Quick Midi Question

[Echelon]

Ok, so I have a roland MV8000 and I would like to somehow get reason 2.5 to record into it. I talked to a guy earlier and he told me that I should go "Midi Controller to computer midi in, computer midi out to mv8000 midi in, mv8000 midi out back to computer midi in." I use cubase sx 2.0. I guess i'm just ignorant, but how the heck does cubase record all the midi messages as audio? Also, the mv8000 has a built in sequencer that can record midi tracks, but how would i get the mv8000 to play the reason 2.5 sounds if they are all still in my computer. Midi is one of those things that's always going to confuse me...

 

[fraserhutch]

Midi and audio are two seperate things altogether.

Think of midi as instructions for how to play a sound. It knows nothing in and of itself about the sound. Literally, what it does is along these lines:

(on a given channel)
select synthesizer bank X
select synthesizer patch Y
Start note A
EndNote A4
Start note B
End note B4
​

and so forth.

Audio is the actual sound itself, the same as you would record with a tape recorder. Digitally, it is stored as a series of samples.

These messages are time stamped, which implies an order to them, and there is a heckj of a lot more to the protocol than mentioned here (of course).

A midi sequencer stores midi messages. An audio sequencer stores audio. Most computer DAW sequencers record both midi and audio, which sequencers on a synth would typically only store midi data.


So, long story short, Cubase does NOT store your midi as audio, it stores it as midi events. To get audio, you need to render the midi events through some sound source like a sound card or synth.

Hope this helps a bit......

 

[Echelon]

Yeah, i think i understand that bit, but how would i play run reason 2.5, record in its sequencer, then dump those files to cubase, mix them, then burn an audio cd? Thanks for your help!

 

[fraserhutch]

I don't know if this is a troll or not - I will treat it as a non-troll.

Typically what you would do is record your midi data into the sequencer, then run the sequence into a synth, and capture the synth output to audio. Note that the synth output can be your soundcard synth.

Once rendered to audio, you can write the .wav or whatever to cd.

Does that make sense?

Hope this helps.

 

[Echelon]

Ok, i think I get it. Thanks for your help. Also, what's a troll? I read you guys (and girls) say that someones a troll all the time but I've never understood what you mean. Again, thanks for your help.