IMMusic Inc.

If you missed our online workshop “Intro to MIDI” on 03/06 you can watch a replay of it here.

Make sure you sign up for the next session, Saturday 03/20 @ 2:00 Eastern, where we will take a look at General MIDI and General MIDI2. Sign up at IMMusic Inc. Webinars.

See you there!

Join us on Saturday 03/20 @ 2:00 Eastern as we take a look at GM and GM2 MIDI files and go over some of the differences. Sign up below. Limited to the first 50 attendees.

New to MIDI? Want to learn the basics of what it is and how to make your first MIDI connections? Join us for an overview of MIDI. Limited to the first 50 registrations.

Sign up using the form below. We will be send you an e-mail with logon instructions for the Webinar. See you there!

All modern DAW’s (Digital Audio Workstations) offer multiple views of your project. Like just about anything computer based there are multiple ways to do the same thing and perhaps part of what makes a personal computer – personal. We selected the three views that we use the most in Sonar 8 when working on a project and listed some of the things you can do from each view.

The first view is called the Track View and probably where we spend most of our time. It allows access to most everything you need when working with MIDI or audio based data. In the MIDI world you can set volume and channel information along with panning and reverb levels. You also have access to the MIDI bank and patch commands allowing you to select the instrumentation used in your arrangement.

If you work with audio tracks, similar to above, you can set all of the various levels. In addition, you can access any of  the built-in effects processors that you may want to add to a a track. Out of the box Sonar provide a nice selection of reverbs, compressors, delays, flangers… the list goes on.

Sonar 8 Track View

If we are not working in the track view than you will probably find us in the event list view. While this is used in the MIDI world only, it allows you to drill down to an individual note or any other MIDI event and make adjustments to a single event. For example, you may have one track that has cymbals crashes on it and find that one event is considerably louder than all the others. A quick fix is to bring up the event list view, find the offending cymbal crash, and change the velocity up and down to match the velocity of the other cymbal crashes.

Sonar 8 Event List View

As we have stated to work with more audio data, we have also started working with the console view. Pretty much as the name implies, it brings up a virtual console similar to a physical mixer you would find in a studio. You can use the console view for both MIDI and audio tracks and also with projects that contain both track types. All of the same editing features found in the track view mentioned above are available in the the console view.

Sonar 8 Console View

We would be interested to hear and learn how you use the different views available in your favorite DAW. Drop us a note – We might just start using a new view!

If you read our posting titled “A look at the General MIDI and General MIDI 2 Bank Commands” this video shows a few examples of using the bank commands in a GM2 format file to access an additional 128 patches along with additional drumsets.

If you have been around a keyboard or digital piano within the past few years then you probably have heard references to General MIDI and General MIDI 2. How does that fit in with MIDI? Is there a difference and should you care? The answer depends on if you plan to share your MIDI work with other musicians or if you will be saving the data just for your own use. If it is the latter then you really can save the file in any format you want, since you will be the only person using the file.

If you would like to take a MIDI file of one of your performances and share it with others then you will want to follow the basic rules of General MIDI, usually referred to as GM or GM2, which is short for General MIDI 2.

Just about any keyboard, digital piano, or organ made over the past couple of years will be GM aware and more than likely will be GM2 capable. To verify that your keyboard supports GM or GM2 first, look in your owner’s manual. You should also be able to find the GM or GM2 logos on your keyboard.

Both GM and GM2 formats are nothing more than a standard that allows any piece of equipment displaying the GM or GM2 logo to understand and share data in those formats. That means if you record a song and you select an Acoustic Bass, Piano and Standard Drum Set, you can expect the file to play back on any GM/GM2 instrument with the same instruments – Acoustic Bass, Piano and Standard Drum Set. While the sound quality of those instruments may vary from vendor to vendor, you can expect them to be reasonably close.

General MIDI, created back in 1991 is still in use today. There are 128 instruments in the General MIDI patch map. The instruments are grouped into various instrument families.

A break out of the instruments available:

In the case of the percussion sounds, each percussion sound will be located at the same note location. For example, note number 35 would be the bass drum. When you play note 35 on MIDI channel 10, and you are in GM mode, you will always hear bass drum.

