I had a massive and long reply all typed out, but this ****ing piece of **** MacNN forum database just ate my whole post ("database error lalala go **** yourself"). No, the back button did not work.
Short form repeat:
For recording the sound produced by your keyboard, run a cable from the sound output to the sound input of your Mac.
For using the MIDI output (which is control data only, NOT AUDIO) to play/control GarageBand's virtual instruments, you'll need something like the M-Audio MIDISPORT UNO (I have the 2x2 and have yet to hear anything bad about M-Audio at all) and a MIDI cable and a USB cable.
If you're a little bit confused about the difference between the two, here's something I posted a while ago:
it's important to realize that MIDI files and audio files (like AIFF) are two ENTIRELY different things - basically, the difference between sheet music and a finished audio CD.
The sheet music (MIDI data) does not contain any sound at all, it merely contains a long list of which note is played when and how long, using which instrument.
You still need an instrument to actually produce sound in accordance with the notation (your mobile, for instance, has a synthesizer built in that does the actual sound generation when you load in a ringtone as a MIDI file).
That instrument, in turn, can be recorded as audio.
GarageBand includes a number of "virtual" instruments, which you can assign to individual MIDI tracks of a MIDI file.
So when you use your external keyboard to play the virtual instruments via MIDI, all you're doing is telling the GarageBand instrument when to produce what sound at what pitch.
This is a little weird to get your head around since the keyboard can produce sounds both locally (output via the audio out) and remotely (via MIDI).
Out of interest: What "older style keyboard" are you using?
-s*
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