Learn MIDI Recording for Music Production

1. Introduction to MIDI: In this video, you will learn about MIDI and how it is used in music production, right? So let's start by learning what meaty actually is. Media is short for musical instrument digital interface, and it is basically a digital language to describe music with. I'm sure you have seen one of these. It's a standard music sheet which have been used to write music on four centuries. Well, you can think of Midi as the modern digital version off written music, and actually you can have way more information with meaty than the classic sheet music ever could. So what can you do with meaty? Well, of course, Midi can handle the most common things, like which notes are played and for how long. But you can also have things like velocity for every single belt. Velocity is a bit of a strange name because it has nothing to do with speed, but rather with force. In classic written music, you can often see letters above the notes, which are a combination off P M. Or if these are abbreviations off Italian music terms, that tells the musician how much force to use when playing the instrument, which of course equals two volume in Midi. You don't use these Italian terms, but instead you have a velocity value for every single note, and this value can be anything from 1 to 127. So if you sit by your piano and play a key, a medium velocity off one means pressing the key as softly as you possibly can, and 127 means heating it with full force. I will now play these d major chord with different velocity values. 1st 1 than 25 then 50 then 80 and finally, 127. Let's listen to how it alters dis l'd off the exact same chord played on a piano. All right, so those are the most important values you write or record with meaty. But there are so many more values you can record and even automate when you get into the more advanced media features. There are media values to record modulation, expression, sustain pedal synth parameters and so much more. You can record and automate several of these values to add dynamic variation to a musical phrase, for example, slowly opening up its sink filter or creating a Christian dough on a string port. Meaty makes all this possible and is, in fact, more versatile than written sheet music ever. Waas. Let's sum up the key points you have learned in this video. Meaty is basically the digital and enhanced version off written shape music, the most important parts of media to record or no pitch, note length and velocity value. And you can even record advanced automation like synth filter values, Christian Del's expression and much more great. Now you have learned the foundation off meaty I Mike, and I'll see you in the next video, my friend. 2. MIDI Recording in Practice: In this video, you will learn how to record meaty into your music production software method one. Computer mouse. There are, in fact, several ways to record MIDI into your music production software. Also called D A W. The first way is to write in the notes with your computer mouse. You simply create an empty media clip in the sequencer. Then you open up the media editor for that clip. This will bring up the piano Roll editor, which shows all notes off that port from left to right, and you have this piano keyboard turned to the side to show each note to the corresponding key on a piano. That's why it is called a piano roll. Then you can start writing in your meeting notes with your mouth right here. Your D W should have a pencil to so that you can simply add notes by left clicking with your mouse. Then you can decide how long the notes should play for by holding down the mouse button while dragging to the left or right method to meaty keyboard. If you have some skills in playing a keyboard or piano, you can use a midi keyboard to record your meeting notes with After you have connected your Medicaid board to your computer and set it up in your D. A. W. Your keyboard will send digital media information to your computer and D A W. It will record which notes to play, how long you hold the case and the velocity values, meaning how hard you pressed the keys. Many media keyboards also have fade Er's and buttons that he can use to record advanced media automation with the two. Most common are the pitch bend wheel to automate the pitch of the note and the modulation wheel to record expression with the modulation wheel can be assigned to control different things within each instrument you play in your DW. Usually it controls the cut off filter on synthesizers and the dynamic expression on orchestral instruments. Method three. Media File Import. Another way to record Midi into your d aaw is to import and already created media file and drag it into a track in your sequencer. I personally used this feature guilt because I have APS on my iPhone and iPad for creating chord progressions, baselines, etcetera. I even have a classic notation music app on my iPad to write sheet music the old fashioned way. I can then export media files from these APS to my computer and easily import into my sequencer. Often it's as easy as dragging and dropping the media files from your file browser on your computer right into your sequencer. All right, let's sum up the key points you have learned in this video. You can record meaty into your D W in several different ways. First is recording the media notes by writing them directly into the editor with your computer mouse. Then you can also record the MIDI using a MIDI keyboard connected to your computer, and you can also recorded immediate by importing a media file directly into your sequencer . Great. Now we have learned several practical ways to record MIDI into your D. A W for music production. I Mike and I'll see you in the next video 3. Live Demo 1: In this video, I will do a live demonstration off recording MIDI into a D W project using the media file import