[thechat] MIDI music
Seb Potter
seb at poked.org
Wed Jan 14 23:23:30 CST 2004
Well, if you're doing music professionally, here are a few tips I've
picked up:
0. Expect to spend quite a bit of money. Hardware ain't cheap. Software is
just expensive.
1. Latency is an issue in midi. You might not think that 20 milliseconds
makes much of a difference, but it does. So you want a system that will
minimise input/output latency. I can't stress this enough:
Avoid Creative Products at all costs.
The SB Live/Audigy range are gaming products. They are totally unsuited to
professional music needs. The same goes for most USB devices, though there
are a few that are apparently increasing in quality.
Check out Turtle Beach sound cards, they come very highly recommended.
Their MIDI in/out support is unparalleled at their particular price point.
2. Latency in software is an issue as well.
Avoid Windows XP. Try to avoid Windows altogether. BeOS is the best
multimedia OS, and QNX is pretty good as well, but software and driver
support is problematic. Linux with the 2.6 kernel and the new 1(0)
scheduler is an increasingly attractive option, as there are a number of
increasingly profession sequencing and sampling tools.
If you do go the Windows route, Windows 2000 seems to be the preferred
option. Disable as many services as possible whilst your machine is still
capable of running. It's often a good idea to go with an entirely separate
installation on a clean partition and only use it for music production
work.
3. Use software you're comfortable with. Most professional sequencers do
the same things, so it's up to you which one you use. Download trials,
experiment until you're happy.
Reason is a fantastic piece of software, as it emulates all of the
rackmount sampling/processing hardware you could ever need. However, I
know at least one person who can almost always tell when a piece of music
has been produced with Reason. It just adds a certain je ne sais quoi.
Whether this is a good or bad thing is entirely a matter of choice.
Cakewalk Pro is the midi sequencing software that most of my musician
friends use. It's just part of the standard audio toolkit.
Soundforge is great for editing samples. Don't be without it.
As far as getting finished audio out of your system, you've got a few
choices, but generally you'll want to work with *at least* 48KHz sample
rate. 96KHz sample rate is better, if you can. Do not work at CD quality.
Work at studio quality and downsample when you're done.
1. Get a soundcard that supports 48KHz 24bit digital out, and master to
DAT, or Minidisc.
2. Just write a WAV file and record a CD.
3. DVD Audio, is beginning to catch on. Of course, you need a decent home
cinema system to appreciate it.
4. Analog audio out to tape, and a time machine to find someone that will
want to listen to it. ;)
Hope this gives you a few pointers.
- seb
--
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