Can you suggest some biab specific implementations of midi wrt styles and instrument tracks.
I am interested in moving my backing track work from 100% RealTracks/Real styles to Some percentage midi. Hopefully that will allow some greater control over the tracks I produce.
Some videos to help jump start that effort would be helpful.
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Extremely detailed, and covers just about everything with great thoroughness. Surprisingly, I didn't note anywhere that the presenter stated what the acronym 'MIDI' actually stood for in the video, but he did use it in the text description below his video.
Certainly a big effort went into the productions. Thanks for sharing.
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Thanks for posting these, Jim. I just started watching the first one and will save the links for later.
Although I know a lot about MIDI and prefer it to Real Tracks due to the ability to edit it and customize it to my personal desires, I'm sure there are more than a few new things to learn.
Plus sharing the links with some of my newbie customers might help them understand.
Thanks for the videos Jim. I don't have a lot of time to watch them so I will squeeze watching them in during my 3 way popcorn guitar practice the last hour of the day :-) 1/ eyes and ears on video, 2/ left hand feeding me popcorn, 3/ right hand practicing finger technique.
The first video gives a pretty good overview. The rest of the videos dig deeper into areas skimmed over in the overview. I'd say 75 - 80 percent of what most people want to know about midi is in the first video.
The first video gives a pretty good overview. The rest of the videos dig deeper into areas skimmed over in the overview. I'd say 75 - 80 percent of what most people want to know about midi is in the first video.
Hi Jim, I have watched 4 of them. I think what I hope to learn is how some of these DAW programs sample instruments and get it into midi so it sounds like the instrument. So lets take an extreme example of a simple single note played with a sax and later a guitar (no attempt to articulate at all and in fact the exact opposite every attempt not to articulate). My understanding is the technology exists to get the midi to copy these two different sounds pretty accurately. How do they do this? What DAWs can do this? How accurate a playback does it produce in the end? Can a human hear the difference? Can a serious of humans do the blindfold test and guess accurately what the two instruments are? Where can I hear examples if exactly what I describe? What does it cost? Even if it costs too much I would love to learn about this and see proof it works from start to finish. I don't ask for much do I...lol. Produce a video like this and it would get attention. Pure marketing.
To add to this testing even better to record a real sax to .wav (with attempt to have no articulations) and compare that to a midi version. Repeat with several instruments. Create reviews to compare no articulation real against midi. In short create ways for buyers to compare oranges to oranges and apples to apples. If they want articulations in midi they pay extra. I personally don't want these.
Emulating another instrument in MIDI is not all about tone. In fact as long as the tone is 'in the ballpark' it's not that important.
What IS important is copping the nuances of the instrument you are trying to emulate.
When a comedian does an impersonation of a famous person, does he/she have the same voice? Of course not.
Then how do we hear the famous person instead of the comedian? He/she studies the famous person's nuances, uses the ones he/she can copy, and ignores the ones he/she can't.
Same with a MIDI instrument. What are the nuances a player uses on his/her particular instrument. They are restricted by what the instrument can or can't do (for example a piano can't bend notes).
So for a sax, there are dozens of ways to articulate the note with variations of tongue placement, breath support, and airstream pressure -- there are ways to change the vowel sound of the tone by changing the oral cavity of the player - pitch variations of the reed are important, often scooping up to notes, or pitch vibrato that also changes the tone - grace notes mordents and other ornaments play a big part - throat growl and/or flutter tongue methods add various amounts of distortion - general tone gets brighter with more volume - and so on.
People new to MIDI often chase tone and forget about the way an instrument expresses itself. If you play that sax or guitar patch like a piano, it isn't going to fool anyone, no matter how good the tone is. If you play that piano patch like a sax or guitar, it won't fool anyone either.
Of course there may be times you want an instrument patch to not emulate what the patch is. Vibrato on piano? Why not if you are trying something new.
Emulating another instrument in MIDI is not all about tone. In fact as long as the tone is 'in the ballpark' it's not that important.
What IS important is copping the nuances of the instrument you are trying to emulate.
When a comedian does an impersonation of a famous person, does he/she have the same voice? Of course not.
Then how do we hear the famous person instead of the comedian? He/she studies the famous person's nuances, uses the ones he/she can copy, and ignores the ones he/she can't.
Same with a MIDI instrument. What are the nuances a player uses on his/her particular instrument. They are restricted by what the instrument can or can't do (for example a piano can't bend notes).
So for a sax, there are dozens of ways to articulate the note with variations of tongue placement, breath support, and airstream pressure -- there are ways to change the vowel sound of the tone by changing the oral cavity of the player - pitch variations of the reed are important, often scooping up to notes, or pitch vibrato that also changes the tone - grace notes mordents and other ornaments play a big part - throat growl and/or flutter tongue methods add various amounts of distortion - general tone gets brighter with more volume - and so on.
