I have a pretty good working knowledge of midi and what can and can't be done with it. I have a lot of midi / accomp programs, 2 arangers, and a workstation. I have 2 soundcards ( not including the original cheapy one that came with the comp ).


Sometimes though, I wish I could just put it all into "one box". Trying to get things to work together sometimes is a chore. I want variety in my drums, not just repeats of arrangements, so I either sequence by hand ( a chore in itself ) or make them up from scratch in Pump sequencer ( an old beta pattern seq that never got of the ground but is excellent for it's drum machine ) , or make them in Jammer Pro 5, which does not MIDI sync ( it sends clock messages but won't receive .. how frustrating it is... ).

That's just drums. Then I want basslines, but I find it easier to usually play them in real timeas opposed to let's say trying to get the Motif's arps to sync together with another sound module and a software sequencer. Then there are some of the pretty good "ryhtym and chord" plug in guitar patterns that I can't really always imitate in real time ( because of the different picking techniques, arps etc ). So on and so on.

Just setting things up to chain / sync together can be tedious for me. I wonder how the rest of the composers here deal with it. I find it easiest to just record my own patterns in the PA80's step sequencer by introducing some drum parts as converted styles and then adding my bass lines, rythyms etc via real time playing. Sometimes I'd rather use the voice from a soft synth otr the Motif in a particular piece, so that becomes a chore too.

Sometimes I still find it easier just to record each piece in real time, but I also like having the pattern aspect to see how phrases sound in different keys as I'm writing.

Sometimes I wonder if Frank has the right solution by doing everything inside of the computer, but I get latency issues with certain pieces of software too, so until I learn more or am able to otherwise resolve that, it's not going to work for me .

Any thoughts ?

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 09-20-2003).]

AJ

Seems to me you just need to put anything in a loop library. Each loop containing the recording of 1 midi track e.g. a drum pattern or a bass run or a guitar phrase. Each just a few bars long including all the voice and controller settings. Then you can compose a style: choose a drum pattern, add a bass etc. Then play the style thru a chord sequence and record the melody.

I suppose that all the patterns and phrases you were talking about can be saved in a midifile. In OMB you can load a midi file, paste it in a style-part and then export a track. That would be a good way to create a loop library.

Jos

Hi,

I'm not sure if this is what you're referring to, but the latest update says

"JAMMER will now slave to SMPTE/MTC (MIDI Time Code)"

Why not settle on a keyboard/synth that has sounds that you're satisfied with and use computer software.

Jos's One Man Band can create psr styles by mix n matching phrases. Can even create styles from midifiles.

XG Works can use the psr styles to create an arrangement and turn the arrangement into a midifile. Further editing can then be done in either xg works or a more comprehensive sequencer program like cubase or cakewalk.


For myself, I've done the opposite as I actually want to create a style for my kn7 that I can then use for songs.
I use xg works to create midi files out of the psr styles ie record the intro's variations etc based on a c chord , turn them into a midifile, do any editing I require in cubase,
load the midifile into the kn sequencer and create a style from it.

I assume the pa80 doesn't have a midi to style function, or you probably wouldn't be entering style parts in steptime? It makes it so much easier to create styles.

best wishes
Rikki

AJ, as you know there is no one right way of doing things. I would say with the the current crop of soundcards and assoicated drivers (WDM, ASIO, GSIF, etc.) you should have no latency form start to finish. Also, the software you use must be up to the task, e.g., Yamaha's soft synths are not, etc. I think it has come to the point where software provides another viable alternative to hardware. So you can now pick your favorite medicine.

All good suggestions, but having done most of the things mentioned here plus a few other tricks I still find it to be a chore to sync all of these things together.

Rikki, the problem for me is that one module just doesn't do everything the way I want to hear it.. Sometimes it takes all 3 hardware synths / arrangers I have and sometimes a few soft synths / samplers to get the sounds I want into one or a few tunes. I'll use the PA80 for example to emulate organs, synths and electric guitars, the Motif to emulate drums and bass and e pianos, the PSR2k for acoustic guitars and a few other sounds and multipad riffs..etc, then the Motif plug ins for sax / horns and more exotic synth patches, while the 2 Motif plug ins work almost independently of the rest of the board and require me to set and reset several parameters in the Motif, which is no easy chore in itself ( I love the board but the OS is a bear... ) That's before I consider working with any arps, where midi sync is a must.. Yamaha did not make it easy with the Motif..

yes Rikki, Jammmer now supports the SMPTE audio / midi type code, but if it's like it's predecessor it won't slave with a pure midi signal ( it differs from smpte ) , and the PA80 and 2k don't work with SMPTE, so... back to sq 1

OMB is a good program jos for what it does and I like it, but it's easier and more efficient to take midi loops or pieces and paste them into Jammer to be saved as riffs ( subparts of musician styles... you can now do this in version 5 ). the advantage is that I can set it up so different subparts play at random ( depending on the weights ) inside of a style instead of being locked into rigid midi data inside of each variation, similar in some ways to the way BIAB does it, but with much more instant flexibility. I dont consider styles of an arranger type as a viable option for my compositions, and while I'm quite capable of making my own, I surely don't save any time doing it that way.

