PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Sound card vs midi / audio interface

Apologies for all of te fat finger mistakes in my previous post. Typing on a nook color in the dark while trying to keep from squishingnthengnat that is attracted to the backlit screen!

Rob,
It's all about sounds. It always has been, and always will be. Where the sounds are don't matter. If they're outside of your computer, you need to get them into your computer, if they're in the computer, you need to get them out to your speakers.

You need a way to control those sounds. If the sounds are outside of your computer, you may 'control' them by playing a guitar or your piano. If they're inside the computer already, you may need to use something like a keyboard controller, or software like Band In A Box, or Real Band.

So, let's break this down. You've got a song you want to record. Let's say we're going to do a jazz standard as a quartet. We want drums, bass, guitar and piano. We'll use Band In A Box to generate the drums, bass and guitar parts. You've been here long enough to know how BIAB works, and I will assume that you can and have figured out the Real Tracks and Real Drums to make a backing track the way you want it. So, once you get those three tracks exactly the way you want them, you drag and drop them into Real Band. Now, we want to use your Yamaha piano to do your part.

On your song 'Bassics' it does not sound at all like a real piano, so you probably used a soft synth, like Scott was talking about. But, not all soft synths are the same, some sound much better than another, primarily because of the time the engineer put into recording the actual instrument, and how big the sample data is. The sax is also a soft synth and it's easy to tell that.

Let's say that you want to redo this song. You want to use a real piano. We have to find a way to get the piano into the computer. For that, you will need an audio interface, but you'll need a little bit more than that, too. I'm assuming your piano is a true acoustical instrument, and not a digital piano, because if it was a digital piano, that would make things so much easier. With your piano, you'll need at least one, maybe two microphones, if you want a stereo sound. Micing a piano is not even something I'm going to get into here. In addition to the microphones, you'll need a mic pre amp for each one. Mixers are a great place to find mic pre amps! So, get a small 12 channel mixer. The Behringer ones aren't too bad, I still use mine. Now, the output of the mixer will end up going to the input of audio interface. This could be the RealTek sound card in your computer (please don't) or something like the M-Audio 2496, or something really expensive. The 2496 will work just fine, thank you. Next, you'll need something to hear the OUTPUT of the sound card, which usually means a set of monitors. Now, remember, we've dragged the Real Tracks and Real Drums from BIAB over to Real Band, so we have all that great audio already there. There's no need to re-record it. Now all we need to do is get the piano into Real Band. Depending on how your mixer works, you may be able to route the outgoing signal from your audio interface to your headphones without sending it back into the mix, something we don't want to do. In your headphones, you'll hear the tracks already in Real Band, and again, depending on the routing options, you should also be able to hear the piano you're playing at the same time. But, only the piano will get recorded.

So, you'll have one track of audio for the drums, provided by BIAB, another for the bass, another for the guitar, again by BIAB. You can also put in a sax track, too, provided by BIAB. Arm a track for recording, press Record, and the mic'd piano will be recorded to that one track.

When you're finished, turn on the monitors, and play back the entire song, and each instrument should be on it's own track and therefore controllable individually.

Soft Synths

Soft Synths come in a couple of varieties, DXi, VSTi, AUs and RTS (for Pro Tools) Primarily, we'll deal with DXi and VSTi. VSTis are the defacto standard for non-Pro Tools applications. The last time I played with Real Band, it did not do well with them, but I haven't used it in a while, so maybe the later versions have tightened up VSTi integration. The sounds of the DXis and VSTis are stored in your computer, just like the Coyote Forte and Roland VSC, or Roland TTS-1. Some of them actually will generate the sounds on the fly. A good software synth is very difficult to tell from a real instrument. Go to http://www.garritan.com/ and look for the Personal Orchestra 4 link on the right side of the page, and listen to 'Rhapsody in Blue.' This is what a software synth *can* sound like, although it takes some real work.
Unlike something like the Forte, the VSC, or the TTS-1, which are 'multi-timbral' synths, meaning that you can play 16 channels on them at one time, most software synths are single channel instruments. This means that you have to have multiple instances of the synth running for each channel or track you want to use. Since BIAB has not, to my knowledge, supported multiple software synths or MIDI interfaces, you are stuck using a multi-timbral synth. Most times the sound quality falters because of that. But, provided you have the computer horsepower, memory and hard drive space, that isn't really too much of an issue today.
So, let's go back to Bassics and say you want to add a B3 track to it, complete with bass and both manuals. You want a REALLY good B-3 emulation, and since you want to play all three parts, only the guitar and drums from BIAB are going to be playing. You're not going to edit the B3 Real Tracks, so you need an organ synth. You might be able to find a really good soft synth for free, or you might purchase one from a company, like Native Instruments. You can download, for Free, their Kontact 5 sample player, and then for like $120, you can purchase the Vintage Organs sample library. You can even alter the sound in real time just by playing with the drawbars! You will need a keyboard controller to play this, of course.

