PM

Before the game will even run it checks if the EZ-250i keyboard is connected to the PC and turned on. If it's not, or if theres another keyboard connected, the game will refuse to run.

The "hack" is more like a patch that forces the game to run, even if there's no keyboard connected.

jdieks · 12-22-2007, 09:00 AM

i picked one up also, the other day... os there still a way to get the songpacks by yamaha? i can't find them on their website...

is there a way to load the pms files of doremi mania into keyboard mania?

thanks for the help

Daniel · 12-23-2007, 03:23 AM

The EZ-250i Keyboard is very easy to find. There are plenty of them that were left unsold that are still available from many musician's online merchants. It's a pretty cool product. I am going to try to get it to output better sound quality by getting a better sound card with better MIDI output.

I'd like to know where I can download the patch that allows other keyboards. It would be nice to have in case I need it.

You can't load PMS files into Keyboard Mania. PMS files are simfiles. Keyboard Mania accepts MIDI files and it turns them into it's own note charts.

jdieks · 12-23-2007, 12:01 PM

yeah, i was hoping that there was some kind of converter that converts the pms back to midi in a way that keyboard mania also keeps track of the diffeculty levels.

so part 1 is easy, 2 medium etc

Alexx5 · 12-23-2007, 05:12 PM

The official songpacks got taken down when the keyboard went out of production.

The only way to put PMS files into keyboardmania would be to convert them to MIDI as already mentioned, but doing so is not the most straightforward process. I managed to do it once, but it was quite compicated and required a lot of different programs to get it done.

Dont worry about difficulty levels though. Imported MIDIs don't have them. Part 1 is channel 1, part 2 is channel 2 etc. etc.

Yes that means you can even play the drum track (part/channel 10).

migo · 12-25-2007, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel

The EZ-250i Keyboard is very easy to find. There are plenty of them that were left unsold that are still available from many musician's online merchants. It's a pretty cool product. .

Do you have any links to some merchants that carry it? I've been trying to find one in stock for the past half hour and haven't had any luck.

Daniel · 12-26-2007, 08:47 AM

Yikes some of the sites I found the EZ-250i keyboard no longer have it. Your google search is as good as mine. Does anybody have the patch?

Alexx5 · 12-28-2007, 07:50 PM

Here: MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service

I bought the keyboard in November 06 and even back then I had to search for weeks before I could find one in my area. At the time there was no alternative options for playing KBM either. Even just finding simple info or screenshots/videoes of it was impossible. It's weird how the game got so much more popular after it went out of production.

jdieks · 01-09-2008, 02:55 AM

does anyone still have the original songpacks by konami also?

UseMyExciter · 01-09-2008, 10:34 AM

I'd like them too, I never got around to buying them because, well, it was like $15 for 3 songs or something ridiculous like that