People new to MIDI often chase tone and forget about the way an instrument expresses itself. If you play that sax or guitar patch like a piano, it isn't going to fool anyone, no matter how good the tone is. If you play that piano patch like a sax or guitar, it won't fool anyone either.
Of course there may be times you want an instrument patch to not emulate what the patch is. Vibrato on piano? Why not if you are trying something new.
Insights and incites by Notes
My uses for midi are fairly trivial. Eventually the Midi gets dumped and replaced by a real instrument. For example a vocalist needs to hear the melody exact so they can learn the song. The Idea was maybe there was a fairly inexpensive way to make it sound a bit better. I have discovered that dropping it an octave helps. It sounds like for my trivial use it is not worth any effort at all.
Emulating another instrument in MIDI is not all about tone. In fact as long as the tone is 'in the ballpark' it's not that important.
What IS important is copping the nuances of the instrument you are trying to emulate.
When a comedian does an impersonation of a famous person, does he/she have the same voice? Of course not.
Then how do we hear the famous person instead of the comedian? He/she studies the famous person's nuances, uses the ones he/she can copy, and ignores the ones he/she can't.
Same with a MIDI instrument. What are the nuances a player uses on his/her particular instrument. They are restricted by what the instrument can or can't do (for example a piano can't bend notes).
So for a sax, there are dozens of ways to articulate the note with variations of tongue placement, breath support, and airstream pressure -- there are ways to change the vowel sound of the tone by changing the oral cavity of the player - pitch variations of the reed are important, often scooping up to notes, or pitch vibrato that also changes the tone - grace notes mordents and other ornaments play a big part - throat growl and/or flutter tongue methods add various amounts of distortion - general tone gets brighter with more volume - and so on.
People new to MIDI often chase tone and forget about the way an instrument expresses itself. If you play that sax or guitar patch like a piano, it isn't going to fool anyone, no matter how good the tone is. If you play that piano patch like a sax or guitar, it won't fool anyone either.
Of course there may be times you want an instrument patch to not emulate what the patch is. Vibrato on piano? Why not if you are trying something new.
Insights and incites by Notes
I agree with Notes.
Whenever I get something stuck in the back of my throat, I dislodge it by drinking a beer. It's called the Heineken Maneuver.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
My uses for midi are fairly trivial. Eventually the Midi gets dumped and replaced by a real instrument. For example a vocalist needs to hear the melody exact so they can learn the song. The Idea was maybe there was a fairly inexpensive way to make it sound a bit better. I have discovered that dropping it an octave help. It sounds like for my trivial use it is not worth any effort at all.
I have found that using vibes works best for a vocalist. Maybe for your other uses also.
Whenever I get something stuck in the back of my throat, I dislodge it by drinking a beer. It's called the Heineken Maneuver.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
I agree MarioD, Vibes is my normal choice. If BIAB had the option to play in the octave it is written in that would help. It plays ah octave higher which makes it sound tiny.
John, if you want to change the register a MIDI instrument plays in, without transposing the notation, go to Preferences, Channels. Subtract 1 from the octave for that instrument. I’m not at a computer but I think it’s the second column. Bass, for example, is -1. Do that for Melody or Soloist where your vibes are.
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John, if you want to change the register a MIDI instrument plays in, without transposing the notation, go to Preferences, Channels. Subtract 1 from the octave for that instrument. I’m not at a computer but I think it’s the second column. Bass, for example, is -1. Do that for Melody or Soloist where your vibes are.
Gee thanks Matt! I tried that and it works.
So this is interesting. As shown in the attached picture I opened a blank file in BIAB and entered middle C on every quarter note for 2 bars and set it to play over and over in a loop then I took a computer tuner (NCH Perfect Pitch) and tested it and at channel 4 octave setting zero it correctly plays C4. However again as the picture shows it displays as C5. A bug?
John, there are possibly two things happening here.
BIAB has several ways to do transposition, and this gives you the option to see the actual pitch being played, or not. If you want more details, write back and tell me what you want to see.
And, there is not universal agreement on what note Middle C is according to manufacturers of MIDI equipment and music software programmers. Some say C4, some say C5. Not smart.
Does that help?
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
And, there is not universal agreement on what note Middle C is according to manufacturers of MIDI equipment and music software programmers. Some say C4, some say C5. Not smart.
Does that help?
Adding to the confusion is that fact that I have some software that uses C3! Plus they all have Middle C at MIDI note 60!
Whenever I get something stuck in the back of my throat, I dislodge it by drinking a beer. It's called the Heineken Maneuver.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
I googled "what is middle c in scientific notation" and got. Middle C (the fourth C key from left on a standard 88-key piano keyboard) is designated C4 in scientific pitch notation, and c′ in Helmholtz pitch notation; it is note number 60 in MIDI notation.
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