Sound managing

[Ernst]

Hello:

As a newbie (in this forum) am I entitled to ask some maybe silly question?

OK. Thanks, here I go.

To produce some songs, I use Band in a Box BIAB Pgmusic

It allows to produce midi files, and also you can render them to WAV, after having produced your midi, from within the program.

I want to capture that midi, after producing it, while backplaying it. I like to change instruments every certain bars, to give it a more dynamic and pleasant feeling.

I know that I could simply render the wav, and then mp3-it.

But I want to record (capture the midi while it is playing, and me changing instruments). I do not know what midi player (maybe its own) uses BIAB, but when I play midis I use vanbasco midi (karaoke) player.

I use also Wavmaker, but sometimes I like more the sounds of the midi (with a good Audigy soundcard) than transforming the instruments as is done with Wavmaker.

I use also Total Recorder, especially to capture streaming audio from internet radios.

Total Recorder is good in that it allows to capture, while you are listening (does not use the resources of your soundcard, apparently).

I have not been able to set Total Recorder to record my midis while coming from BIAB, and me changing the instruments.

Is there any other program around there, out of Total Recorder, that would allow to capture as needed? That is, while a midi is back-playing?

Or, is there some experience around about how I should set Total Recorder to record that midi? Have made many tests to set that, but no success!

Sorry for the long post.

Regards

Ernst

[Guest guru]

Dear newbie,

I think I already read some (few) posts by you (maybe your name was ehajek?...) in old PTE forum, and therefore I am especially glad if I can help some way. As you can see, I too am a "junior member", so I'll try to do what I can...

Well, jokes apart, I think your excellent Audigy card can be exploited by connecting its output directly to input, so that you can record (in wav format) exactly what you listen. To record you can utilize any software, like old good free Audacity.

Obviously, you must listen what you are playng, but (if you have disconnected speakers to connect line out to line in), you can use headphone output, and listen the sound with a much higher fidelity than you could with two poor computer speakers.

Note: I never used Audigy cards, so I'm not so sure this method works. But probably it works, and in this case the results will be very good.

Good luck, my friend!

[Ernst]

Thanks Guido:

Yes, I am the same. I was ehajek in the old forum. I was so enthused to get soon into the new forum, that I did not realize that I was subscribing now with a different username. Sorry for the confusion.

Thanks for your suggestion. It is certainly a possibility to try.

I was wondering if there was software that could capture midis while playing, (out of Total Recorder which I have been unable to configure for this capture of midis) without having to plug- or unplug. Presently I have an adapter for output both to headphones and speakers. I could put an additional one to have an output and then go to line-in, to record midis. But, also, I have a cassette player hooked into line-in (some old favorite tapes are digitalized, cleaned, and the Cd-ed). As many of you surely also have it, I have a salad of cables behind the PC and monitor. Better say, a mess!

Thanks again, Guido.

Regards

Ernst

[Ernst]

Well, well, things happen fast, and I was lucky.

Trial and error.

I found the way how to capture (with Total Recorder) the sound of midis coming from the PC soundcard.

It was a problem of settings.

Recording sources and parameteres have to be set to "Soundboard", and then "Use these lines of recording

control/Record through Total Recorder)" and select WAVE/MP3.

It worked fine.

This solves my problem. Sorry to have distracted the forum with my question, but I also wanted to share this solution.

My interest was really to create these sounds, either by myself or through the Melodist of Band in a Box, and capture these sounds from Band in a Box to a WAV file. Later edit, MP3 it, and use as sound on a PTE show or put it in my Acoustica MP3 Mixer with other sounds or music files.

Thanks again.

Regards

Ernst

[Guest guru]

Don't worry, Ernst, I already realized who was this mysterious newbie...

As to recording midi while playing, I made in paste some similar experiments, but I used two sound cards - or better a sound card and a digital-analog I/O device. The software I utilized was Acoustica mp3 audio mixer, very suitable to such works.

Please keep me updated!

[Guest guru]

Oops! Sorry, I wrote my reply before I read your second message!

I'm very glad you have solved the problem.

[Bob]

Hi Ernst and Guru:

Without getting too technical... is there an inexpensive software that will convert MIDI to CD audio. I have a number of MIDI files that I would like to play on a CD player. My guess is that you would have to convert to WAV first?? I am using MS XP operating system and a intergrated sound card.

Any help will be appriciated.

thanks~~~~~ Bob..

[LumenLux]

Hey, I always appreciate these public discussions. This is how we learn beyond the FAQ. Now Guido, are you saying you did the same as Ernst but you used Accoustica MP3 mixer as Ernst used Total Recorder?

It seems that such a method would allow us to take the midi sounds from a high quality board and preserve them to sound much better on a pc with a lesser board than they might sound as midi on a cheap sound card? Do you two agree?

[Ernst]

Answering some of the comments and questions, here is some of my experience.

In the past (when mp3 still was not here) probably many of us had midi files.

I even produced some of them with a Yamaha Clavinova, and sequencer and sound module (midi sound banks) and got midis on diskette. Moved them later to the PC. You can certainly also hook that directly to your PC.

