Piano with midi out, MBP wont register it.

So my brother as a keen pianist bought a yamaha piano, which also comes with 1/4in outs and midi in/out.

as its a 1000x better quality keyboard than the one im using atm i thought i would try use it for production, not so easy.

As i dont have a straight midi - usb cable i took the midi out, into the midi in on my maschine, and set the maschine to midi mode, but neither synleth or ableton recognises the keyboard as being there.

Audio/midi setup on the mac only shows virtual midi in/out and no other devices connected.

Help ?

Do Sylenth or Ableton see the Maschine when it's in midi mode? Does the Maschine see the keyboard? Have you gone through the manual for the keyboard to see of you need to turn midi out on or something along those lines?

I really don't have a clue, but I thought a friendly bump with what might be some pertinent questions would help in case someone smarter than me missed the thread.