[Tekker]

Here's one of the tunes I've been working on with my new MIDI keyboard. This is my first real attempt working with MIDI, so this project has been an exciting new adventure. There's no vocals yet, my dad and sister will be singing (I don't sing ) and they're not quite finished yet.

It's a Christmas song, so it's just a "little" bit late, but it's taking a little longer than I hoped as been quite a production: 4 MIDI keyboard parts (2 synth parts, electric piano, and cello), real instruments (bass, percussion, and drums), and vocals. Plus the new puppy (which is like having a toddler around but much faster, with sharper teeth, and not 100% house broken) brought the project nearly to a halt. And now that school has started up, I don't know when I'm going to finish it completely... So I'm posting what I've got before it gets to be July.

Mary Did You Know - Music Only

I'll still probably keep tweaking it for a while, so critiques are more than welcome.

-tkr

[Jomi]

Beautiful. I can't wait to hear what lyrics you're going to put to this - or rather your Dad and sister but in the meantime the tune is just fabulous.

After my 4th listen, critique??? how???

[X4StringDrive]

Very sweet, so whats your first impressions of midi? better? easier? cleaner? thats all new to me{midi}

[Tekker]

Originally Posted by Jomi

Beautiful. I can't wait to hear what lyrics you're going to put to this - or rather your Dad and sister but in the meantime the tune is just fabulous.

Thanks Jomi.

The song is not mine, it was written by Mark Lowry and there have been a number of covers of it (which can be found on Rhapsody). One of the Christmas CD's we have had a version that I really liked so I listened to the arrangement on the CD and mimicked all of the instruments as close as I could. I can't find the Christmas CD with the version that I did and I don't know the name of the artist, but you can hear the lyrics from any of the versions on Rhapsody.
http://www.rhapsody.com/-search?from...rhapsodyListen

-tkr

[Tekker]

Originally Posted by X4StringDrive

so whats your first impressions of midi? better? easier? cleaner?

All of the above.

My MIDI keyboard was very easy to use. Just plug in the USB cable, select the USB device as the input for the track, and load a VSTi (VST Instrument) onto the track to get the sounds. No fussing with mic placement, running cables, adjusting volume levels loud enough so you can minimize hiss/noise and low enough so you don't clip, etc... MIDI is super easy. The hardest part was figuring out all of the controls on the VSTi's, because these type of effects are completely new to me.

The "sound" of MIDI depends 100% on the VSTi you use to generate the sounds. If you have a good sounding VSTi then it'll sound great. For 3 of the MIDI sounds (the electric piano and 2 synths) I used the light version of Yellow Tools Independence that came with the upgrade for my recording program. The cello was done with a free VSTi called Cellofan.

Many of the high quality VSTi's are real professionally recorded instruments (not computer generated sounds). The Independence program is like this and the full version comes with 70GB worth of sounds. My version is 4GB and most of that are drum/percussion sounds.

I didn't have to do a lot of tweaking to the VSTi's as they already sounded great. But my recorded tracks were another thing. The hardest part was trying to match the quality of the stuff I recorded here to the VSTi's. Songs done completely with high quality VSTi's would be much easier to mix as well recorded instruments will just about mix themselves.

-tkr

[Nutty]

That was absolutely beautiful Tekker.

I hate to sound real stupid here, but what are VSTi's?

Excellent job.

Nutty

[starsailor]

It's brilliant Tekker this is going to be a quality song, your production standard is very high and this is a very moving composition, a pleasure to hear it and it's never too late for a Christmas song

[Tekker]

Thanks a lot Nutty and starsailor.

Originally Posted by Nutty

I hate to sound real stupid here, but what at VSTi's?

VSTi is a VST Instrument. It is a plugin which you load just like you would load any VST effect (EQ, reverb, compressor, ect) to an audio track, but VSTi's are for MIDI tracks. The VSTi it is what you use to actually play MIDI sounds (kind of like sound fonts on your sound card but in VST format).

MIDI contains no actual audio, it is only instructions contain which note you pressed, how hard you pressed it, how long you held it, whether or not the sustain pedal was pressed, etc. My MIDI keyboard has no sounds built into it, so it won't make any sounds unless it is connected to something else that has sounds built into it. VSTi's are software plugins that have sounds built into them for playing MIDI data.

For instance, if you play a middle C, then D, and finally E on the MIDI keyboard you can load different VSTi's and have different instruments play those notes. For example, the cellofan VSTi I mentioned above will make it sound like a cello, or you could use something else and make it sound like a completely different instrument (piano, synth, etc). The VSTi's can be changed without having to re-record your MIDI track. So once you record the MIDI data, you can make it sound like whatever you want by swapping out the VSTi for a different one.

-tkr

[Rockerbob]

This sounds very nice!

I got into MIDI when it was young, like about 1982. I used it a lot for a while, but in recent years I've gone back to mostly guitar based music. I stink on keyboards. You sure can do a lot with MIDI. I still use it to program drums.

[allthumbs]

Sweet. I keep threatening to bring up my keyboard from the basement but, my wife is not thrilled with yet another instrument in the living room.

[eddiez152]

Tekker,
That was awesome. You did a fantastic job arranging that. Yes the keyboard allows us to explore music in many exciting ways.
Sure allows us to add our guitar and vocals to an entire band which many of us would like to have join in. These things are super.

[Jomi]

Thanks for the link Tekker but it wouldn't let me use the service, it says 'For US only'.

[eddiez152]

Tekker,
What keyboard are you using?

[tonedeaf]

That was great! I always wondered how MIDI worked. Thanks for the post.

[Tekker]

Thanks everyone.

Originally Posted by Jomi

Thanks for the link Tekker but it wouldn't let me use the service, it says 'For US only'.

That's strange. Here's another one:
Cellofan - Download - INSTALKI.pl

If that doesn't work here's a bunch of links, so you can keep trying until one of them works.
cellofan download - Google Search

Originally Posted by eddiez152

Tekker,
What keyboard are you using?

It's a M-Audio Keystation 88es ($200), full sized with 88 keys.

-tkr