I've procrastinated long enough!

[Terry Wetzel]

I have been fooling around with Pt's ,(various versions and various hardware devices) for some time now and although the frustrations persist, sometimes luck prevails and I'll wind up with a mix that I'm not ashamed to let others hear. I have been reluctant to venture in to the MIDI realm because, for me it just seems easier and faster to play the instruments myself. I own a Yamaha keyboard which I gather from the manual, is a MIDI device. Since most of my work is old school Rock and Roll I have little need for many instruments or orchestration and, in the event I do the keyboard has a multitude of sounds available. Still, I can't help but be curious about what I may or may not be missing by steering clear of MIDI. A few questions:
I own Protools 9.0.5 and It comes with various plugins, Audiosuite being the one that I assume has the various instrument sounds I could use.
My Problem:
I have absolutely no idea how to go about implementing this feature in to my sessions.
I know this may seem rediculous to most of you and I don't want to drag out my history regarding age, health, etc. which by now I'm sure you are tired of hearing. So, If any one can offer advice on the best and simplest way to get me started, I would appreciate your help. Thanks from the old guy).

[rockridge]

Go to your local music store, ask around, and get someone to come to your place... just to get you started.

[nst7]

It would help to know what Yamaha keyboard you have, and what audio interface you're using. Because the first thing is to be able to hook up your keyboard to send midi into the computer. If the keyboard has a USB out, then that may be all you need. Or if your audio interface has a midi in.

Otherwise, you may need to get a midi to usb interface such as this one:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Uno/

Basically, to use a virtual instrument, you would create an instrument track (either mono or stereo, depending on what you want), then in the inserts, choose "instruments", and from there choose the instrument you want to use.

An instrument track is basically a combination of a midi track and an aux track, so you can record midi information onto it, and the aux track portion of it allows you to hear your audio from the virtual instrument.

It would help if you tell us exactly what devices you have.


I also agree with Rockridge that it would help if you could actually watch someone demonstrate it at a store.

[Diccer]

Originally Posted by Terry Wetzel

I have been fooling around with Pt's ,(various versions and various hardware devices) for some time now and although the frustrations persist, sometimes luck prevails and I'll wind up with a mix that I'm not ashamed to let others hear. I have been reluctant to venture in to the MIDI realm because, for me it just seems easier and faster to play the instruments myself. I own a Yamaha keyboard which I gather from the manual, is a MIDI device. Since most of my work is old school Rock and Roll I have little need for many instruments or orchestration and, in the event I do the keyboard has a multitude of sounds available. Still, I can't help but be curious about what I may or may not be missing by steering clear of MIDI. A few questions:
I own Protools 9.0.5 and It comes with various plugins, Audiosuite being the one that I assume has the various instrument sounds I could use.
My Problem:
I have absolutely no idea how to go about implementing this feature in to my sessions.
I know this may seem rediculous to most of you and I don't want to drag out my history regarding age, health, etc. which by now I'm sure you are tired of hearing. So, If any one can offer advice on the best and simplest way to get me started, I would appreciate your help. Thanks from the old guy).

Yes, just by using Pro Tools you are steering clear of Midi

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Terry Wetzel

I have been fooling around with Pt's ,(various versions and various hardware devices) for some time now and although the frustrations persist, sometimes luck prevails and I'll wind up with a mix that I'm not ashamed to let others hear. I have been reluctant to venture in to the MIDI realm because, for me it just seems easier and faster to play the instruments myself. I own a Yamaha keyboard which I gather from the manual, is a MIDI device. Since most of my work is old school Rock and Roll I have little need for many instruments or orchestration and, in the event I do the keyboard has a multitude of sounds available. Still, I can't help but be curious about what I may or may not be missing by steering clear of MIDI. A few questions:
I own Protools 9.0.5 and It comes with various plugins, Audiosuite being the one that I assume has the various instrument sounds I could use.
My Problem:
I have absolutely no idea how to go about implementing this feature in to my sessions.
I know this may seem rediculous to most of you and I don't want to drag out my history regarding age, health, etc. which by now I'm sure you are tired of hearing. So, If any one can offer advice on the best and simplest way to get me started, I would appreciate your help. Thanks from the old guy).

First off you may want to take a look at the PT manual and the manual for your keyboard. Depending on the Yamaha keyboard you have there is some configuration that has to be done on the keyboard to select either USB for getting the MIDI from your keyboard to the computer or regular MIDI connections. Also know that some Yamaha keyboards don't do well sending MIDI over USB and require separate drivers in the computer to accomplish that task, the original Motif line being one of those.

MIDI is not audio but digital but you know that already. There's also some configuration to be done in PT to use MIDI. Maybe get one of the PT training videos to help you out here - it'll be worth your money. You have a lot of questions that could be answered by what I've outlined here.

Audiosuite does not contain sounds as such, that's just a plugin protocol, like VST.

And if you're going to record the sounds from the keyboard you're going to have to interface it with your computer through a sound I/O box.

