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Dad, how will I know when I've become an adult.

When your day is ruined because they rearranged the grocery store.

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Have a look at my post and the BIAB FAQ that deals with midi. That should have been the first place to visit.

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Originally Posted By: Bob Calver
Have a look at my post and the BIAB FAQ that deals with midi. That should have been the first place to visit.


Yes bob, you are correct.


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When your day is ruined because they rearranged the grocery store.

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So, I opened BB and had my midi keyboard turned on with it's sound turned off.

I played a few notes and heard the piano. All good. I observer the following on the screen.

THRU on the mixer screen was showing me activity. So.. I right clicked on THRU and a new window opened.

It had 4 options. The bottom one is SELECT MIDI INSTRUMENT (patch)

Clicking on that one gave me a new drop down with a variety of options. Near the middle of the list was favorite patches. One of those was Muted trumpet and below that was Tenor sax. Clicking on those gave me that instrument immediately.

I did a screenshot with my camera and attached it as a file you should be able to open.

https://app.box.com/s/4wqc0l7kt6s1ueuwoh2sd10szc4vwj07


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+++ HERE +++ is a link to the first of six MIDI video tutorials. They are each less than 10 minutes long and explain midi clearly and concisely.

A PG Music tutorial you may find useful is +++ HERE +++ It's called MIDI in a nutshell.


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Originally Posted By: Byron Dickens
Originally Posted By: MarioD


One would have assumed by this he already had at least some basics down.


Yeah. You would think.

Apparently not, judging from his posts.

The catch is that the OP may know too little about MIDI to know how best to phrase the post. I think the post was a little unclear for that reason and we perhaps presumed too much.


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How does one eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.


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Originally Posted By: Gordon Scott
Originally Posted By: Byron Dickens
Originally Posted By: MarioD


One would have assumed by this he already had at least some basics down.


Yeah. You would think.

Apparently not, judging from his posts.

The catch is that the OP may know too little about MIDI to know how best to phrase the post. I think the post was a little unclear for that reason and we perhaps presumed too much.


I know that I did!


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I've just posted 'Are RTs killing midi' in the BIAB forum. Maybe I should have posted here. Not sure if cut and paste between forums is allowed but here's what i said..............

buy BIAB today and you can jump straight into RTs. amazing real isntruments playing in wonderful styles.

i have every RT and every style so far, and i must admit i tend to use real styles almost automatically these days on new projects.

but i have midi when i need it. i have favourite midi parts i drop in - like a wonderful strings part i discovered years ago.

and for solos i often use midi - exactly the notes and timings i want and after hunting around for samples, exactly the instument sound i want.

but there have been a number of recent posts which suggest new users have no idea about midi. and given that RTs are so good they have no need to learn midi to create superb songs. but i can't help but feel they are missing out on a wonderful musical tool.

if their experience is the mickey mouse sounds of a bad midi player then no wonder they get put off. but a little extra work and investigation will open up a huge sonic arsenal that broadens their musical horizons.

what do other users think? is the excellence of RTs killing midi? and how do we sell the benefits to new users that make the learning curve worthwhile?

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some users may not know it, but MIDI is what allows RTs to even exist, so I don't think RTs are killing MIDI at all, just showing the possibilities .. though a beginner may not grasp that yet
Without MIDI Key and Tempo, RTs would be like canned loops from the 90s (just prerecorded audio)

Plus without MIDI there would be no Kontakt, GM sounds etc. so eventually it becomes something new to learn, just depends on your starting point and path to learning music
Some of us old users learned MIDI first, I suppose some very new users may not have learned it yet, but it is definitely not 'killing MIDI' by taking advantage of it


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Thank you Mario D. I really appreciate yours and everyone else's input. I am working through your suggestions and I am sure I'll get the hang of it. It does seem that I am doing something wrong somewhere, because now I got the brass(ish) sound, but trying to figure out how, I cannot get any other(ish) sound. It's like playing golf: that one time you get it perfect, you don't know what you did...

