Note that you'll probably need to experiment with different driver settings as well- in particular, the buffer size. It isn't a 'true ASIO' driver, but it sort of imitates an ASIO driver to help reduce latency.

If the DAW doesn't have an ASIO driver available, you might want to install the free ASIO4ALL driver to see if it helps. To respond to just a small part of your post, the timing issues you experienced when you played back the Mixpad MIDI file in a DAW might have been lag or latency due to the audio drivers on your laptop. I would have preferring one with more built-in features, such as recording! I need to make the one I have work if at all possible. Simply buying a new MIDI keyboard is not financially viable for me, or I never would have bought a 30-year-old Clavinova 5 years ago. Lag? Choppiness? Pausing and then rushing forward? I don't know if it's more likely the laptop's processor, or the cable/interface, or the Clavinova that caused this issue, but one problem at a time: I need to make it work at all, before I worry about the quality (though I'd welcome any suggestions). The one file I saved from NCH Mixpad had a lot of timing issues when I played it back in a DAW. My MIDI to USB cable/interface is 5 or so years old and I think I paid about $30 I do not know the brand. I downloaded Coolsoft MIDI Mapper, as suggested by a YouTube video, and it did not make any difference. What do you think? Do I need a separate MIDI interface box? Or just a higher-end, Yamaha-branded MIDI to USB cable with an inline interface?

It has been suggested (in another thread on this forum) that I buy a more expensive cable with an in-line interface however, the Clavinova CLP-30 has a very limited MIDI implementation, which may be why it works with my 16-year-old version of Finale but not with contemporary DAWs and sequencers. (Finale 2004 is running on a Windows 7 laptop, as apparently it is not compatible with Windows 10.) I have Finale 2004, which recognizes the Clavinova and works OK, and, out of hundreds of tries, I got NCH Mixpad to work only twice, and as far as I can tell, I did nothing differently the 2 times it actually worked, and could not get it to work again after many additional tries. My Clavinova is not recognized by most of the DAWs and sequencers I have downloaded. I have a MIDI to USB cable with a small inline box as a MIDI interface, and I wonder if a separate MIDI interface would help bridge the gap between the legacy hardware and the Windows 10 laptop. I have a 35-year-old Yamaha Clavinova CLP-30 MIDI electric piano.

Nch mixpad forum