midi recorded to audio, HOW??# (:0(

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Melody master

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awww guys, this is really doing my nut.
I'm a new midi user, and im dying to know how to record midi to audio tracks!! Please, I beg for someone who can explain to me in full how to do it!! I've tried going to export audio, and all that happens is, is a little black bar comes from the track down the bottom, and no sound is produced from the track. Ive been told to record the midi to the track but how? Do I have to change my inputs and outputs? Or am I just doing something wrong?
 
It helps first to know what MIDI is. MIDI is not audio itself. That is, it isn't some kind of audio format. A MIDI "note" is just a command to tell some type of soundmaking device---such as a keyboard---to play a particular note.

So for example, let's say I had a MIDI song that I got off the Internet and it was a very short song. In fact, it has only one note in it, a middle C. When you load his song into Cubase (or any other sequencer) and hit play, Cubase will send a command out over the MIDI cable to your keyboard to play middle C. In fact, there will be three pieces of information in that command:

1. You want to play a note (as opposed to other things that you can tell your keyboard to do)
2. The pitch to play, in this case C4 which is middle C.
3. How loud to play it.

The actual sound that comes out isn't determined by the MIDI song, it's determined by whatever sound you had your keyboard set to when you hit play.

The soundmaking device you use doesn't have to be a keyboard. It could be your computer's sound card. It seems like this it probably your case. So if you want to convert MIDI to audio, you need to play the MIDI song, outputting it to the soundcard, and then record the audio coming out of the sound card into Cubase. You can do this by connecting a cable from the audio output of the sound card back to its audio input. Then you go into Cubase, set it up to record audio, hit play, and let it play the MIDI while recording the audio to a stereo audio track. Follow the instructions for recording audio and it should work.

Jim
 
I should add that I've never actually tried this loopback technique myself. I have keyboards, so if I ever want to convert from MIDI to audio I'd used them. So I don't know what problems you might encounter by looping your soundcard's output back to its input. It just seems to me that this should work.

Further, I don't know if there is an easier way to do this where you wouldn't need to go out and buy a cable. I guess it depends on your sound card. Maybe there are sound cards where you can internally route the output back to the input to let you capture the audio. So you might want to check that possibility first.

Jim
 
Bless you mate!!!!!!

You have helped me dearly, cheers very much for the info!!!!! I ve still to buy a cable that ll allow to be able to that, but your help has been most apreciated!! I've been dying to know how to do that, you have taken the weight of me shoulkders mate, thanx ever so much!!!

Peace!!!!!!

MeLoDy MaStEr!!
 
Midi to Audio?

New Cubase/DAW user here. New to midi also.

My dumb question(s) is(are):

1) I have a sound module and a "dumb" keyboard controller. I've connected the keyboard's midi out to the midi in connector on my sound card (a Dakota ADAT interface card with two midi ins and outs). And I've connected the sound card's midi out connector to the sound module's (Korg 05/RW) midi in...now...to what do I connect the sound module's audio outputs? If I'm creating a song in Cubase that contains audio (wav files) and midi, how do I incorporate the midi output into the audio portion of the song? Do I dedicate two audio tracks to the output from the sound module? If not, how do I route the sound module's audio output to my powered monitors?

Or should the midi always exist as midi data only?

I have a Tango24/Dakota combo, so I could route the midi module's output back to the DAW, but I'm not sure it makes sense.

Help for this newbie, anyone?

Cheers
 
Re: MIDI/Audio recording

I only have a PC and a keyboard with a reasonably good soundcard. The problem I had when trying the first method was that if I have my speakers plugged into the MIDI Out as well as a cable going from the same place to the Line In, then the speakers emit an annoying buzz which is there all the time, not just when I am recording. Is there a way to stop this?
 
wyanes,

I think this is where a mixer would come in handy. I assume you don't have one. Anyway, I hope I understand your question right.

You could either keep the MIDI tracks as MIDI, or you could record them as audio. I think it depends. You might want to record them as audio for a couple of reasons. One is because you might want to add a lot of processing like EQ, compression, or reverb to the tracks and you don't want to be doing that in real-time because it would eat up too much computer power. So you record the module with the effects to audio and make it permanant. Another reason is that your MIDI keyboard might only be able to play so many notes at once. A third reason might be that it's sometimes hard to reproduce a mix when some tracks are MIDI. The volume of your module will depends on where you have it's master volume knob set at the time. (However, you could make rule for yourself that you always keep the master volume knob all the way up).

The reasons for keeping the tracks in MIDI form are obvious. It takes up much less disk space. You can manipulate the tracks much better. That is, you can easily change the tempo or you can change the sound if you decide you want a different sound for that part. You can lengthen notes, shorten them, quantize them, etc. So I'd say keep the tracks as MIDI if you can.

Then you have the problem of where do you run the audio outputs of the module. You could run them into the sound card inputs. But then you can't plug anything else in there, like a microphone, at the same time. In order to hear the module, your sound card would need to have a monitoring capability; that is, what goes into the input can me mixed into the output. This monitoring of the input has to be mixed with with other audio tracks Cubase might be playing. If your sound card can't do this, then the only other solution I can think of is to get some kind of seperate mixer.

Jim


[Edited by JimH on 08-19-2000 at 10:13]
 
christian,

Are you sure you are plugging the speakers into the MIDI output of the sound card? Or was that just a typo? Because you don't want to do that.

Anyway, I'll assume that you're actually connecting them to a Line output. So are you using some kind of "Y" cable to connect the sound card output to both the speakers and the sound card input? If so, it's understandable why you might get buzz. You should really only connect to one thing at a time. When you connect to two things at once, you change the impedance of the circuit. This could cause a buzz. Someone more knowledgeable about electronics could explain it better than I could. What you need is something that will split the signal correctly, like a mixer.

:eek:
I should really be careful when I talk about running a sound card output back to it's input. You should make sure that both the output and input are Line level. Some sound cards may have a powered output that is meant to connect to speakers that do not have their own power. You shouldn't plug this kind of an output back to the line input. That will overload it. Do all this stuff at your own risk. I don't want to be responsible for anyone damaging their sound card.

Jim
 
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