Midi WTF?

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Nick The Man

Nick The Man

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i dont understand it and when ever i ask this question i never get a straight answer: ok i can get the midi recorded on my computer ...... how do i transfer it from a midi file to a audio file.. or i guess what im really asking is how do you record a piece of crap radio shack keyboard? through midi? im defintly not going to resort to puting a mic in front of one of the speakers.
 
Midi is nothing more than musical information. It does not include any sound. It mearly tells your keyboard's internal sound library, or the computer, what sounds to play and when, how loud etc. If you want the sound you hear coming out of your keyboard into your computer, you cannot do that through midi. You have to connect an audio cable from the output of your keyboard to the input of your computer.

You can also connect the midi-out from your keyboard (probably a round plug with 5 holes, called a DIN-plug) to the joystick port of your computer with a special cable. But then you will only be able to transfer the midi data, not the sound itself. If windows plays a midi file, it only reads the musical information of the midi file. What you hear actually comes from a bank of sounds build into your soundcard or build into windows.

Hope that clears it up for ya.
 
yeah that clears things up..... but then what is the benifit of MIDI? just to tell the keyboard what to play.... then once you get that perfect you record it?
 
Pretty much, yes. However, the real beauty of MIDI is that it is a universal format. So any keyboard can tell any other keyboard what to play. Software and hardware sequencers can work with any midi keyboard or module. It's the universal aspect of it that is so powerful.
 
There are several advantages to midi:
1) very very low CPU usage.... you can run dozens of midi tracks (to hardware gear) on even the slowest computer.
2) universality (as mentioned), you don't like the piano sound your Korg is playing.... send the data to your Roland.... plays it there just fine
3) programability, want to transpose, slow up, add notes, double the track etc. etc. easily done with midi
4) allows you to control all sorts of functions like starting and stopping sequencers etc.

Check this out for more info (there is a small section on advantages of midi there too)
http://www.borg.com/~jglatt/tutr/whatmidi.htm

Take Care
 
Don't forget...

Let's not forget why MIDI was implemented in the first place...

MIDI was originally created because each keyboard that was played could only play one sound (and in many cases ONE NOTE!) at a time...
Keyboardists wanted a way to connect one keyboard to another to stack the sounds they created and make playing a little easier...

One big early advantage to MIDI was the fact that recording the synths that used it was "first generation"... When I began using sequencers ('83? '84?), Recording gear was expensive - And the good stuff cost a fortune and there was no way for an average user to obtain it...

BUT - You could sync your entire keyboard rig to a 4 or eight track cassette recorder and "play" your entire composition into two tracks of that cassette player in one pass - first generation - Then record your vocal on the other tracks - and have a pretty good sounding recording with reasonably good sonic quality for a reasonable price...

Hope this further clears things...
 
Nick The Man said:
i dont understand it and when ever i ask this question i never get a straight answer: ok i can get the midi recorded on my computer ...... how do i transfer it from a midi file to a audio file.. or i guess what im really asking is how do you record a piece of crap radio shack keyboard? through midi? im defintly not going to resort to puting a mic in front of one of the speakers.
Click to expand...


Like anything else new: Go to amazon.com and type MIDI in the search bar. Read an instruction book!
 
really ive never done that before ill give it a shot
 
lol... okay, i've found a way to get midi to audio for free. click the speaker icon on the bottom part of your screen. then go options>properties>select recording>okay

basically if you can find out how your soundcard plays midi, select that as your recording device (my sblive is labeled "what you hear"). then go into a program that can record, arm a track, and then record. now play the midi file in winamp or whatever you use to play midis. the program should capture what is running through the soundcard. hope this helps.

cheers.
 
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