From different parts, I also collected tons of midis, and they where just sitting there on my diskettes, and now on backups in CDs (as midis) and I could play them back with the PC, or the Clavinova and speakers.

Once there were more challenges to use these midis, to eventually burn audio CDs with the best or most liked ones, I looked around how to do it.

I found Wavmaker Wavmaker from Polyhedric

This is a software that allows you to go from midi to wav (that´s the most I have used). There is a very complete soundbank and every midi instrument has its equivalent. I am just a non-technical user, please excuse my descriptions. You can render midi files to wav files. Then later you can process these wav files with whatever sound editing program you use, and can also mix. You can also go from wav to mp3, with so many software around there. I use Musicmatch. So, later you can mix sounds with your preferred program, and get the desired background sounds for eventually your PTE shows.

Ideal would be it be also to do the inverse, going from wav to midi to gain space for the PTE shows, and keep them small. My experiences have not been good enough to use it. It apparently (did not check around recently) works fine when you have just a single instrument, voice, etc., but nothing polyphonic. (As a human, I may be wrong with this comment).

------

That´s one thing. The other one, I was exploring the possibility to capture streaming audio from tjhe Internet (while listening to it) and found Total Recorder (Total Recorder- Highcriteria with this software I can capture whatever sounds come from the internet, and get a Wav file. If you should use it, it is important to Normalize volume to ideally (for me) 100%. Sometimes the sound volume coming in is low in volume, and going to 100% you get a good sound file. Of course, you can do this also with your sound editor, but better do it immediately.

This wav file can then be further processed, or changed to mp3, and eventually be mixed (whatever your use for it is).

Also, with Total Recorder I learned that you can capture sound coming from your soundcard, while listening. So, just play your midi in your preferred player (I tested with Windows media player and vanBasco midi-karaoke player, both OK) and capture it with Total Recorder. As I said yesterday, sometimes you will have to try both ways (that is, Wavmaker transforms midi to wav) or direct capturing (soundcard transforms to wav with Total Recorder) and decide what kind and quality of sound you prefer. I have seen that with a good soundcard, you can capture also a very good midi. I did this experiment using Band in a Box music generator (version 12 is just out) Band in a Box v 12

With Band in a Box you can also render a wav file, and import midis. The recent new version 12 is very powerful. Additionally, very good Support.

This is all I can say now, and this is my experience with the mentioned software. I am not endorsing nor are part of those companies. Just a happy user of their software, after searching, testing, and all that what you when you decide what your needs and conveniences are.

Regards

Ernst

[Leif]

"Total Recorder [sNIP] with this software I can capture whatever sounds come from the internet, and get a Wav file. "

Ernst, why don't you just get it as an .MP3 from the start? Saves the hassle of converting the .WAV. (I'm using version 4.0 of Total Recorder.)

Anyone tried a program that's better than Total Recorder?? Please let me know, as I have not yet registered my copy of Total Recorder.

[Ernst]

Leif:

Yes, you are right. It´s possible to capture mp3, too.

For me it is just a matter of preferences. I prefer, and feel comfortable when I manage large files and want effects, moving around, cut and pasting, glueing together, to work with Wav editors. I feel it gives me more flexibility than working with mp3 files to do that editing. It is also possible to edit those mp3 files in sound editors. I understand that they transform mp3 to wav first, internally, to do that processing, and then back?

I compare this (I may be wrong) with getting TIF files from photo scanners and then need or want the final version as JPG file. I usually work first with the TIF file before compressing.

But, as said, it´s just a matter of personal preferences.

Ref. Total Recorder. I have done a lot of search, and this is the one that I found, and liked. It does what I needed.

Regards

Ernst

[Guest guru]

Thank you very much, Ernst. Your contribution is VERY interesting, because it comes from a direct and personal experience.

I wish only to add two little remarks.

As for conversion wav -> midi, you say: "Ideal would be it be also to do the inverse, going from wav to midi to gain space for the PTE shows, and keep them small. My experiences have not been good enough to use it. It apparently (did not check around recently) works fine when you have just a single instrument, voice, etc., but nothing polyphonic. (As a human, I may be wrong with this comment)".

I too have tried this conversion some months ago, with several software, but almost always with poor or very poor results. So I can confirm totally your comments.

Another subject. When we record wav files (it doesn't matter if you record from a midi or from an LP or from a tape), we all know these files are very large, and keep them can become a space problem. Like in Audio CDs, one hour on good quality (stereo, 44.1 Kb/sec) WAVs means about 600 MB of disk space (300 for mono recordings).

If you want to keep many sounds with their whole quality, it can be very convenient to convert them to a lossless format (NOT mp3. ogg or wma!).

There are several such formats, but I use normally Monkey's Audio free software (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/), a very good format because

• it compresses at nearly 50% without any loss (like a *.zip file), so I can always reconvert them in WAVs identical to original
  
• its *.APE files can be listened with best players (Winamp, Media Jukebox etc.)
  
• it is totally safe (redundant CRC to ensure proper decompression of data, so errors never go unnoticed)
  
• it is completely free!
  

[Ernst]

Thanks, Guido.

I will take a look. These kind of indications and suggestions are always very useful.

Different persons find different things. Sharing information about where to find software, is always welcomed.

Regards

Ernst