Although you have access to 128 instruments in General MIDI mode, you will only have access to one drum kit, the standard drum kit.

This is a perfect lead in for GM2 or General MIDI 2. Introduced in 1999 as an extension to the original GM format, GM2 allows both MIDI channels 10 and 11 for percussion parts along with the very important MIDI bank change command.

Let’s go back to the Bass Drum example. In General MIDI, we mentioned that you could only access the standard drum kit. You probably have multiple drum set on your instrument. Depending on the type of music you are performing, selecting the correct drum set can and make or break the performance. To access a different drum set you need to issue a bank change command along with the program number of the desired drum set. In GM2 mode, nine drum kits are available.

The same thing is true for your instrument patches. You will be able to select additional banks of instruments by using the bank select command. In GM2, the number of instruments you will have access to grows to 256 instruments compared to only 128 in GM mode. The additional instruments fall under the same instrument families found in GM. For example, in the piano family you will find the addition of Detuned Electric Piano located in Bank 1 Program Number 5 and Detuned Electric Piano2 located in Bank 1 Program Number 6. This is in addition to the Electric Piano 1 and Electric Piano 2 piano offered in GM mode, which are located in Bank 0 in the same program number locations (5 and 6).

To summarize, GM2 files will offer a wider palette of sounds and supporting effects, along with additional control features allowing more editing of the final musical performance.

So what does all this sound like? Take a listen to a short sample of a jazz arrangement of Bach Prelude XV, which is a General MIDI format sequence using the instruments mentioned earlier, Acoustic Bass, Piano, and Standard Drum Set.

Since this file is saved in General MIDI format it will play the correct instruments regardless of the manufacturer of the GM capable MIDI device it is played back on. That could be the sound card in your computer or your multi-thousand dollar keyboard. The only difference in the final listening experience will be the quality of the sampled instruments that your MIDI device offers.

In the midst of working on a project earlier this week, we remembered a feature in Sonar that we used a few years ago and had forgotten about. Let’s take a quick look at the Play List feature. What is it and what can you do with it?

It provides a quick way to build a list of tunes and automate the playback of those tunes.

• For example if you are working on a CD project:
• Allows you to take a listen to the overall mix of the songs and verify the overall balance before you burn that master copy.
• Similar to above  -  take a listen to the songs on your latest project and re-arrange the order of tunes.
• During a live show, while you are on a break, don’t play someone else’s music – let it play some of  your pre-recorded tunes.
• I’m sure there are others ways to use the feature. Add your thoughts in the comment section.

Sonar Playlist Feature

To build a playlist:

• From File, Click New and choose Play List Set from the list, click OK.
• Add songs to the play list – Click or press Insert, choose a file from the Add Song to Play List dialog box, and click Open
• Change the order of songs – Simply drag the file to the desired location in the list.
• Remove a song from the play list – Select the song and click the Delete icon.
• Set the delay after a song – Click on the song in the play list, click the hour glass icon in the toolbar. You have three options:

1. No delay.
2. Wait for Key Press.
3. Wait “x” number of seconds.

• Save the play list – Chose File-Save, enter a file names, and click Save.
• Activate the play list – Click the “enable play list icon” in the Play List view toolbar so that the button is pressed. If this button is not pressed, only a single file will play when you start playback.
• Choose the starting song – Double-click the file you want to start with. The project is opened and displayed as usual.
• Start playback – press the Spacebar.
• Stop playback – press the Spacebar.
• Loop continuously over the play list – Click the Loop icon in the Play List view toolbar.

A nice, useful and simple feature to use. Give it a try on your next production.

You just brought your shiny new keyboard home. As you are plugging in the power cord, you notice two funny looking connectors on the back labeled MIDI In and MIDI Out. Just what am I going to do with those you wonder?

Welcome to the world of MIDI! First, the acronym stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface.

MIDI dates back to the early 80’s and is still widely used in the music industry today. It allows you to connect various types of equipment together. MIDI capable keyboards, computers, and drum machines are some of the most popular. The world of MIDI is full of terms and acronyms. What follows is a high-level overview of a few of them to help get you started.