method. Let's begin. All right, so let's say you come up with the chord progression by experimenting on your maybe keyboard , piano, guitar or which ever instrument you prefer to work with. I have come up with this simple little core progression that goes like this. It starts from a minor thing, goes Teoh C major, then two, if major thing half a bar of D minor on half a bowl of G major on, then going back to a more. So that's the chord progression. Now, instead of recording it by playing it on my media keyboard, I want to use the media import method because that will be much foster, since I already have created these cores as media files and stored them on a folder on my computer. All right, so now I go to my file browser here and find my folder where I stored my chords as media files and I call it Medibank that I simply drag and drop each off the course. I played in my cold progression, so it started with in minor. It was an a minor click and drag it to the first court off the piano. Here, go back. Then we went to see Major, Go into the major folder C major, and to do this for each chord in your court, grip progression. And when you have your court progression here in your sequencer, you can simply go into each of them and edit them as you want, for example, by creating inversions off the courts to get a better flow between H chord. So I see. Here we have an E. We can put that on E three instead. Ah, and so on until you are satisfied with the flow of the courts. A great thing about media files is that it is distended for storing music in this way, so it will work with basically every music production. So for you can also fight millions of MIDI files online just by doing a Google search. There are media files like the ones I used for cords, chord progressions, etcetera. But there are also MIDI files off complete songs that you can use for free mixing, analyzing the notes off each instrument to learn and so on. And instead of searching the Internet to find many files to use for your projects, you can create your own, for example, by using an app on your phone or tablet. I have two laps to create court progressions with what is called core Boat, and another one is called suggest Er, you can then export your cold progression that you created in the EP as a media file and then opening up directly in your sequencer. My name is Mike, and I'll see you in the next video. 4. Live Demo 2: In this video, I will do a live demonstration off recording meaty using a midi keyboard. I will specifically be creating a baseline. Let's begin. All right, so we already have a simple, cool progression here, which I made using the media file import method. The court progression goes from a minor to see major than two. If major than 1/2 bore off, the minor and 1/2 bore off G major, then going back to a minor to resolve the progression. When creating a baseline, you usually use the root note off the cord as the foundation and then add some spice to it by using other notes from within the scale off the song. A tip I have to make it easier to record with a medic. E board is to name your clips in your sequencer with your chord progression so that he can visually see the chord names for the full sequence. Now let's experiment a bit first without recording anything. An easy way to start creating your own baseline is to simply play on Lee the root note off each chord as the base. So let's see how that sounds first, and if you only have really beginner keyboard skills. This might actually be enough, and you can spice up the baseline in the media editing stage later. But even if you can play the media keyboard quite well, starting super easy like this is always a great way to get into the vibe and groove off your track and open up those creative paths in your mind. So it's experiment now a bit. I quite like that, actually. Let's see. Might want to dio. Okay, let's do another test now. All right, so I think I have something going here. So you go back to the the beginning where you will start your recording. Remember to turn on the Metrodome, also called Click. And also it's wise to add a pre count, which will give you some time before the actual recording starts after you press the record button. So now I will press record, listen to the pre count and record a baseline live with my media keyboard. Now let's turn off the Metrodome and listen back to the full performance. All right, that's pretty good. Remember, it doesn't have to be a perfect recording and performance because you can later use media editing both creatively, as well as make corrections to any recorded part. So you don't actually have to be that fantasy When you're recording with a midi keyboard, Just get your basic idea recorded as tightly to the beat as you can and with as few note mistakes as your playing skills. Of all the power off Midi comes from the huge editing possibilities it gives you so you don't need to spend a lot of time doing countless of retakes when you work with me. D. If you have access to a midi keyboard, you should practice doing performances to record Midi like this on a daily basis. Good luck improving your keyboard skills. I Mike, and I'll see you in the next video. 