a few random questions
- Thread starter \/\/1|_|_
- Start date
gcapel
boom box recordings
\/\/1|_|_ said:
Midi is used mainly for keyboard controllers to interface with a computer (via sound card) so that you can play software sounds through your hardware keypboard controller.
Balanced / unbalenced refers to cabling. On a 1/4" phono plug you can have either the tip and sleeve (ts) (two conductors) which would be called unbalanced. The other having a tip, ring, and sleeve (trs) (three conductors) which of coarse is balanced.
Now your equipment maybe have balenced or unbalenced inputs or outputs. If everything in your signal chain is balenced it would be best to use balenced cables to get the full range of your audio. If let say one of your processing devices were say unbalenced and everything else is in the signal chain wasn't then it will always be unbalenced and you could use either balenced or unbalenced cables.
fraserhutch
Flypaper for freaks
MIDI is actually far more edxtensive than what GCapel indicated. It is a communications protocol between two devices. It was invented to allow a note played on one synth to trigger a note on another. However, its use has become more pervasive and is used as a general control protocol for anythingf from synths to lighting systems.
I use it to:
- record performance data to me computer from my controller. This perfornance data can be used to playback soft synths OR outboard synths.
- control my outboard synths (set up patches, upload/download patch data)
- control my outboard effects units (select patches, manipulate parameters)
- control my AD/DA device routing.
- control my digital mixer (via a control surface).
Recording a synth's preformance as midi data allows me to later change patches, transpose it if need be, and edit it note by note if required.
Hope this helps a bit.
I use it to:
- record performance data to me computer from my controller. This perfornance data can be used to playback soft synths OR outboard synths.
- control my outboard synths (set up patches, upload/download patch data)
- control my outboard effects units (select patches, manipulate parameters)
- control my AD/DA device routing.
- control my digital mixer (via a control surface).
Recording a synth's preformance as midi data allows me to later change patches, transpose it if need be, and edit it note by note if required.
Hope this helps a bit.
bennychico11
...
gcapel said:
be careful there...a signal being balanced/unbalanced doesn't have to do with the cables you use. Audio cables are not balanced or unbalanced. The gear you are using determines whether your signal is balanced or not. You just use appropriate cables for each signal. A TRS cable can easily carry an unbalanced signal down it as well. You could probably even send a balanced signal down a TS cable if you set it up properly (although I don't know why you would).
That being said, your comment also about having a piece of gear in the signal chain that is unbalanced is incorrect as well. Again, this has to do with the inputs/outputs of the gear you are using that determine balanced connections. If you are sending a balanced signal into an unbalanced gear, and then send it out unbalanced again...yes it's now unbalanced. But you can send it through something else that balances it back out again.
Just remember, a cable's job is to let signal pass through it. It doesn't determine what kind of signal it is.
If it makes things easier, think of a composite video cable. We can also use the same cable to send a S/PDIF audio signal down it. The cable isn't determining what the signal is.
\/\/1|_|_ -
Simply enough, balancing the signal is a tricky way we help avoid interference in our audio signal as it travels down the cable. By inverting a copy of our signal we are able to send a 180 degrees out of phase copy down the cable and when we invert it back at the other end we can cancel out any noise that may have been picked up in the form of RMI or EMI. It's a pretty cool trick that is built into your gear.
fraserhutch is right on the money about your MIDI question
And latency has to do with a time delay in our signal. Many times this occurs when you sing into a microphone but hear it in the heaphones a split second later. This can be annoying. What happens is the signal is being passed through so many things that it's coming back to your ears late. It also can happen if you have too many plugins on a track....the signal takes awhile to pass through each plugin. We try and avoid latency as much as possible.
Last edited:
gcapel
boom box recordings
bennychico11 said:
Ok guy, here again I wasn't trying to give this guy a brain workout. I think you get off on being "as a matter of fact". I know what i meant to say. And yes your right about the unbalenced thing if its the first thing in the chain.
But if it was later in the chain the devices in the chain previously would be effected.
bennychico11
...
gcapel said:
I was just trying to be more specific so that how balanced/unbalanced works doesn't become misconstrued down the line. It's like that old telephone game you played as a kid. One person says one thing, then you perceive it as something else and tell someone it, then they perceive it as something and tell someone else....all the meanwhile leaving important facts out until it becomes "Balanced and unbalanced has to do with the cables you use."
noisewreck
New member
Uh... it's spelled balAnced not balEnced. It's been bugging me 
bennychico11
...
gcapel said:
no it doesn't. the cables don't balance the signal, the gear does.
Like I said, you can use a TRS cable with an unbalanced signal.
You can use a composite video cable with an S/PDIF audio signal.
you're just using the correct cable with the correct signal.
Would a TRS cable also be called balanced if you're running a stereo signal down it? No. So how can one cable it be called an unbalanced cable, a balanced cable and a stereo cable?
fraserhutch
Flypaper for freaks
Yeah, I got that, but he did ask what the point of midi is, and I feel it is a lot more extensive than your description. In fact, although I use several soft synths, the vast, vast, vast, overwhelmingly vast majority of my midi usage is other than controlling soft synths.gcapel said:
TragikRemix
I am NOT a Gear Whore. ;)
midi is a powerful tool, dont underestimate it. just because they make 4 minute songs into ringtones that are like 50kb, doesnt mean that its stupid.
theres so much in midi, its been around since the 80's.
i use midi to map drums with a vdrum kit, and then i use DFH superior to get a kickass drum sound.
i use midi to control effects devices.
i use midi to control my DAW...