Depending on the device involved, you may have two, three, or more MIDI ports on your device.

• MIDI In – to send MIDI data INBOUND to the device.
• MIDI Out – to send MIDI data OUTBOUND from the device.
• MIDI Thru – May not be on all devices, but will allow you to connect an additional MIDI device and share the inbound MIDI data with that additional device. The data is routed directly from the MIDI In port on the first device and out of the thru port and is not modified in any way.

Some higher end devices will have multiple MIDI In and / or MIDI Out ports.

For example, let’s take two keyboards. Connect MIDI Out on keyboard number one to MIDI In on keyboard number 2.  Keyboard number one sends information about what note you played and how long you held the note. Keyboard number two receives that information and will play the same note for the same length of time. In this case, you could have a flute sound coming from the first keyboard, and an oboe sound coming from the second keyboard.

Another common example might be:

• MIDI Out of your keyboard to the MIDI In on your computer.
• MIDI Out of your computer to the MIDI In on your keyboard.

This configuration will allow you to record MIDI information using a sequencer program on your computer. Once you have the data in the form of MIDI events in your computer, many possibilities open up. You can edit the data, print it, and have the ability to play back your performance by sending the MIDI data back to the keyboard.

Both are very simple examples, but start to give you an idea of some of the many things possible when you start connecting your MIDI capable devices together.

MIDI does not contain any audio information; it does contain data referred to as MIDI events.

• NOTE ON Event – Pretty much, what is says. It contains the note number, what MIDI channel to use, and the velocity, or how hard or fast, the note was played.
• NOTE OFF Event – Now that the note is “on” eventually, we need to turn it off. Similar to the note on event, the note off event contains velocity information and which note to turn off.
• PROGRAM CHANGE Event – If you play any type of electric keyboard, you more than likely have pushed a button or turned a knob to change from a piano sound to a flute or some other sound. When you do, you are performing a program change event. In MIDI terms, how you tell the other device what sound or patch you want loaded.
• CONTROLLER Event – There are 128 different MIDI controllers. They “control” things like volume and effects. We are not going to list them all here but let’s look at a few of the important ones.
  • Controller 0 — Bank Selection
  • Controller 7 — Main Volume
  • Controller 10 — Pan – Similar to the balance control on your stereo
  • Controller 11 — Expression
  • Controller 64 — Damper or Sustain Pedal

Earlier, we mentioned something called a MIDI channel.  Most folks are familiar with a car or home stereo. In most cases, that is a 2-channel configuration. You might recognize it as the left and right channel. In the MIDI world, there are 16 channels. All channels are created equal and can be used for any type of MIDI information.

Many times, you will find that not all 16 channels are actually used. For example, a common General MIDI format sequence will have the following track / channel layout.

• MIDI Channel 2 – Bass track
• MIDI Channel 3 – Left hand /Accompaniment track
• MIDI Channel 4 – Right hand / Melody track
• MIDI Channel 10 – Drum track

The remaining channels are used for additional parts depending on the complexity of the arrangement.

We barely scratched the surface when it comes to MIDI implementations. Join us in our next article as we take a closer look at General MIDI, General MIDI2, and the General MIDI Patch Map and percussion note assignments. If you have two or more pieces of gear with MIDI ports on them, we encourage you to get them connected and start exploring all the exiting possibilities it can bring to your music!

While we didn’t get as many votes as we would have liked, based on those that did vote, it looks like we need to get started writing a beginner level course on how to use MIDI. The main topics for the first version will be connecting up your keyboard and going over some of the MIDI related terms that you will come across.

What format would you like to see the material in? Hardcopy, audio CD, others?

Give us your thoughts. We want to make sure the information is what you are looking for and in a format that you can easily work with.

Are you interested in learning some of the basic concepts needed to connect your keyboard to your PC via MIDI? Once that is done you can record yourself and also take advantage of virtual instruments.

Its day four of our poll. We are considering writing a simple MIDI course for the home piano/organ player. Are you interested? http://tr.im/pbb1