5. Live Demo 3: In this video, I will do a live demonstration of recording Midi, using the mouse method to manually right in the notes in the sequencer. I will specifically be creating a drum bit. Let's begin. All right, so we already have a simple chord progression and a baseline. So now we can create an empty me the clip that extends for this region. And now the creative port starts where I will use the pencil to in my d a w to write in each note. But I will also use copy and paste for some repeated ports to save time. So I have loaded up a simple pop drum kit here on this track, and once you're in editing mode, you first need to find where the drum samples or triggered from. So I know that C one is the kick drum. Then we have the snare, the close tie hat and the open I had. So now let's start programming beat from this. So when I program notes like this, especially for drums, I always make sure that my greatest said to 1/16 notes. Ah, and let's start with the kick drum first. So it wasn't C one and I want a program, a simple four to the floor beat like this. And, uh, we can use assume tools to see the full sequence. And I want to use holding old left click with the mouse to copy to the next Borse. Let's do this So we have a full sequence off the kick drums here, and that will sell like this. All right, so let's do this snap drum next, and you can either use depend to toe add notes. Or you can, as I often do, duplicate a note within your sequence. Like for example, um, this one here. So if we call down the old key on your keyboard and your left mouse button at the same time and then drag with your mouths upwards or downwards, you have a duplicate of that note, and we can put that on the snare drum release your musky and now we have this, and I want to duplicate that on every third of the boar. But you can see I'm hoping the sequence of here Onda on the fifth bore on the third beat, and now we have this. I forgot one here, right? So let's spice this up with a high hat beat and the for high, etc. Most often used 16th notes in whatever pattern you flight. Let's do that. See, it's programmed to boars first with this, and then we copa this, using the old key again with clicking with your mouth to their on this'll to there on the lost two bars there. Let's listen to what we have now. We have a simple drumbeat for these sequence. It's nothing special on. In fact, it sounds a bit robotic and boring at the moment, but that's the main benefit off all methods of recording media. You can start by getting the basic idea down first and then more interest, variation, expression, etcetera in the midi editing stage. Now remember to practice the manual writing method to record Midi as often as you can, because you will probably use this method a lot in music production. In fact, for many producers, this manual writing method is the only thing that used when making music so practice a lot and good luck improving your meaty writing skills. I Mike and I'll see you in the next video 6. Mike's Bonus Tips: In this video, you will get some bonus tips for maybe recording that you can use to improve your work full in music production Bonus Tip one. Recording Media Automation Afterwards. The first tape I want to give you is to record your media automation after you have the main meaty notes recorded. You can, of course, record automation at the same time if you have a MIDI controller, but that is more difficult, since you will need to focus on two performances at the same time. The most common way to recall automation is with a midi keyboard or controller, since he usually have knobs, failures and buttons to record automation with. First, make sure that automation recording is enabled on the track in your D. W. Then find out what you want to automate. The modulation will you is the most common parameter to automate, since it is mainly used to add dynamic expression, press record and start moving the control like this bonus tip to recording midi with step input. Most professional D. A. W's have a step input recorder so you can record the notes without worrying about timing. When playing your midi keyboard, you simply go into the media editor, turn on the step input option, and then you need to choose the note length value first. After that, you simply pressed the notes you want to record for each step in the grid. Full the note length you have chosen like this. You can step forward or backward with the arrow keys on your computer keyboard, and you can switch note values for each step if you want to step. Input recording is especially handy for creating cool progressions and or pay Geo's bonus Tip three record on E. C. Version first. Instead of doing the full performance when recording media, you can start with the most basic version of your idea first and enhance it in the media editing later. This is an especially great method if you record your meaty light with a midi keyboard or controller. But even if you write in the notes with your mouth, it can be helpful to sketch out the rough idea first. Great, Now we have learned some really cool bonus tips to enhance your midi recording. Workflow. I mike and I'll see you in the next video 7. Your Project: all right now it's time for you to take action. Which is always the best way to learn your project is to use the methods for media recording. You have learned to record and create a short eight board track with drums, a chord progression and a baseline. Let's do a recap. First, you can record media using from your computer mouse directly in the editing mode to a meaty keyboard. Three. Importing Media Files Directly Into Your sequencer Here's your guide to complete this project first used the mouse method to write in the notes manually for the drums, then use the media import option to arrange MIDI files into a chord progression on a piano frack. I have attached a collection off common cords s media files to this project and three record a baseline with your meaty keyboard using any sound preset in your DW you like. If you don't have a media keyboard, you can, of course, use the mouse method here as well. I want you to know that I am personally using all these three methods myself. When I compose and produce music, I truly believe that learning and becoming familiar with them is great for boosting your music production workflow. Each method has its place, its advantages and disadvantages. And if you can use all three, you have a greater to kit. As a music composer and producer, I might wishing you good luck with your media recording adventures because you broke my friends.