How to get good sounding midi:

[Heavy T]

Hey -

How do you get "good" sounding midi?

Does it just depend on the quality of your soundcard? Or, do people use their computer to compose midi, and then send the midi sequence to a compatible synth?

So, for example, maybe you could use a synth +/- a midi compatible drum machine?

Thanks for any feedback!

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

1) You need a good-sounding sound module...

2) You need a good controller

3) For realism, you need to play the patches within the timbre, range, and expressions possible on the sampled instrument. (ie, a baritone sax is not going to sound correct when played in the upper registers, because a baritone sax does not have that range)

4) If possible, use the appropriate controller - wind controller for wind instruments, that kind of thing... sometimes you can get away with it, but it takes work to get a horn part to sound good via a keyboard... of course, this won't help you if you don't play a wind instrument in the first place! You do what you can I guess...

The most important is to have good-sounding patches to begin with... there is A LOT of cheesy GM stuff out (not that GM itself is bad, just the cheap midi modules that supprt it!)

Bruce

Bruce

 

[Heavy T]

Hey Bruce ...

What are some examples of good-sounding sound modules? Do they plug into a midi instrument, or is it PC based?

What is the importance of the "controller" -- are we talking about added realism as far as attack, etc?

Finally, when you talk about patches, that sounds like soundfonts to me ... and to this day I haven't figured out how to import soundfonts into the "patch bank" for presto or whatever -- sad, huh?

Sincerely

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

You can buy sound modules as h/w or now I suppose s/w (which I am unfamiliar with), but the concept is the same.

At the most basic level, a synth is a keyboard midi controller combined with a sound module in a single unit (plus a whole mess of extras, usually!)

You can buy other controllers to send midi note commands - midi guitar pickups/interfaces, breath controllers... the idea initially was to have a controller to fit any musical instrument you were most adept and comfortable with.

So a sax player wouldn't need to learn keyboard just to use midi - they could use a breath controller that had a very similar interface to the instrument they normally play.

Of course, with a keyboard alone, it is still quite difficult to re-create some instruments timbre and expression via the keyboard interface, but with enough practice, you could probably get something acceptable.

In general, the controller should allow you enough control over all the required expressive elements of the instrument you are trying to mimic. In reality, that is far too complex... so the parameters of control are usually quite limited. A better controller means better expression....

The best controller in the world won't help if you have bad sounding patches!

Also - samplers are sound modules that also have the capability of of recording new sounds... they are still all played back via Midi though...

Bruce