moving midi files between daws?

[AndyO]

hello. I tried looking for the answers to this but im having no luck. hoping someone on here could help me out..

So im about to take on mixing an album for a band. The recording was done in Protools. I use Mixcraft for all my mixing. what I am concerned with, Is they recorded drums from an e-kit into MIDI. And they have selected all the drum samples they would like to use. I have used MIDI before, but never had experience with transfering MIDI files from a different daw... are they compatable? I should be able to take wavs of the samples they want and attach them to the MIDI files, no? Im hoping that I still have control over the hits.. things like velocity. so I can take the robot out of the playing a little bit. Does anybody have experience with this? appreciate any help. thanks.

Andy

 

[GeoffB17]

Well, if the midi file is just a midi file, then transferring the midi file will not be any problem. Midi is designed to be standard, and all midi active devices should be playing by the same rules.

However..

When the original file was created, they may have used some extra facilities to activate the samples, which are - I assume - NOT part of midi. So parts of the process will be part of Protools, and NOT part of midi. On the same track, will Mixcraft do the same thing?

Your possible problem relates to the facilities of the two DAW systems, and this is probably nothing to do with midi.

All midi usually defines is the patch (sound) number, and the respective note on/off events.

If the samples can be loaded into the new DAW, and can be set as the same patch numbers as they were in the old DAW, and the new DAW behaves in a similar way as the old one, then the midi file should do the same things as it did before.

If it doesn't, then report back with details of any evident problems, and we'll take it from there.

Geoff

 

[rob aylestone]

You've managed to get a bit of a cross-thread on your understanding of MIDI. Each popular DAW uses MIDI for timing and events. What happens when that event happens is dealt with very differently - usually triggering playback of an audio file, or sending the data to some other device that produces certain sounds. Your drums is a good example - your MIDI kit sends data, the data gets recorded. In the DAW, it routes the data to something that makes the sound. In my own DAW of choice, Cubase - the electronic kit I have sends MIDI data that is on totally different channels to the drum sampler I use, so I have created a look-up table that says when it receives X, then play a snare on Z. Moving complete songs to other Cubase users is problematic. I work with a contributor a lot, and he uses two samplers to create his usual sounds, plus the built in synth Cubase ships with. So I can play his tracks - with the exclusion of his drum info, because I've got a later version of the same software, and his version 1 data doesn't work unless I fiddle. However, my collection of synths and plugins mean I can't send him anything back.

You also need to remember that each DAW expects the audio files to be in a certain location, as audio is not attached in any way to the MIDI file. A real MIDI file has programme, controller and note information - nothing else. So copying an entire folder, withevery component between my two studios here works - the Cubase .cpr file loads in everything. If I save the track as a .mid file, the other Cubase machine has no idea what to do -loads of blank tracks that I have to fix manually. Going between Protools/Cubase/Logic or any of the others is a nightmare - various common formats have been devised that work a bit - but always need tweaking. Results are variable and predicting success is guesswork.

Protools is primarily an audio workstation, MIDI is not it's strong point. Protools to Protools will work if everything is the same on both systems. Any differences mean manual fixing. That's just how it is. Think about two countries trying to communicate with each other. To do it you decide to use Google translate as your MIDI equivalent. That's going to produce the same kind of results. It might work, but some things will translate wrong. English to American might work pretty well most of the time, with just small errors. English to Ancient Greek might be your Protools and Cubase equivalent.