Roland V-Drums and TD-3: Can't get GarageBand 10 to recognize

Question

Hi folks,
I cannot seem to get my Roland V-Drums to trigger anything in GarageBand (Mac). I'm am an expert with Macs and have played the (non-electric) Drums for a very long time… but I know **nothing** about MIDI. I have used GarageBand for several years, but only to edit podcasts. I've used the V-Drums since they were new as a practice kit, only hooked up to headphones or with music piped in through the line in. They've worked flawlessly.
Here's my setup:
* Roland V-Drums with a TD-3 Percussion Sound Module
* MacBook Air 13" Mid 2013 (1.7GHz i7, 8GB RAM)
* OS X Yosemite 10.10.1, GarageBand 10.0.3 -- completely updated. GB downloaded all its additional sounds.
* mIO 1x1, 16 channel MIDI > USB interface. [https://www.iconnectivity.com/products/midi/mio]
Here's what I've done so far:
1 Connected the mIO between the TD-3 and the Mac's USB port.
2 Disconnected all other audio cables from the TD-3 (no headphones or external amp/speaker connected)
3 Plugged my headphones into the Mac's headphone port.
4 Powered up the TD-3
5 Powered up the Mac
6 Launched GarageBand
7 Created a blank project.
8 Selected a Software Instrument and selected a drum kit.
9 Struck a drum pad… nothing happened.
10 Check GB's prefs. Says "use system defaults"
11 Opened AudioMIDISetup.app > MIDI Studio
12 mio is listed there.
13 clicked "test setup" but I have no idea what this does.
14 Read the help docs for both GarageBand and MIDI Studio.
15 Googled (and DuckDuckGo'd) the internet for two hours.
16 Watched some YouTube videos, where people didn't have to do anything special to get other drum kits to work in GarageBand
17 Read some post that suggested I could download a little app that'd help GB "hear" the TD-3 on channel 10. Said freeware is no longer available.
18 Downloaded the user manual for the TD-3, read the MIDI section. Channel 10 is indeed what it uses for in and out. The internet seems to suggest this is the common channel for drum machines.
19 Didn't find anything that helped in these forums (and others)
And now I cry Uncle and throw my fate to the Apple community… help!
Goal: I have a friend's GarageBand file, and I want to record the drum track using MIDI and my V-Drum set.
Thank you
Message was edited by: briandigital -- forgot to add screenshots.

Answer 1

Just to be sure, have you connected the MIDI inputs/outputs correctly? It's rather confusing, if memory serves (been a little while since I did any MIDI).
You want the MIDI out on your v-drums connected to the MIDI in on the mIO interface, and the MIDI in on the v-drums connected to the MIDI out on the mIO. That is, you want the drums’ output to connect to the interface’s input, and the drums’ input connected to the interface’s output (in case you want to control the drums via GarageBand in some fashion).
That should “just work”.