However, all soft synth sounds will still come out of your audio interface card to your monitor speakers. The nice thing is that in Real Band, you can 'render' them, which means you can create the audio track for them (because they're still MIDI) just by pushing a button, and they will automatically take the MIDI data you've recorded and then by using the computer processor, turn it into audio data. This is one of the biggest reasons why soft synths are so popular. I have ONE keyboard. It cost me $2,800. I could purchase a controller keyboard an a LOT of software synths for that price, but my keyboard gives me features that a soft synth won't, like being an Arranger keyboard. Yes, I can program all my songs into BIAB, but for those times I just want to sit down and play, nothing beats an Arranger keyboard. Plus, I have some very nice sounds on it.

So, with your piano, you could purchase the following to get into really recording good sounds. I assume you already have the latest version of Band In A Box with all Real Drums and Real Tracks.

A mixer, a Behringer UB802. I've had one of these for years, and I still use it:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/behringer-eurorack-ub802-mixer/631238000000000

I couldn't find a 'two set' combo pack, but you can get three mics for $130. They have stands and cables, and you'll only be using two at a time, so you'll have a back up.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/akg-d-9000-with-cable-and-stand-3-pack/486188000000000

Finally, you need something to listen to your mixes with. I have two of the Generation 1 Rokit RP5s, and I just love them. They are priced at 'each', so $300
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio...o-monitor-each.

Of course, you'll need the Audio Interface, and there's nothing better in the price range than the M-Audio 2496, IMHO.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio...701341000000000

Lastly, you'll need some sort of MIDI Controller to control your soft synths in real time. Something like Oxygen 61 will give you a keyboard that not only inputs MIDI data, but can also control software synths, like the Vintage Organ drawbars, in real time.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/keyboards-midi/m-audio-oxygen-61--usb-midi-controller

It's a bit of money to lay out all at once, at least for the hardware, but you can get some really great sounds just by switching to Software Synths, recording your acoustic piano, and using Real Drums and Real Tracks.

Hope this doesn't confuse you any.

Gary

Hi Gary. Great Post! Nice to see you're still hanging out here. I've put all of the valuable things you told me about to good use. Thanks heaps!

Stan

FYI - real B3 sounds can be had for much less than $120. VB3 is the answer, http://www.genuinesoundware.com/?a=showproduct&b=24

This is like the B4, in that it is a physical emulation of the circuitry of the B3. Listen to the demos.

-Scott

Stan,
Been a while since I've been here, not sure that I'll be back as much as I used to be, my 'new' hobby takes much of my time and money. If anyone ever tells you shooting .22LRs is cheap and inexpensive, tell them to come talk to me! It IS addictive, though.

I don't remember if we can stick images in these posts, I'm pretty sure we can, I just have to remember how to do it.



If this works, this is a picture of my mom shooting one of my new addictions.

She didn't do too badly, either, for an 80 year old who's never shot aperture sights at 25 yards.





This is where my time is spent instead of in front of my keyboard or computer making music.

Gary

Hiya Scott,
It's been a while since I've been looking at Soft Synths, so excuse me for being out of the loop a little bit.

Gary

She's grouping well.

25 yards is combat *handgun* range.

Good to start someone out at 25, but as soon as possible, move targets downrange, the rifle should be doing those kind of groups at the 50 or 100yd mark.

Ah, the smell o' cordite in the morning.

Enjoy.


--Mac

Mac,
Remember, she's 79 years old, she'll be 80 in December. She can barely see the targets.

I did set up some targets at 50 yards, and they weren't nearly as tight, they were all in the 9/10 rings.

With *HER* rifle, however, she'll group dime sized five round groups at 50 yards, and while not all the time, has done silver dollar sixed groups at 100 yards. She was shooting 4" groups at 200 yards the other day, as well. SHe has a 20 power Nikon scope on her CZ Lux.

Mom's been shooting for about 4 years now, my step father is teaching her. She has a Browning Buckmark with a red dot, a Sig Mosquito, her Ruger Single Six (which she absolutely loves) and a Sig P229. She knows how to use all of them.

Gary

That's great, Gary.

Just keep on trying to move those targets back every now and again.


--Mac

Gary - just to admit my ignorance, the Native Instruments B4 is no longer for sale - seems Native Instruments gave up on it a couple years ago and now push samples only. I'm guessing it was too expensive to hire the programmers for the physical modeling synthesis.

AFAIC, the B4II was done and complete. There really wasn't *ANYTHING* to add to that program in order to emulate the tonewheel organs. Never understood why they discontinued it, perhaps the switch to new Windows Operating systems was the real reason, don't know.

As already noted in thie thread, there are now a lot of good options for tonewheel organ/rotating speaker simulators, some are even freeware/shareware now.


--Mac