silliest, stupidest,simplest midi Q's ever.....

[idioteque]

…but it had to be asked.
Ive been reading heaps on Midi, I understand its basics..i understand it is only an interface which is a series of signals/instructions and that it's not sound. But of the dozens of sites ive read up on, nothing specifically says that the sounds are recordable, only that there are NO sounds…so I just wanna know please…with this setup..

-PC Piv 3gh
-soundcard Audiphile 2496
-keyboard with midi I & O
-Ntrack

Can I do any of the following….

A. Record my Keyboards in the Sound (patch?) im playing and use this in a song.
B. Playback the song as recordedr without the keyboard plugged in
C. Mix the midi tracks with wav tracks to create songs
D. Burn song to CD and play in normal cd player
And E. (once I undersatnd abit more) change the patch via the software to create different sounds with the same melodies I played on KB


Please dont laugh at me, I am but a simple man, all the websites re Midi go from basic info then jump to complex, without a basic explanation of the above questions. all I wanna do is record my keyboard, I can get to the rest later.
peace.

 

[AlChuck]

You can record the MIDI data from a performance. Then you can send it back to your keyboard or to any other MIDI synth and it will respond by playing the notes that the MIDI data tells it to.

Once it's captured as MIDI, it's incredibly easy to speed it up or slow it down, transpose it to different keys, have it played by different instrument sounds than you originally used, etc. -- many things that you cannot do very successfully with audio data.

At some point you will need to record the output of a MIDI instrument playing back the parts so that you have audio to mix down to stereo with your other audio and burn a CD.

 

[idioteque]

Thanks for your help, I guess what im wanting to know is how to/can I……record midi commands, then have it playback through the PC only.. without the keyboard….Is this the role of sound fonts?... I have read that the soundblaster cards have an advantage over the AP2496, that it has the midi GM sounds built in?...so what additions do I need on the PC to be able to assign sounds to the midi ?
Its kinda confusing to me as im talking hypothetically-its all theory as im a total newB, but I gotta get this right before I start buying...

 

[ErichS]

If you want to do it completely from within your computer you need a software synthisizer or a sound card with built in synth. Windows comes with a software synth called MS-synth or something like that. The sounds are pretty bad but you can try it just to get the idea. Similary the synth sounds on a Sound Blaster are not going to be very good. If you really want to go in this direction you need a full blown SW synth like those form Native Instruments. I'm not sure if those can be played form n-Tracks so you might need to upgrade your sequencer SW to something like Cakewalk Home Studio(~$99) or Sonar($$$) but I dont know the capabilities of n-Tracks.

 

[AlChuck]

The SB Live or Audigy cards can actually make very decent synths with good Sound Fonts, but on a modern fast computer, a good softsynth is great.

 

[idioteque]

Thankyou guys, i knew I was on the right track somwhere....so I can use my keyboard to enter midi commands, then use a softsynth/sound fonts to assign "sounds" to these midi commands...cool....I gotta go read up on some more on soft synths....thanks again, just needed to be sure it could all add up.