Help with midi please

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wisher

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PLEASE can anyone help me , i am trying to set up a small home recording studio i have tried for weeks to set this up but just cant get it to work i know a lot of this stuff is old but thats what ive got to work with i am 99% sure everything is working i have a yamaha 2816 workstation [ midi in out and MTC for time code i think ] a m audio fast track pro midi/ audio usb audio interface with [midi in out ] a yamaha kx 25 usb with the bundled Cubase AI4 software, [ midi in out ] a roland jv1080 sound module with [midi in out and thru ] a korg esx Music Production Sampler [midi in out thru ] and a korg m1 synth [ midi in out thru ] can anyone tell me how to link these up like what should go in to what so as i can record guitar vocals etc on 2816 and midi on cubase AI4 on laptop and that they will stay in sync any help would be great Thanks
 
Let's take it one step at a time. Start with Cubase on your mac or PC. Read the manuals for both the M Audio fast track and Cubase. The focus of the first step in the process is to get Cubase to recognize the interface so you can use both audio and midi with it.

Then you'll connect your midi instruments, and you'll need to make sure that Cubase is set up to utilize hardware midi instruments rather than plugins. Hook up the Yamaha controller via usb and make sure it's communicating w/Cubase. Then 'daisy chain' your midi hardware from the midi out of the interface. It doesn't matter what order you put them in as long as you first connect the midi in of the first midi instrument to the midi out of the interface, then connect the midi thru of that instument to the next one.

Once you've finished all that, post again and I'll guide you thru the next steps in the process.
 
ssscientist's thank you so very much i will try that and get back to you i am so lost with all this at the moment
but again thank you for your help ,
wisher
 
You realize that you'll need a microphone, right?

You need to load the drivers for the FastTrack Pro before you do anything else. Note that the latest Avid drivers are buggy as hell. Try to find the older ones from mAudio. They're available on line. If you can't find them, PM me.

Once you've loaded the drivers, plug in the FastTrack Pro via a USB connection. Do NOT go through a USB hub.

You can chain all the MIDI instruments (including the workstation) together -- OUT (or THROUGH if the instrument has it) of one to IN of the next, with the final IN going to the OUT of the FastTrack Pro. If the instruments don't have THROUGH (or THRU) MIDI ports, you'll have to configure each to pass MIDI commands. This is not, however, the best way to do it as you may run into MIDI latency issues -- the extra time each instrument adds as it passes the commands to the next instrument. You're better off getting a separate USB MIDI interface with multiple ports, as it will eliminate latency issues and makes it unnecessary to configure each instrument for MIDI THROUGH.

MIDI doesn't transmit audio -- it's just a command protocol that tells the MIDI instrument which note to play, for how long, on which channel, etc. To get the audio in, you'll need to patch the audio OUT of each instrument to the FastTrack Pro. The FTP can only handle two audio inputs at a time, and it has limited ability to do that. You're going to have to get an audio mixer to mix the output of your synths and your microphone.

I've been working on a project that uses a lot of old synths. My solution was to get a FastTrack Ultra 8R, which has 8 separate audio inputs. That's still not enough for the synths and samplers that I use, so I have a couple of mixers as well. It's really important, though, to record each synth to a separate track in your DAW (Cubase, in your case), or you'll have problems mixing.
 
PTravel thank you very much for your help. i will try what you have told me and i will let you know how i get on . i haven't had a chance to get at it for a few days with work etc but again thank you very very much for your help
wisher
 
still working on this i think i may have trouble with drivers both for yamaha kx 25 and fast track pro i will let yee know as soon as i have any news thanks again
wisher
 
What trouble are you having? Whenever I need to install drivers that process goes pretty smoothly. Are you on Mac or PC?
 
There really isn't a huge problem with using the in and thru daisy chain - the kit you have is modern enough to not cause too much bother - the M1 is a bit sluggish, but never a problem normally. The biggest drawback is running one MIDI output, because on each device, you are going to have to set a different MIDI channel to receive, and turn off the others. In cubase, you then use say channel 1 for the M1, channel 2 for the 1080 etc. The 1080 is a useful beast so it can do multiple different sounds on different channels, but what always happens is that more than one device responds, and you need to reprogram one or the other. Most people who do MIDI seriously have a multi interface. I use an 8 channel one - each MIDI output goes to a different synth, yet I still have two daisy chained on one output. Cubase sees all the MIDI devices as separate ones, and once you name them, you select 1080 from the menu to play the 1080, and Triton to talk to that. Two of the synths go back into the interface so I can record from their keyboards if I wish to. Now I have lots of software synths and samplers, I try not to use the MIDI gear if I can. If I have a sound that can only come from them, once the track is ready, I press record on an audio channel, and record the sound played back by MIDI as an audio file, then stop using the MIDI device. Daisy chaining all the keys together can work ok - this is what I did for years in the 90s, but you WILL get hung notes from time to time when the amount of MIDI data gets high - like over use of the PB and mod controllers. If you use a MIDI controlled drum machine, have this early in the midi chain, and any percussive sources next - strings and pads can be at the end where timing isn't quite so critical. Not sure about your version of Cubase, but mine can shift timing quite easily to cope anyway. 16 channels, all with complex data can be too much - how much, you have to discover for yourself.
 
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