MIDI-impaired. a question...

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Mountainmirrors

kaleidoscopic renegade
Hi-
I never have used MIDI- however- I'm getting into recording on my pc very soon, and I've heard that plugging a keyboard or drum machine into a soundcard using the MIDI ports will transfer the data exactly as it sounds in the original source...unless I chooses to manipulate it.
Another friend told me that MIDI is interpreted a million ways by each individual piece of equipment and to record using the line-ins, instead.
Thanks for the help!
-Jeff
Mountain Mirrors
 
In short: Midi is data{not audio} that can be transmitted from your keyboard to your soundcard to trigger internal sounds from your cards soundfont banks. Or can be transmitted back to your keyboard to trigger the sounds of your keyboard or whatever midi device you have. Midi is simple but yet a powerful tool to use with any midi capable hardware.
{musical instrument digital interface} = midi

The first comment is accurate
The second is not......really
 
Thanks!
So- if I whipped up a beat on my drum machine on a great-sounding kit and threw it into a couple of tracks on Cool Edit, say, via the MIDI connections on my Audiophile card- it will sound like the beat on the machine?
 
Yes, it would be an exact replication of what you played....
Heres the trick: After recording you should be able to access the data field in a matrix where you can further edit. If you played to a click, you can quantize and put the beats dead on the money for a perfect drum track in exchange for a not so perfect recording.
You can also insert additional hits with the click of the mouse........this my friend is the power of midi........and just the tip of the iceberg
 
Stealthtech said:
No problem dude........anytime:D
Click to expand...

Oh, just a note......the audiophile has no built in sounds.....in your original post I thought you were using an SB which does have em.
 
I may be wrong (forgive me if I am) but I just want to be sure you understand the midi concept here.

What you play will indeed be transmitted from your midi source to your midi target (from input device to your PC).

The sounds will NOT be transmitted. Midi is deaf, like words on a page. You can convey your musical intent (duration, pitch, etc.) in exactly the same way that sheet music represents the composers intentions, but the sounds that you will hear come from the device that you send that intent to (your PC's sound card).

In short, if you play an expensive keyboard with wonderful sounds into a PC with a crappy sound card, your result will be the sounds embedded in the cheap sound card. Your instruments sonic abilities never enter into it.

That clear?

Carl
 
do you think that I'm better off going in through analog ins to retain original sound?
 
Ok Jeff, I think Krakit just threw you off a little.
If you want to record audio from your keyboard or drum machine or what have you, you can record straight to your card in analog.
If you record in midi, you can edit your screwups and then when you play back the midi track to your keyboard, your keyboard or whatever you recorded with will play the sequence and you then can record the audio from it to your soundcard
Once again, midi is just data{not audio} that tells your instrument what to play.
 
Mountainmirrors said:
do you think that I'm better off going in through analog ins to retain original sound?
Click to expand...

you simply have to..

to put it all as simple as possible: I allmost got confused myself by all these posts :D

1) MIDI is not audio. It's only event data, used to trigger other devices like drummachines and keyboards

2) You cannot record MIDI in cooledit pro in anyway. But you can record the audio data from the keyboard/drum module by using the analogue Ins on the soundcard

3) the reason you record MIDI (by using sequencers such as Cubase and Logic) is that it fills much, much less than recording the actual sound.
Think about just one drum hit. The audio file would be perhaps 35k. The MIDI file which would just be the actual triggering of the drum hit (like when you hit a key on the keyboard) would only be a few bytes large.

If you record your midi session in a sequencer like cubase, it'll remember everything. How hard you hit the keys, how much aftertouch you used and also the timing. So when you play back the file it'll sound exactely as when you played it. But you'd have to have your keyboard connected to the sequencer via your audio cards MIDI out.
What stealthtech is saying is, that then, when you have recorded the midi data. you can correct some errors and shit, get the timing right and stuff like that if you want to.
Then you can play back the midi file again and record the audio from your keyboard into Cubase using the analogue ins on the audio card.

... hmm .. hope i didn't mess that up too much...
 
Thanks!
I just got my Audiphile card today.
Is the D I/O on my J-Station just a regular RCA jack?
It looks like the connectors on the card are all RCA or MIDI(which I won't be using right away... :-) )
Do I just run stereo RCA's into 2 tracks to retain stereo imaging, just like on portable digital machines? -or does each track retain imaging?
Thanks!
 
The RCAs on the J- Station are L and R mono jacks. You need both to get stereo output.

The digital i/o is not an audio jack. It is indeed physically the same jack as an RCA audio jack would use, but you need a cable with the right impedance to be sure of getting the signal across. A standard RCA line might work but I'm not sure. By the way, it's a stereo signal. That's the way you'll get the best results from the J Station and Audiophile - S/PDIF Out on J-Station -> S/PDIF in on Audiophile.
 
i think you might need an optical cord to use the D I/O .. that's what i'm using on my hoontech..
 
Chriss, I've been struggling (yes I'm a moron) to fully understand MIDI, I knew it wasn't audio, I Knew how it was edited and what have you but what I couldn't understand is how you got a MIDI sequence mixed down (from in my case Cubase) and to CD. Your explanation there finally did it for me, I now know what the f*ck is goin on, thanks man. To think some of the retarded questions I've asked regarding this stuff, pwhoof!?!?



Laj
 
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