MIDI to audio in cakewalk

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Ender

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I am using a soundblaster live card, and cakewalk 8. I have audio and midi tracks in my project, but I want to make it an mp3. How do I get the midi tracks into audio that can be mixed down to a wave? I tried setting two tracks to input the awe in left and right, but it comes out so... degradded.
maybe its just the crappy sound card?

thanks for any help
 
If you have a soundblaster live card firstly turn off all the surround sound and effects stuff they've got for games - now open the mixer and select "what you hear" as your record source and you will be able to record the internal synths as audio tracks - select line input if you have external synths. - sure by pro standards its not a great soundcard but hey! it will work for you
cheers
john :cool:
 
Hi Ender,

You might also want to check out the following article over on the Cakewalk site:
http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/faq.htm#28

Best,
Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - Author of Cakewalk Power!, the first book to deal exclusively with the Cakewalk Pro Audio, Guitar Studio, and Home Studio software products. For more information, a free newsletter, and the chance to win free products, go to:
http://www.garrigus.com/
 
That's a good suggestion, Scott. I just saw that faq on their site yesterday.
It should answer this post quite well. pete o
 
Another Cakewalk8 with SB Live user

I'm just getting going with all this stuff, but I did discover the FAQ on the Cakewalk site and did get the Recorder that comes with SB Live to record my 4 track Cakewalk project to a .wav file per the instructions. I thought the resulting .wav sounded pretty decent, but the SB Live quality so far exceeds my previous el-junko sound card that I might be too easily impressed.

What I can't get to work, however, is the Export Audio function under TOOLS dropdown. It's not grayed out on my Cakewalk Express 8.04, but everytime I try I get error message "No audio is selected, so your command has not been carried out". I have a project open and tried 'select all' from 'edit' menu. What am I missing?

Also, I can find no explanation of the differences in the 'save as' types. What's RIFF MIDI? And why do I have 'format 1' and 'format 0' choices?

To my great amusement I discovered that the free web site I use for 100s of MEG of pictures won't allow me to post my own MP3 although MID and huge WAV are fine!
 
I think I have also done it - converting soundfonts to audio - setting midi as the source in the creative mixer and muting all the other tracks so the midi track just tapes as an audio track - with good results...


andyesk - you may get something re midi formats out of the following link

http://www.computermusic.co.uk/bq/6/midiformats/index.html

malgo
 
andyesk, I'm not sure why you are not recording in Cakewalk instead of the Creative recorder.
At any rate... from what you wrote, I gather that you have recorded with the Creative recorder
and imported (inserted) the audio file into Cakewalk. That's ok to do, though you should
be able to do all of that within Cakewalk. I'm using Pro Audio 9 but it should be the same.
Check the following.....

Make sure you have audio in your project. Sometimes folks get confused as to MIDI vs. Audio. If you're trying to mixdown Audio and all that is there is MIDI you will get that error message.
Also, double click on the track. I believe this will turn the background black behind the
track you selected. I'm not sure if this is required but it's what I always do.
I have an SB Live as well. What I do to record my MIDI into audio is a little different than
what you will probably do. I use an external sound module because the sounds blow
away any soundfonts I've heard. I set my audio track to record the SB line in.
Then I also go into the SB Live Mixer and set it to record Line In. I arm the audio track for
record and begin recording. I recommend you check ou t this FAQ at CW's site:

http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/faq.htm#28

Good luck.....
 
Sorry...didn't mean to reference the same CW article mentioned earlier by garrigus.
Must be a popular one.
 
midi vs audio

Thank, Peter,

Gee, there's a lot for an old guy to learn here. You are quite right, I hadn't understood that audio was even allowed into the Cakewalk project space which I've been using solely to capture the midi played on my connected Yamaha keyboard.

The reason I used the SB Live Recorder instead of its mixer was that I could make heads or tails out of their "Surround Mixer" (wasn't sure it was the right tool even). Imagine my surprise when the Recorder captured the MIDI I was sending from Cakewalk to SB Live, and allowed me to save as .wav and the ARMing business didn't seem to be necessary.

Now that I'm studying the Mixer again, along the lines of FAQ 28 instructions, I'm still hacking around without yet cracking the magic.

Where FAQ 28 says:
Press Record, and all of your MIDI tracks assigned to the card's internal synthesizer will be recorded as an
audio track (or tracks). After you are done recording, mute the original MIDI tracks. This will save confusion,
since you'll be listening to them as audio tracks now.

Does that mean Press Record - the same Record Button on Cakewalk - that I use when 'recording' the track from the keyboard as MIDI? Or does it mean press record button on Surround Mixer where I can't even find a record button.