BTW Rikki, there is freeware midi to style conversion program for the PA80 ( and I use it ), but again, you get locked into the same bass pattern always plays with the same drum pattern inside of one variation... not my cup of tea. Besides, I can make the style parts much fatser by playing / recording most of the data in real time inside of the PA80's style sequencer.. Mainly I just struggle a little with odd drum beats.

Frank,

As time goes on, I think the soft studio uis more the way I'm going. I have the same experience with the Yamaha / Roland soft synth stuff, but I realize that there is far better stuff out there to work with. I just need to test some and try to find out which will work best for me. I am definitely leaning more towards using soft synths and samplers though.

Thanks for the input and suggestions guys / gals. Maybe I will follow more closely the direction that Frank has gone and eventually have an AJM synth / arranger, somewhere along the lines of an FLR.. It seems more and more like the best way in my cazse anyway, but I'll always wanna have a few hardware boards as well...

AJ

Hi AJ,

Years ago I used to have a variety of little black boxes that enabled me to run my sound modules from my old atari and notator program. I had anything up to 6 modules hooked up via midi ie one module would be playing channel 15 & 16 another channel 1 etc etc There again, things things were probably simpler then, also I wasn't using an arranger or workstation in the setup. I used to create the song in the arranger, save it as a midifile. Edit it in the atari and then get the modules to play it back. (Back in the early days, the arrangers didn't have good quality sounds, and unfortunately I'm totally reliant on styles).

Good luck with your quest

best wishes
Rikki

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bluezplayer:

Just setting things up to chain / sync together can be tedious for me. AJ

AJ,
Have you looked into Reason for soft synths? I have not played with it, but understand it's quite the thing.

I hear you on both the sync and latency problems and is why I choose to record to hard disc overdubbing to get what I want in a tune.

I keep wanting to use the computer environment more because of the possibilities, but usually after 2 days of hassles with analog signals, I wind up going back to the AW 4416 which is more linear push record and go.

Midi for me to pc has never been a problem, that it does very well, it's the analog through an interface that's a hassle.

Midi'n up to my other equipment once I got it has been ok for the most part.
Terry

------------------
jam on,
Terry http://imjazzed.homestead.com/Index.html

Let me follow up on Terry's post, which dove-tails exactly what I was thinking when I first read this thread: I use Reason about twice a week now to create music beds for commercials and multimedia projects, and I am amazed at how versatile and inspiring it is everytime I use it. While many people use it to create dance-oriented music (it's very good for that), last week I used it to create a "majestic" orchestrated piano + strings/brass theme with tympanis and found that Reason provided everything I needed and made the job easy with only the stock samples that came with it, including a pretty good grand piano. Then I could save everything as one file including samples, sequences, effects, mixes etc. and export the final audio file as a WAV or MP3 file. I usually just do some minor tweaking to the exported audio file using Sound Forge to make the finished product. And since this is a low-fat, low-CPU-load program you can really create some monster racks and tracks even on a laptop. I also recently had to sync some music cuts and sound effects to video and the producer was really impressed at how easily I could do that with Reason. This program is inexpensive for what all it delivers: about $350 street.

Reason is an essential part of my toolbox and it's the first thing I turn to when creating new music from scratch. If you haven't tried it there is a free demo available from Propellerhead: http://www.propellerheads.se/index.php3

AJ, I can hardly wait to see what the 'AJM synth / arranger will look like.

The exciting part of such systems is that they will all be as different as the individuals constructing them. The good news is they will all work well. The drawback at the moment is that the control surface is not as good as an arranger/workstation keyboard. However, once you get used to something like forte Ensemble the handicap is not to bad at all. The pluses outweigh the minuses (quality of sounds & effects, adjusting sounds and effects to suit your needs, sampling, etc.). In addition, you have all midi to audio needs on one system. It works and works well!!!

This is how I have my setup. I have two computers running audio/midi only applications. A Win 98SE desktop running Cakewalk Sonar and a Win XP laptop running soft synths and samplers (I am currently using it for Kontakt and FM7).

For harware synths I have a Motif 7, PA80, Roland XV5050 and Roland MBD-1. All of this is connected to the machine with Sonar, including the laptop running soft synths. The audio outs for these machines are connected to Yamaha 01V, (I like to use hardware mixers) connected to an external CD burner for mix downs.

I control and record all the midi and audio using Sonar. All the instruments can be selected through Sonar so I don't even have to do any sequencing in Motif or PA. This also gives me a great flexibility to change soft synths on the laptop without affecting my other setup. I just install another synth on my laptop and assign midi channels to it. Sonar treats it as an external hardware synth. This setup works out perfectly for me.

I was looking for the same variety in sounds that you mentioned. With this setup, I can just select any sound from any synth in my setup.