Basic MIDI help

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

I've managed to graduate SAE years ago and run a 2 inch analogue
studio for the past 7 years fulltime, and never ever needed or wanted
to know about MIDI.

It's kinda cool to tweak my POD with Sounddiver software via MIDI
cable, but that is about where my experience ends.

The other day I discovered you can trigger sounds in Fruityloops with
a MIDI keyboard. Plugged one in and we were playing string samples and
able to switch channels in FLoops with the MIDI channel changer on the
controller Keyboard. Hey this is pretty cool. I've got a copy of Giga
Piano somewhere, this could be usefull.

We had a multitrack session in Samplitude (switched from vegas earlier
this year and have never looked back) that we wanted to overdub some
of these string sounds from fruity. Well, opening both samplitude and
Fruity together was do-able - but glitch city. Long story short, I
ended up bouncing a stereo headphone mix to a CASSETTE (!) and they
output of the soundcard from Fruity was patched into an oatboard DAT!
The dat was then transfered into Samplitude via SPDIF and converted to
24 bit. Very clunky way of working, took ages and dropin were a
nightmare, and everytime we wanted to do another layer but hear our
previous take, another bounce to CASSETTE was required.

Can anyone explain to me the process I should have taken here? The
word "re-wire" comes to mind but I dont know what that means - I think
it is virtually wiring the output of one application to the recording
inputs of another? Sound something like what I need.

Maybe there is a MIDI 101 website? I know about 16 channels,
velocities and updating my reverbs with MIDI updates but this is where
my knowlege ends. Any help would be appreciated, and would help me
unlock what is probably a huge component of my studio. I thought MIDI
equals Inspector Gadget theme music.

Thanks - Adam B
SNJ STUDIO - SYDNEY

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <9b07629e.0412210610.51eef643@posting.google.com> snjstudio@dodo.com.au writes:

> I've managed to graduate SAE years ago and run a 2 inch analogue
> studio for the past 7 years fulltime, and never ever needed or wanted
> to know about MIDI.

It's amazing that 7+ years ago, they didn't teach you anything about
MIDI at SAE. At the time, there was quite a bit going on with "virtual
tracks" - a sequencer synchronized to tape and playing synths or
samplers.

> Hey this is pretty cool. I've got a copy of Giga
> Piano somewhere, this could be usefull.

It is, if you have a good sound card and a lousy piano (or even a good
piano and a lousy pianist, or not a good way of recording the piano -
you get the idea).

> We had a multitrack session in Samplitude (switched from vegas earlier
> this year and have never looked back) that we wanted to overdub some
> of these string sounds from fruity. Well, opening both samplitude and
> Fruity together was do-able - but glitch city.

> Can anyone explain to me the process I should have taken here?

Sounds like you need to optimize your computer better.

> The
> word "re-wire" comes to mind but I dont know what that means - I think
> it is virtually wiring the output of one application to the recording
> inputs of another? Sound something like what I need.

Rewire is a program which (simple explanation) allows two applications
to share a common driver. It's a whole lot more complicated and
intense than that.

> Maybe there is a MIDI 101 website?

Oh, probalby, but I think that Craig Anderton's book MIDI For
Musicians is still in print and you can probably learn a lot of the
basics from there quite easily.

Frankly, in today's world of cheap computers, I'd get a second
computer for your MIDI applications and just hook things together with
wires (or fiber optic lightpipes if you insist). It's a lot easier to
understand what's going on and what's going wrong when you do that,
and you'll avoid putting an additional load on your primary audio
computer.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
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