I tried it with Cakewalk - the only record button I could locate - and did accomplish turning the ARMED tracks from yellow to blue, but still don't understand when and how to ultimately save the audio (never mind what role the mixer has played in all this). Cakewalk's help topic on "how to record audio" isn't very explicit about this either. Guess I'll keep hacking or maybe go try to locate a local class if music stores have such. Change my rank to 'new newbie'.

ahe
 
Don't fret....I think you're about there now. What the FAQ is saying is that you have MIDI tracks that are playing. Now you are going to mix them all into a stereo audio track. Do this.
Select an unused track. Usually, since you've been working in MIDI, CW will probably
assume you want the track to be another MIDI track. So, you will have to double click on
the source portion of that track and change it to reflect audio. You will want to select the
sound card that your MIDI is being produced on. Pull up the SB Live mixer and on the far
left select Line In as the source.

Back to CW again.....
Now, arm (hit record on) the audio track that you just created. Make sure no other track is
armed. Rewind the song to the beginning and hit the record button at the top of your
screen. This can be found in the Transport Bar. It's the button with the red dot.
Once that happens you should be recording. You can look at the Console View and now
it will show your audio track complete with recording meters and all. If you see no
register on the meters then you have selected the wrong input for that track or
you have not selected the line input as the recording source on your SB Live Mixer.

When you are done recording....go back to the track view and hit rewind. You should see
the audio in your track. Mute the other channels (the MIDI) as CW said in the FAQ.
This is done so you don't have the MIDI playing along with the audio you just recorded.
Though the two should be the same, you won't know the content or quality of your recording
if both are playing. You can now export the audio to a .wav file and place it on a CD for
your listening pleasure if you so desire. I have a one-man-band act that I use these MIDI
files as the bulk of my band. Once I'm done, I burn them to CD and all I have to tote around
is a Sony Discman, a PA and my guitars. Hope this helps, if not let me know.....I'm sure
we can figure it out. pete o
 
Famous last words...

...we can figure it out!!!

OK Pete,

Thanks for your confidence. I'm sure we can. Just a question of how many q 'n a iterations you're willing to put up with.

Of your detailed instructions, here's the only piece that I think is tripping me up.

I add the new track and double click on source. The choices are "Left SB Live Wave In [6C00]" or "Right SB Live Wave in.." both of which prefixed by a wave like squiggle I now understand to imply 'audio'. From there on all choices are among the various MIDI Channels and prefixed by the 'note' symbol.

I selected 'Left', armed that track. Selected Line IN on the Mixer (that's all that happens with/to the Mixer??)

Back to CW and hit 'record' button. Then stop record, rewind, but the armed 'audio' channel doesn't contain the promised goods. Nor did I really see meters in the Console View.

I mute all the MIDI Tracks, unarm the wave track, hit play and get silence.

I'll go try one more time while you scratch your head and ponder why you submit to long-distance torture.

Will report back if I crack it before hearing back from you.

Here's hoping.

ahe
 
Thanks

Thanks for the help, I think I have gotten it.. at least partly.
The one small problem is that if I record for any period more than like a minute, when I replay the original wav files and the midi files that the soundcard recorded as a wav file, it seems to very slowly start to lag behind. The longer it goes, the more off sync it gets.
Since I do mostly techno-trance, and have a lot of loops, I just recorded a small segment of it and repasted it around for every midi instrument. I ended up with like 16 tracks of audio going, but it worked :)

Is there a reason for the slowdown though? I have a pretty fast hard-drive I think... its an scsi ultra2wide, and 400 pentium2 processor.
 
You call this progress??

OK Peter,

This time I took you more literally - used an 'unused' track
rather than tack on a new track at the bottom. Selected "Left" as source, armed, etc.

This time, on rewind, the audio track did at least turn blue green even though the line thru its mid-point is FLAT.

I also clicked the meter button while recording and viewing Console and the meter there wasn't bobbing around as might be expected - it was stationary on 6, I think.

To quote you:
If you see no register on the meters then you have selected the wrong input for that track or you have not selected the line input as the recording source on your SB Live Mixer.

Maybe I'll next try 'What you hear' instead of 'line in' on the mixer just for laughs. Or am I barking up the wrong patch?

ahe - hacker.
 
How could anyone struggle with something so simple...

...
ok Peter,

Off to bed - it's late here. But I cracked it. Whether everything is optimal or not, I don't really care at the moment. Given the way my machine is set up - sound card, software, etc - mixer seems to want 'what you hear' instead of 'line in'. Is this compromising anything? Whatever works, is what I'm inclined to say.
Now the audio track (source=left) comes back with wave form and the meter even moves in the console view as promised.
And export audio gives me the high priveledge of gobbling up many megabytes on my hard drive with the new .wav.

Personally, I think hard drives are the business to be in anyway. Everything seems a conspiracy to gobble space.

Thanks one more time - I won't say last, something else is likely to come up. I hereby nominate you for tech support position at any of the software companies I've tried with mixed (polite way of saying 'limited') success to get answers from.

over and out.

ahe
 
External Sound module mentioned by Peter

Peter Ochello,

In your September 9 posting on this thread -

You mentioned using an external sound module rather than the sound fonts from Soundblaster card. Now that I've mastered some of the basics, I'm curious what comes next - quality wise.

If you're still around, and don't mind naming names, could you share the name/manufacturer/version of the product you were referring to back then?

Best wishes,

ahe

Thanks again for your great help back when the leaves were still on the trees.
 
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