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What are you using for your MIDI sounds?
Can you take a screen shot of your setup?
Can you take a screen shot of the mixer?

We will need more information to help, otherwise we are just guessing in our responses.


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When your day is ruined because they rearranged the grocery store.

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Originally Posted By: rharv
some users may not know it, but MIDI is what allows RTs to even exist, so I don't think RTs are killing MIDI at all, just showing the possibilities .. though a beginner may not grasp that yet
Without MIDI Key and Tempo, RTs would be like canned loops from the 90s (just prerecorded audio)

Plus without MIDI there would be no Kontakt, GM sounds etc. so eventually it becomes something new to learn, just depends on your starting point and path to learning music
Some of us old users learned MIDI first, I suppose some very new users may not have learned it yet, but it is definitely not 'killing MIDI' by taking advantage of it


Indeed. Many of the early DAWs including Cakewalk started life as Midi sequencers before they added audio capabilities.


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rharv makes a very good point and Guitarhacker expands it well. those of us of a certain age started out with midi only and we learnt how to manipulate and edit our tracks. i used the same work process then as i do now. rough out in BIAB then edit the midi in PowerTracks. except today its RB for the edit and polish.

then the wonder of RTs came along. we got a huge bonus in musical terms.

but come to BIAB today and you can just plug in RTs and get great sounding music without midi. and the call is for extra funcionlaity within BIAB rather than use a separate DAW.

I made a prediction (always risky!) in the BIAB forum - i think one of 2024's suite of 'improvements' will be making playable RT's capable of taking a keyboard input and recording parts from scratch or at least adding hooks and riffs in the right places to a generated RT.

We all know that that will in fact be mainly a midi process but BIAB will become the 'front end' of midi much the same as windows became the 'front end'of DOS.

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Quote:
but come to BIAB today and you can just plug in RTs and get great sounding music without midi


I think that's incorrect; as I understand it you are still using MIDI to generate those RTs behind the scenes
I am pretty sure the whole basis is still MIDI .. the tempo and key sig are still based on MIDI

You may not be using MIDI for 'sounds' but it still uses MIDI

//not trying to be snarky, just pointing it out for clarity

Last edited by rharv; 07/29/23 12:39 PM.

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yes of course midi is involved but maybe the phrase should be 'without consciously using anything to do with midi and without learning any of its capabilties' which was my main point

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I think that, in addition to RealTracks that are 'controlled' by MIDI as described by rharv and others above, PG Music has delivered on exactly what so many people requested: the ability of RealTracks to play your melody. Again, it's under control of MIDI. Playable RealTracks are more related to MIDI than most users may realize.


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Hi folks,
Thank you for all your comments and help. I am only beginning to understand what I am confused about, but

I have as Midi Output Driver selected VirtualMidiSynth which I downloaded from Coolsoft.
Synthesizer Sound Card setting is :Coyote Wavetable DXI
GM2 Support is General Midi 2 Support
When I tick Use VSTi/DXi Synth I get a screen that looks like some sort of a control panel which says sforzando, but when I do that there is no midi sound. When I untick it, I get midi sound if I select the sforzando plugin.
I also downloaded Compifont_NEW.sf2, but don't know what to do with it.
I am beginning to understand what I am confused about, but not near having it under wraps yet.

PS.How do I paste screenshots on the forum?

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There is no such thing as "MIDI sound."

MIDI is a communication protocol.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI


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Originally Posted By: Oom Karel
I have as Midi Output Driver selected VirtualMidiSynth which I downloaded from Coolsoft.
Synthesizer Sound Card setting is :Coyote Wavetable DXI

If I understand correctly what you've written, I think that means BIAB is still using the Coyote synth for you sounds

In the "MIDI/Audio Drivers setup" dialog, I think you want the "MIDI Output driver" set to "<No MIDI/sound output>", the two checkboxes to the right checked and to set the "VSTi/DXI Synth" to be VSTSynthFont64. See pages 8 and 9 of the manual.


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