Can I Just By-Pass Midi and Use Keyboard?

S

Sleddog72

New member
Hi there,

hopefully people can help me out. Ok...I'm a songwriter. I write for myself. So my problem is, I know nothing about drums at least in a computer sense. Now, lets say I have Cubase, guitars, Edirol audio interface and a yamaha DX series keyboard. Since I'm a guitarist, I like to lay down my rythmn track first. Then my Bass, Then my vocals. Then, instead of mucking around with MIDI...can I simply just put on the headphones, listen to the track thus far and use my keyboard to make drums and record it on a seperate track... or bass...or strings...or whatever else a good keyboard can do? then, edit them in cubase, mix it down into one track(song) and do some master editing and call it a day?? or do I have to know how to program midi? Basically...summed up...Can i use my keyboard to record drums, bass, strings, and other noise onto seperate tracks along with existing tracks of guitar, vocals....??? does anyone do it this way??? anyone successful this way??? any help, hints??
 
Sounds like it would work as long as you record your rhythm guitar along to some kind of beat or metronome at the very start (then you wouldn't get into bad timing "build-up"as you add the drums and other instruments later in the process)...

I've never gotten officially into the whole MIDI/softsynth way of doing things (in large part because, though I've read a lot about MIDI and the concept is pretty clear to me, when I actually try to hook things up I usually get frustrated, and I probably don't have the computer power/or, again, knowledge, to do the softsynth thing)

My major way of doing things in the past has been to work out the arrangement of the song "on paper" (verse, chorus, bridge, etc.) and sequence the arrangement (on a Roland XP-50 workstation/keyboard with a built-in sequencer), the drums, bass, piano, etc, taking a stab at mixing the instruments (before doing the following), recording that onto one track (of a 4-track cassette recorder), and then recording electric guitar and vocals onto the other tracks. The big limition of this process is loosing the option of mixing the keyboard parts after recording the whole sequenced keyboard mix onto track one. I am attempting to record more with the computer and perhaps one day I will figure out (using MIDI) to record my keyboard sequence in the form of one instrument to one track (on the computer), retaining the ability to mix all the parts separately at the end of "tracking".
 
yeh the whole midi thing really confuses me. to be honest, even sequencing confuses me. haha. i agree with the metronome thing. and that's a good reminder. i need to play more with a timer. although ive never been criticized for bad timing, a real professional music publisher could probably discren poor timing at even a slight fraction. ok thanks you give me hope. one day this computer recording stuff will all make sense. i'd pray to the guitar gods, but they are angry i bought a keyboard. haha! cheers mate
 
Sleddog72 said:
instead of mucking around with MIDI...
Click to expand...
...can you do it the way it was done for the whole 20th century up until the mid-eighties?

Of course.

The question is why would you want to? Midi is a very powerful tool for controlling synthesizers, yes, but it's also the key to automating everything in a modern studio. It's easy to understand once you have the basic concepts down.

Here are links to two good articles on midi basics - part one and part two.
 
Absolutely nothing’s stopping you from treating a keyboard like any other instrument and just recording live audio. I have an analog keyboard that I use this way all the time.
I agree with Ssscientist that you’d be losing out on some nice features if you skip out on midi, but that’s your call on whether you want to invest the time in learning.

One night I spent a few hours configuring Sonar and my keyboards so that when I turn everything on and start a new project all the midi was set to go (as well as the audio). So at this point I just create a new track, pick one of the 16 midi channels, pick a sound, arm the track for recording and I’m set to go. It records no differently than if I was doing audio but if later I don’t like the sound, or I missed a note on an otherwise good performance, I have full freedom to edit everything. Since I screw up often and change my mind a lot, this is a must :)
Once I set myself up, midi was utterly painless for me.


On the other hand, some of the older keyboards are not exactly user friendly, especially those from before 1990. The DX series keyboards probably fit into this realm. It very well might be easier not to bother with midi with this keyboard… I sold my DX7 before I got into this stuff, so I don’t know for sure.

I use Sonar, and I pretty much can plug my modern synths into my PC and sonar becomes complete boss of them. They’re kinda designed for that. It makes doing projects all very tidy and fast, once youre setup.

- Gunther
 
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