welcome, and my advice to you is read read read read...
theres so much in midi, its been around since the 80's.
i use midi to map drums with a vdrum kit, and then i use DFH superior to get a kickass drum sound.
i use midi to control effects devices.
i use midi to control my DAW...
welcome, and my advice to you is read read read read...
gcapel
boom box recordings
hey guys check out this neg report i got from bennychico11 or frasherhutch
"GO FUCK UR MOM U STUPID MOTHER FUCKING NEWBIEGO FUCK UR MOM U STUPID MOTHER FUCKING NEWBIEGO FUCK UR MOM U STUPID MOTHER FUCKING NEWBIEGO FUCK UR MOM U STUPID MOTHER FUCKING NEWBIEGO FUCK UR MOM U STUPID MOTHER FUCKING NEWBIEGO FUCK UR MOM U STUPID M"
wow that's real mature. Like i care about this forums little point system. One of you guys has a real problem. Get a life and go outside of your hole with a computer and get some fresh air.
"GO FUCK UR MOM U STUPID MOTHER FUCKING NEWBIEGO FUCK UR MOM U STUPID MOTHER FUCKING NEWBIEGO FUCK UR MOM U STUPID MOTHER FUCKING NEWBIEGO FUCK UR MOM U STUPID MOTHER FUCKING NEWBIEGO FUCK UR MOM U STUPID MOTHER FUCKING NEWBIEGO FUCK UR MOM U STUPID M"
wow that's real mature. Like i care about this forums little point system. One of you guys has a real problem. Get a life and go outside of your hole with a computer and get some fresh air.
NYMorningstar
Recording Modus Operandi
I'd bet you a beer it wasn't from either one of them. You are right about it being immature but so was posting it. Neither one of those guys were trying to be on your case, they were just correcting something. There is no need to have attitude about it, that's how we all learn.
bennychico11
...
NYMorningstar is right, it wasn't me and I doubt it was fraserhutch. I leave my name when giving negative rep. Not to mention this conversation was no where near becoming heated. We were just replying to a post.
And apprently you do care about the "point system" if you were checking to see your negative rep.
And apprently you do care about the "point system" if you were checking to see your negative rep.
gecko zzed
Grumpy Mod
I found it helpful to think of MIDI as a piano roll in those old player pianos. The rolls contained no musical information, only a set of perforations in the paper. Through mechanical means, the position and length of those perforations determined what note the pianola would play, and for how long. This concept is also behind the punched cards used in the early days of computer programming.
MIDI is the electronic equivalent, i.e. a set of instructions that control a music generating device (keyboard, sound module, etc.). Some mechanical music makers were highly sophisticated: multi-z-fold instructions fed into and activated a range of musical instruments on those complicated orchestrions. In the same way, MIDI can control pitch, volume, duration and a range of other sonic attributes, as well as telling a module which sound to use.
A keyboard with MIDI capability sends a stream of instructions through the MIDI port. Pressing a particular key generates a midi event, releasing the key generates another, how hard you press is also registered, and so on. Playing a piece generates a sequence of MIDI events that can be fed to another device, or saved and replayed later. This is like creating a piano roll in the first place.
Because MIDI is simply a set of instructions, it can be used to cause other parts of the system to do things as well, and they need not be related to music as such. Hence we see MIDI controlled effects generators, lighting desks and other things.
A big advantage of MIDI is that, once you have a MIDI file, you can do what you like with it. Each event is editable, and you can fix bum notes, change your mind about chords, try different instruments and so on. You can control tempo and pitch with ease, so it is great for working out new arrangements or developing new material. You don't need to play a keyboard to generate new sequences, you can graphically edit and create these on the fly.
A disadvantage is . . . um . . . I really can't think of any. What helps, though, in a musical application, is having a reasonable sound library. Some of the standard voices you get are not too good, and even sophisticated MIDI programming will sound pretty bad. What helps also is having an understanding of how the instrument you have selected is supposed to sound. Trying to replicate sax fingering and playing nuances is a keyboard skill not many have.
MIDI is the electronic equivalent, i.e. a set of instructions that control a music generating device (keyboard, sound module, etc.). Some mechanical music makers were highly sophisticated: multi-z-fold instructions fed into and activated a range of musical instruments on those complicated orchestrions. In the same way, MIDI can control pitch, volume, duration and a range of other sonic attributes, as well as telling a module which sound to use.
A keyboard with MIDI capability sends a stream of instructions through the MIDI port. Pressing a particular key generates a midi event, releasing the key generates another, how hard you press is also registered, and so on. Playing a piece generates a sequence of MIDI events that can be fed to another device, or saved and replayed later. This is like creating a piano roll in the first place.
Because MIDI is simply a set of instructions, it can be used to cause other parts of the system to do things as well, and they need not be related to music as such. Hence we see MIDI controlled effects generators, lighting desks and other things.
A big advantage of MIDI is that, once you have a MIDI file, you can do what you like with it. Each event is editable, and you can fix bum notes, change your mind about chords, try different instruments and so on. You can control tempo and pitch with ease, so it is great for working out new arrangements or developing new material. You don't need to play a keyboard to generate new sequences, you can graphically edit and create these on the fly.
A disadvantage is . . . um . . . I really can't think of any. What helps, though, in a musical application, is having a reasonable sound library. Some of the standard voices you get are not too good, and even sophisticated MIDI programming will sound pretty bad. What helps also is having an understanding of how the instrument you have selected is supposed to sound. Trying to replicate sax fingering and playing nuances is a keyboard skill not many have.