[Terry Wetzel]

Audiosuite does not contain sounds as such, that's just a plugin protocol, like VST. ??

This is one of the things I don't understand! So, If I select an instrument sound from Audiosuite, how do I configure it to fit the music I'm recording and how do i actually play it?. I know this seems dumb to most of you but if my questions are answered it may open a whole new musical experience for me. Please bare with me. thanks

[Terry Wetzel]

My keyboard is the Yamaha DGX500. It's pretty old now and knowing how these devices are constantly being upgraded and/or discontinued I may find that it's not compatible. I'm running Pt's 9.0.5 on Windows 7, 32 bit. My interface is the Audiophile 2496 which has MIDI in/out. I hope this helps. Thanks

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Terry Wetzel

Audiosuite does not contain sounds as such, that's just a plugin protocol, like VST. ??

This is one of the things I don't understand! So, If I select an instrument sound from Audiosuite, how do I configure it to fit the music I'm recording and how do i actually play it?. I know this seems dumb to most of you but if my questions are answered it may open a whole new musical experience for me. Please bare with me. thanks

Like I said - you cannot select a sound from Audio Suite - it is NOT an instrument, whether a VI (virtual instrument) or physical instrument like your Yamaha keyboard. How you work with the instrument in PT depends on exactly what you are trying to accomplish. Are you trying to record the MIDI from your keyboard so you have the option in the future to try a different sound or are you trying to record the audio from your keyboard?

It seems like you have a lot of questions and would really be better served by purchasing some of the many training dvd's out there for PT and also going through the manual for PT. You need to get some basic concepts under your belt on how PT works with different things and getting the training materials and spending some time with them will definitely help you.

[Terry Wetzel]

I guess I'm not asking the right questions! When I hear a recording that has orchestration in it, and there was no actual orchestra at the musician/engineers disposal, how does he achieve this? If he is only playing a keyboatd that outputs the various instrument sounds then I'm already there and don't need any answers. And, if that's the case what is the purpose of MIDI? I know that it is not musical notes and all the
analogies say that it's sort of like a piano roll but somehow I'm having trouble relating to that. To me that sounds like someone who has not learned to type and is using hunt and peck to compose a letter that a proficient typist could accomplish very quickly. I'm not being snyde or cynical here. I really want to at least find out if learning MIDI and it's recording applications would be beneficial to me on my recording sessions. If I seem too ignorant about this, as some of the answers I've recieved so far would suggest, please bare with me. I'm not as dumb as my posts may suggest and I am capable of learning if the educational cirriculum is presented in the proper way. Thanks

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Terry Wetzel

I guess I'm not asking the right questions! When I hear a recording that has orchestration in it, and there was no actual orchestra at the musician/engineers disposal, how does he achieve this? If he is only playing a keyboatd that outputs the various instrument sounds then I'm already there and don't need any answers. And, if that's the case what is the purpose of MIDI? I know that it is not musical notes and all the
analogies say that it's sort of like a piano roll but somehow I'm having trouble relating to that. To me that sounds like someone who has not learned to type and is using hunt and peck to compose a letter that a proficient typist could accomplish very quickly. I'm not being snyde or cynical here. I really want to at least find out if learning MIDI and it's recording applications would be beneficial to me on my recording sessions. If I seem too ignorant about this, as some of the answers I've recieved so far would suggest, please bare with me. I'm not as dumb as my posts may suggest and I am capable of learning if the educational cirriculum is presented in the proper way. Thanks

We are trying to present things in the proper way, it's just that you need to learn some background that we can't hand-hold you through. That's why we're urging you to purchase some of the various training materials that are out there. Between that, reading the manuals for PT and your keyboard should get you what you need to know.

That being said to answer a couple of your questions:
There's a couple of ways a composer who doesn't have access to musicians to play his work that he can do his music. One of those is to write a score and play in the MIDI notes to a program like PT. Another is to actually play a keyboard with samples and sounds for each instrument in the score into PT. Depends on how he wants to do it and his proficiency with a music keyboard. Another way is to use a notation program like Sibelius, writing his score in there and importing the subsequent MIDI files into PT and assign the various lines to be played to a VI (virtual instrument) or to a hardware synth.

Learning MIDI isn't necessary as such; that's just a connection protocol for the hardware. All you need to know is to connect the MIDI out of your keyboard to the MIDI in of whatever MIDI interface you are using. Then connect the MIDI in of your MIDI keyboard to the MIDI out of the interface. That last step is if you want PT to play the sounds on your keyboard instead of using a vi in the computer. Also make sure PT and the keyboard are sending on the same MIDI channel (there are 16 such fr each MIDI connection).

What is necessary is proficiency on the keyboard if you want fluid recording. Of course there's also the possibility of step-recording MIDI (note-by-note) but I've never tried that with PT.

Beyond this you're going to have to define for yourself exactly what you want to do - record the MIDI from your keyboard into PT so you can change sounds later or record the audio of your keyboard into PT.