[[email protected][_2_]]

So I'm a pro musician that got somewhat into recording to be a little
more self-sufficiant. I have a 24 track digital setup in my garage. I
usually just engineer my own records in my home, and then take them
elsewhere to be mixed by a pro. I probably won't win a grammy any time
soon, but the records come out sounding decent and usually get good
reviews on the production despite my limited knowledge. Since I'm self
taught, and my entire purpose of learming to record stuff is to record
mainly my own stuff.. I have a decent pair of ears and a rudimentary
understanding of basic effects that I already knew from playing music.
Other than that, most sound engineers would think I'm pretty dumb when
it comes to the field because I really only know how to record my own
music, and nothing else.
Some of the most basic concepts escape me.. such as the term midi. All
I know is that it's a way for certain machines to communicate and work
together and sync up. I've mostly associated it with electronic based
music. And since my music is all acoustic based, I've never bothered
to figure it out. My question is, given my set of circumstances..
would I have any benefit from using the midi capabilities of my
studio? As I said, I usually just mic my instruments, record them
flat, and take them to someone else to mix. Although I have considered
getting a little more into the digital mixing thing. I've downloaded
audacity and I've started trying to learn it.
Thanks in advance.

[D C[_2_]]

wrote:

Some of the most basic concepts escape me.. such as the term midi.


I've worked with MIDI since its inception, but it seems to me that you
already successfully do what you need to without it.

[Geoff]

wrote:
to figure it out. My question is, given my set of circumstances..
would I have any benefit from using the midi capabilities of my
studio? As I said, I usually just mic my instruments, record them
flat, and take them to someone else to mix. Although I have considered
getting a little more into the digital mixing thing. I've downloaded
audacity and I've started trying to learn it.
Thanks in advance.

If you have and can play all the instruments you ever could consider wanting
to use, no.

Ever use an electronic keyboard of any sort - then effectively you have
'used' midi in one form.

Whethr or not you would feel any benefit from recording midi information and
subsequently editing and changing it cannot really be predicted, but it can
make a key-change, after the fact, a simple thing. It could also open the
world of soft-synth and samplers up to you.

I prefer instrumants played live, but that's just me, and I do use midi
recording and playback for some things, not always trivial.

You can but try yourself - I'd say give it a go - get a USB controller
keyboard and a soft-synth to play with with minimum outlay, assuming you use
a computer.

geoff

[Richard Crowley]

wrote ...
......
Other than that, most sound engineers would think I'm pretty dumb when
it comes to the field because I really only know how to record my own
music, and nothing else.
Some of the most basic concepts escape me.. such as the term midi.

Spending a few milliseconds of quality time with such resources
as Google and Wikipedia would answer many of your questions.
For example... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midi

All I know is that it's a way for certain machines to communicate
and work together and sync up. I've mostly associated it with
electronic based
music. And since my music is all acoustic based, I've never bothered
to figure it out. My question is, given my set of circumstances..
would I have any benefit from using the midi capabilities of my
studio?

As others have observed you seem to have got this far
performing and recoding your acoustic music (on instruments
which you didn't disclose) without any knowledge or use of
MIDI.

MIDI is a tool which people use to provide specific solutions
or solve particular problems.

You could do a significant amount of research and learning
online at the cost of nothing more than a few hours of your
time.

Of course some instruments (such as keyboards, etc.) lend
themselves much more fundamentally to MIDI than others.
It might be helpful to disclose what instruments you play
if you want any pracical suggestions. Bonus question: what
style of music you specialize in.

We are assuming you are refering to the musical interface
"MIDI". It is spelled with all capital letters since it is an
acronym or initialism. Unless you mean "midi" which could
be a medium-length skirt from the 1970s, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI_%28disambiguation%29

[Romeo Rondeau[_4_]]

wrote:
So I'm a pro musician that got somewhat into recording to be a little
more self-sufficiant. I have a 24 track digital setup in my garage. I
usually just engineer my own records in my home, and then take them
elsewhere to be mixed by a pro. I probably won't win a grammy any time
soon, but the records come out sounding decent and usually get good
reviews on the production despite my limited knowledge. Since I'm self
taught, and my entire purpose of learming to record stuff is to record
mainly my own stuff.. I have a decent pair of ears and a rudimentary
understanding of basic effects that I already knew from playing music.
Other than that, most sound engineers would think I'm pretty dumb when
it comes to the field because I really only know how to record my own
music, and nothing else.
Some of the most basic concepts escape me.. such as the term midi. All
I know is that it's a way for certain machines to communicate and work
together and sync up. I've mostly associated it with electronic based
music. And since my music is all acoustic based, I've never bothered
to figure it out. My question is, given my set of circumstances..
would I have any benefit from using the midi capabilities of my
studio? As I said, I usually just mic my instruments, record them
flat, and take them to someone else to mix. Although I have considered
getting a little more into the digital mixing thing. I've downloaded
audacity and I've started trying to learn it.
Thanks in advance.

You only need MIDI if you are going to incorporate electronic
instruments into your music. Editing is easy using MIDI as well. I
sometimes use soft synths for instruments I don't have or can't play.
Ever tried to rent a Mellotron?

