May 15, 2007
MIDI Interfaces and Recording MIDI from Synths
Here's a recent question we answered about recording MIDI from a keyboard synth that covers a number of the problems one can run into with all this. We use Windows systems ourselves, unfortunately, and plan to switch to Mac now that they're on Intel chips - we just didn't want Yet Another Hardware platform in the studio before OS X ran on Intel chips, since we have Windows 2K, XP, and three flavors of Linux running already, and didn't want to make things worse by having a totally different set of hardware and spare parts as well.
There's a couple of questions in this one, so we'll try to address each:
1. Your Roland Fantom doesn't have to be hooked up to a computer - unless you want to either record and/or play-back MIDI ("sequencing"), which it sounds like you want to do. So you need to buy either a higher-end soundcard with a MIDI interface that supports at least one MIDI connection, or a dedicated MIDI interface - the eMagic AMT8 although no longer made is considered (and in my opinion as well) the "Gold Standard" for interfaces and connects to your PC via serial or USB (the USB is better, less likely to overload the connection if you're running a lot of MIDI to multiple synths) and M-Audio makes some decent, affordable ones. There's also the Echo Darla, Layla, and Gina cards, which are Gold Standard as well, but more expensive and less ports than the AMT8, and most of the Echo products also try to serve as soundcards, and as such, I prefer trying to find a used AMT8 on Ebay since it's purely and entirely devoted to MIDI and nothing more, so it's got a lot of special engineering and features that make it excel. We've had one for years in our studio and would never go back to the Layla or Gina units we had.
You can read up a decent and most importantly fairly short explanation of MIDI interfaces in general can be found here:
2. The next part is figuring out how to get the MIDI setup on your computer working. On a Mac we understand it's easy but we're not (yet, but soon) a Mac shop, but in Windows, no matter what interface you use, you have to go to Settings > Systems > Hardware Manager and get to the MIDI controller part, and use that to turn on each channel, label it (which shows up in programs and makes your like *much* easier) and so on - if you don't do that, the software you install with your MIDI interface w/Windows won't be enough - you have to go through and assign both the IN and OUT for *every* port to a dedicated device. It's a totally pain, and really stupid to have to do the IN and OUT separately since 99% of the time they're the same, and so we recommend being very careful about this part - we wasted a month once having problems that turned out to be simply that the settings under the Windows System Hardware Manager were different for the MIDI IN port vs. the same MIDI OUT port/channel.
3. OK, so assuming you've gotten through the first part, which is getting a good MIDI connection between your computer and Fantom, then the next part is easy, the Fruity Loops manual explains how to set up controls and tracks to work with specific MIDI devices. It sounds like you do have some control and hookup set up already that semi-works, and the problem might be what's addressed in part 2 above, where if you're using Windows it's easy to get the MIDI IN or OUT settings for a port working but they're not both configured identically, and that could be the problem.
Otherwise, recording MIDI is pretty much the same as playing it back. You need MIDI OUT from your computer going to the MIDI IN on the Fantom, and vice-versa: MIDI OUT on the Fantom going to MIDI IN on your computer. Then using the 'Loops manual, configure it to be set up for that port, and when you do, you can read how to record MIDI sequences with Fruity Loops to play back later. It's all in the manual, and if you keep running into problems, you can always call them for tech support. That's the best reason, aside from legal and ethical ones, to buy software - the manual should explain everything you need, and if it's poorly written (which is often, but the Fruity Loops one is not bad) then you can always contract tech support and bug them to figure out what you don't have configured correctly.
Suffice to say that not only do we believe all audio software you use regularly you should buy, for reasons legal & ethical, but most of all, technical support. We don't mind people using pirated software as a "try and buy" approach, which we think most audio software companies need to allow (like a 30-day or 60-day full version that "expires") but if we try something out and use it and decide it's something we'll want to keep using and add to our stripped-down audio software collection, we definitely buy it, hopefully used, but even at full-price, it's worth it.
April 10, 2007
Good Books to Learn MIDI
The whole MIDI setup is very easy once you get over the hump of figuring out how it works - it's far less complicated than it seems. That said, here's a link to a list of books we recommend to people who want to learn MIDI:
Any one of the first 4-5 books should be enough to really get a good understanding of how MIDI works.