Newbie, Please help!

[metdrummer00]

Hey everyone,

I'll give my specs and equipment first.

Compaq Presario 8000 3.2 GHZ
512 MB RAM
Soundblaster Audigy
Yamaha PSR550 Keyboard
Cool Edit Pro 2.0
____________________________
So the game plan is to start using MIDI and I have no idea where to start. I recorded songs off my keyboard to a floppy and played them, and they sounded nothing like the sound banks on my keyboard. I need the actual sound banks from my keyboard to be MIDI when I record for live performance issues.
The equipment I need is a USB M-Audio MIDI Device as well as a USB M-Audio mic pre amp. However, I'm most concerned about conserving the actual sounds from the keyboard to a recorded format on my computer. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

You need to understand how and why MIDI does what it does.

MIDI was designed at a time (1983) when sequencing was coming of age and manufacturers wanted to design a standard to allow multiple keyboards to be played together to create big sounds. Of course, shortly thereafter MIDI exploded to be used for all manner of things from lights, to sync'ing studio gear, to changing guitar presets and so on.

MIDI is simply MUSICIAL INSTRUMENT DIGITAL INTERFACE. It allows devices equipped with MIDI to communicate and be used together in as many ways as they are programmed to do--and that you have the knowledge to program them to do within their capabilities. All MIDI instruments have different specs and commands.

For playing instruments, such as the situation you are in, MIDI contains only this information:

MIDI CHANNEL
PROGRAM CHANGE (to the "sound" you want)
NOTE ON
NOTE NUMBER
NOTE OFF

There is a concept called General MIDI (GM) put forward in the early 90's by Roland on their Sound Canvas device. What this attempted to do was establish a standard program number for specific instruments--thus program 001 would be piano, 002 would be violin and so forth. Can't say this really went too well because many keyboards ignore GM.

NOTE THAT MIDI DOES *NOT* CONTAIN AUDIO DATA!!!!!

MIDI only tells a device to play this note at this time, or to stop a note for a sound that is *ON* that device.

This may seem sort of stupid, but remember MIDI came out long before DAW's and affordable home recording for the masses was much of a wet dream. The ability to write songs using sequences that could be played back and later recorded in a few short hours time at a big studio was a REVELATION. Heck--you didn't even need to use your synths! You could plug into the studio's PPG Wave, Jupiter 8 and Prophet 5 and use those sounds instead of the lame ones on your Ensoniq ESQ-1.

This was the cornerstone technology for the megasynth workstations of the late 80's and early 90's such as the D20, M1 and a million other ROMPLER spinoffs. (BTW ROMPLERS were popular because they offered access to sounds only a sampler could make at a fraction of the cost; in the 80's samplers were VERY pricey... although that went down by 1988 to reasonable levels... only 3-5k for a pro sampler instead of 8k in 1984.)

What you need to do is have your sequences set to activate specific PROGRAM CHANGES to the voice that you want when the sequence starts. Ever MIDI device is different how you assign this so check your instruction manual.

Honestly, if you are going to be doing live shows using MIDI you are asking for trouble. Just record it, put it on a MiniDisk and hit play. Safer. The first NIN tour was a disaster due to MIDI crashes and disasters.

 

[VTmosaic]

Hey everyone,

I'll give my specs and equipment first.

Compaq Presario 8000 3.2 GHZ
512 MB RAM
Soundblaster Audigy
Yamaha PSR550 Keyboard
Cool Edit Pro 2.0
____________________________
So the game plan is to start using MIDI and I have no idea where to start. I recorded songs off my keyboard to a floppy and played them, and they sounded nothing like the sound banks on my keyboard. I need the actual sound banks from my keyboard to be MIDI when I record for live performance issues.
The equipment I need is a USB M-Audio MIDI Device as well as a USB M-Audio mic pre amp. However, I'm most concerned about conserving the actual sounds from the keyboard to a recorded format on my computer. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I am still a bit confused about your objectives. When you say your game plan is to "start using MIDI" do you mean recording live performances to your computer, or playing the MIDI sequences (recorded earlier) back for stage performances? Or both?

Another question: the "USB M-Audio MIDI Device," just guessing, but is it a device to let you connect your syth keyboard to your soundcard? (I've used an edirol version of this in a class I took to learn this stuff).

I don't think you need the pre-amp, though, for either the stage or recording applications for MIDI output; could be wrong, but if you can hear what you play on your keyboard when you play it standalone, it's already being amplified. You reinforce that by plugging into an amp or PA for stage work, right? I KNOW you don't need a preamp to record MIDI to your computer since it's not even analog audio that you're passing to the computer, but rather digital data.

Check out the "echo on/off" parameter of your keyboard. When you are playing through a computer MIDI sequencer, that Echo parm controls whether you're hearing the sound module directly from your keyboard AND the computer soundcard, or JUST the computer soundcard/speakers. If there is a lot of "latency" in your sound card (likely to be the case unless it's pro-audio-level), you'll hear an echo if it's playing both places 'cause the sound card will be later than the keyboard's playback. Which is why you might want to turn that off when you're working on the computer.

But, if you're on stage, just mute the sound card output. You want the computer to play the MIDI sounds back through your keyboard's sound module and then amp the keyboard. So echo would be on.

I think. Maybe that helps. Maybe I"m completely WRONG (I dont' think I'm COMPLETELY wrong, I do think your keyboard's Echo parameter is an important thing to know to get your sound module to be where the music plays).

 

[metdrummer00]

I should've been more clearer. I intended to record MIDI onto my computer which would re-create our live sound. But then I realized, with the M-Audio Mobile Pre, I could just use the line out option of my keyboard to the pre-amp which would record audio into my recording program.

I understand the whole concept of MIDI and was very unclear about it before. Thanks for all the information, but I think I know the path I'm taking now.

 

[manning1]

metdrummer, if you want a great midi sequencer that does 48 track audio as well plus tc helicon harmonisation check out powertracks at pgmusic.com.
also my other favorites for audio.midi are magix music studio
and for audio multitrackstudio.com.
check out the free audacity sometime. has some neat features as well. plus free hotstepper for wild beat tracks.