[[email protected][_2_]]

On Dec 30, 9:01*pm, "Richard Crowley" wrote:
wrote ...
.....

Other than that, most sound engineers would think I'm pretty dumb when
it comes to the field because I really only know how to record my own
music, and nothing else.
Some of the most basic concepts escape me.. such as the term midi.

Spending a few milliseconds of quality time with such resources
as Google and Wikipedia would answer many of your questions.
For example... *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midi

All I know is that it's a way for certain machines to communicate
and work together and sync up. I've mostly associated it with
electronic based
music. And since my music is all acoustic based, I've never bothered
to figure it out. My question is, given my set of circumstances..
would I have any benefit from using the midi capabilities of my
studio?

As others have observed you seem to have got this far
performing and recoding your acoustic music (on instruments
which you didn't disclose) without any knowledge or use of
MIDI.

MIDI is a tool which people use to provide specific solutions
or solve particular problems.

You could do a significant amount of research and learning
online at the cost of nothing more than a few hours of your
time.

Of course some instruments (such as keyboards, etc.) lend
themselves much more fundamentally to MIDI than others.
It might be helpful to disclose what instruments you play
if you want any pracical suggestions. *Bonus question: what
style of music you specialize in.

We are assuming you are refering to the musical interface
"MIDI". *It is spelled with all capital letters since it is an
acronym or initialism. *Unless you mean "midi" which could
be a medium-length skirt from the 1970s, etc.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI_%28disambiguation%29

Well, I've read up on it a bit. As I mentioned, I get that it's a way
for electronic music instruments to communicate and sync up. I just
can't figure out what someone like me would use it for. I hear it
tossed around quite a bit in studios. So I thought maybe I was missing
something. To be a bit more specific, my situation:

I play a number of different genres. But they are all acoustic based.
Acoustic drums, acoustic bass, acoustic amps and guitars, and vocals.
Sometimes I use keyboards for little parts here and there.. but I
basically play them the same as I would any other acoustic instrument.
I plug the outputs into my inputs and play manually over some other
music (made with acoustic instruments) that's already there. I never
program anything. I just play it. I can't figure out where MIDI would
fit in my process. I guess it really wouldn't, from what I'm getting
here.

[Scott Dorsey]

wrote:
Some of the most basic concepts escape me.. such as the term midi. All
I know is that it's a way for certain machines to communicate and work
together and sync up. I've mostly associated it with electronic based
music. And since my music is all acoustic based, I've never bothered
to figure it out. My question is, given my set of circumstances..

MIDI is the electronic instrument equivalent of a score. You write the
score, you break it down into MIDI files instead of charts for each
performer, and you let the synths perform them the way performers will.

This is good if you don't have a band. But as you may have noticed,
synthesizers are a poor substitute for a band.

would I have any benefit from using the midi capabilities of my
studio? As I said, I usually just mic my instruments, record them
flat, and take them to someone else to mix. Although I have considered
getting a little more into the digital mixing thing. I've downloaded
audacity and I've started trying to learn it.
Thanks in advance.

No, probably not. If you're happy working the way you are, and you are
getting results you like, why change it?
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[lawapa[_2_]]

I play acoustic instruments. Many years ago I got facinated with midi
and what it could do. The virtual instruments in hardware where not
real by can be quite close. Now software synths puts everything in the
box and they have gotten much better.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...12424206446309

Even the guitar parts in this piece are sequenced using sample sets I
made and sequenced using midi. And there are other examples in music
I've done for video.

[Laurence Payne]

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 03:36:14 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

Well, I've read up on it a bit. As I mentioned, I get that it's a way
for electronic music instruments to communicate and sync up. I just
can't figure out what someone like me would use it for. I hear it
tossed around quite a bit in studios. So I thought maybe I was missing
something. To be a bit more specific, my situation:

I play a number of different genres. But they are all acoustic based.
Acoustic drums, acoustic bass, acoustic amps and guitars, and vocals.
Sometimes I use keyboards for little parts here and there.. but I
basically play them the same as I would any other acoustic instrument.
I plug the outputs into my inputs and play manually over some other
music (made with acoustic instruments) that's already there. I never
program anything. I just play it. I can't figure out where MIDI would
fit in my process. I guess it really wouldn't, from what I'm getting
here.

MIDI might come in useful for constructing a click track (or, more
musically, a skeleton drum part to use as a guide when recording.)
Softsynths could extend your choice of keyboard sounds. But it
doesn't sound as if you're crying out for MIDI.

[Geoff]

wrote:
I play a number of different genres. But they are all acoustic based.
Acoustic drums, acoustic bass, acoustic amps and guitars, and vocals.
Sometimes I use keyboards for little parts here and there.. but I
basically play them the same as I would any other acoustic instrument.
I plug the outputs into my inputs and play manually over some other
music (made with acoustic instruments) that's already there. I never
program anything. I just play it. I can't figure out where MIDI would
fit in my process. I guess it really wouldn't, from what I'm getting
here.

If you want a timpani, you could go out and buy/hire a timpani, or play it
on a synth. Vibes, cello's, whatever....

geoff