Sound Card MIDI generation to disk?

  • Thread starter Thread starter memphis
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memphis

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Does anyone know of a method to have a sound
card generate midi wave files directly on playback
instead of looping line out back to line in?
I obviously want to avoid the da/ad conversion.
Maybe some software synths do this?
 
There is no D/A - A/D conversion that occurs with midi. Midi signals contain NO audio - they are simply event messages stating note ON/OFF, which patch, duration, etc... they cannot be recorded as audio, so there is really no other choice than to loop out and loop back in - it is the devices that respond to midi that are actually creating your sounds, not the midi signal itself.

Bruce Valeriani
Blue Bear Sound
 
OK I should have qualified. I'm asking a deeper question.
I've been in MIDI for a long time, I know what midi
messages are.

My sound card came with a hardware synth that takes
in midi messages, accesses wavetables in ram over PCI
and the hardware ships the
samples to the D/A on the card. I'd
like to get the samples back to disk before they
go to the D/A.
I'm thinking no MIDI sound card supplies this feature.
Am I wrong?
The data would look like a wave record stream from the
card without having to have the samples go from the
D/A to the A/D to the wavein device.

However, it would be very easy for a software synth to
do this, since the process turning midi data to
samples is running on the processor, with easy access
to writing to disk. Maybe I should just take a look
at what the soft synths are doing these days...
 
Have you ever seen Virtual Audio Cable? This might be worth a shot - it allows you to send your audio output (from your cards MIDI synth) back to pretty much any application... So your card can play directly into Sound Forge or whatever without having to make any appearance in the 'outside world'. It's tricky to set up but it's solved a few problems for me anyway.
 
Does this virtual audio cable substitute its own cheesey soft-synth for the cheesey hard synth in a typical consumer card? Even the SC-88 softsynth directly from Roland didn't cut it when compared to the real article.
 
V.A.C doesn't have anything to do with MIDI or with synths - it's only audio. Instead of sending your MIDI synth sound out from your card you just send it to a recording application. (From what I can remember anyway). I'm sure there is a website for it somewhere.
 
http://www.ntonyx.com/vac.html

Newer, DirectSound-compatible version, $39

http://www.ntonyx.com/vac111.html

older, non-DirectSound-compatible, $19

I'm checking it out myself here... I have a SB Live and I can record its MIDI stream into its own audio input stream, but then I have a 16-bit project. I would like to be able to record it to my Delta 66's audio input stream and thereby have a 24-bit project...

-AlChuck
 
I don't think it even matters which cards you have installed for using VAC - I'm pretty sure it bypasses all your hardware. The only thing is - it might just be limited to 16bit... and of course even if it isn't - you'll have to have an editor that goes up to 24bit.

I really should check it out again so I know what I'm talking about :)
 
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