Free (and Light?) MIDI softwares for recording

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temphr

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Hi everyone,

I plan on recording from my keyboard (MIDI output) onto my laptop.

Usually, my first move is to look up on google for a list of softwares, or "midi sequencers". I found some lists (on wiki, hitsquad, etc) but as a beginner I'm quite lost, I don't know which criteria(s) I need to take into account.
All I know is that I have a Yamaha P-95S, and a weak netbook Asus (Eee pc), so the software should not be too heavy (I tried once FL Studio on my main PC just to play around with what pro's use :D but it wouldn't run on my netbook), and it has to be free because I'm poor :D

I've seen a few forums where each user has its own recommendation "oh yeah, use this one, it's better.". I usually prefer looking at tables to do the final comparison myself :p, but I'm open to your favourite suggestions if you consider my situation (netbook, keyboard, etc).

Soo.. any tips plox?

Thanks a lot !



(EDIT :
By the way, I've seen several youtube tutorials where most of them talk about an audio interface. It seems as I can just plug it directly to my netbook's USB port, which seems logical to me since it's just sending data... can you confirm please ? I just need to plug a Male MIDI cable in my keyboard's output, and the other end of the cable is the usb into my netbook, then I just need to work with the sequencer software. Exact ?)
 
Apples and oranges. Audio interfaces are for audio. MIDI isn't audio, but rather a digitized list of what keys were pressed when, for how long and how hard (and a couple of other things). MIDI data requires a MIDI interface. Many audio interfaces include them, but not all.
 
PTravel said:
Apples and oranges. Audio interfaces are for audio. MIDI isn't audio, but rather a digitized list of what keys were pressed when, for how long and how hard (and a couple of other things). MIDI data requires a MIDI interface. Many audio interfaces include them, but not all.
Click to expand...

umm, yeah, I think I meant MIDI interface :facepalm: . Well anyways, I was referring to "some box between my keyboard and my computer" AKA interface (i'm unfamiliar with english terms, sorry :D)
 
On the side point: yes, you do need some sort of MIDI "box" between your keyboard and your computer - at least assuming your keyboard only has MIDI ports, and not a USB jack itself. Some controllers have USB connectivity built in, but that's hardly universal.

Your standard-issue computer-music interfaces typically have a couple of MIDI ports included, along with analog-digital and digital-analog converters for interfacing the computer's digital world with line-level analog audio signals, as well (generally) as mic pres to bring mic signals up to line level audio. While most of what's in these interfaces is stuff other than what you're looking for, it might be cost-effective to get one, at least if you think there's any possibility of wanting the other features at some point down the road.

There are more bare-bones interfaces that just connect MIDI to USB. An example is the MOTU FastLane. There are others. So far as I know, they all work. Some might have additional features that you may or may not need, like the ability to filter or alter the MIDI data. In the absence of a desire for these additional features, you might want just to look for the cheapest one that's for sale on eBay or wherever.

Also, just to be complete, MIDI/USB interfaces may be built into various other bits of equipment as an "additional feature." For example, the keyboard controllers that have USB jacks built in also typically have MIDI ins and outs, so you could use one of those to connect a different (non-USB-equipped) keyboard to your computer. Probably not of interest to you, but you never know. Some of the little-bitty keyboard controllers are pretty cheap.

As for sequencers, I'm not super up to spee with the various options out there right now (once you are using something, you generally stick with it ... or at least I do). There are lots of flavors, that are differentiated by the nature of the user interface. Which is "better" depends entirely on how you're going about doing the sequencing. If you're just going to be playing stuff in real time and using the sequencer to record it, you don't need much in terms of features. If you're editing or writing the music into the sequencer in non-real time, it gets more complicated, and depends heavily on how you are likely to edit. If you're a "beatz" kind of person, you'd want one thing; if you're what the English call a "muso," something entirely different. For example, you might want notation software, in which the primary interface is old-fashioned staffs and blobs with vertical lines.

One note: sometimes the companies that sell relatively full-featured, expensive software have a more limited de-featured variant that's free or cheap.
 
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