MIDI for starters In this article I will try to explain in a very easily understandable way, how you can get started with MIDI music, what you need, etc. I'm writing this for the BEGINNERS so everyone can understand it and I will try not to use too much musical/technical language. If you're one of those who is curious about all this MIDI talk lately, but don't know really what it's all about, this is for you! If you're already an experienced MIDI user you should be very patient with the explanations, or don't read it at all... WHY MIDI? As most Amiga users will have noticed, nearly all well-known Soundtracker musicians usually "disappear" from the Amiga scene after a while. Why? Is it because they sell their Amigas and become hippies? Is it because they get tired of making music and would rather do something else? Nope. What happens to 90 percent of them is that they buy themselves some MIDI equipment and start working on that instead. Working with synths, samplers, drum machines etc. gives you a LOT more "working space" and if you have a decent synth or two, the sound quality is light years better. However, working with MIDI takes more time and has to be done more carefully than using Soundtracker. Some of you might think that "Oh if I only had a coupla synths I could make such cool music too!". Well I can assure you that MAKING the music doesn't get any easier - it's just that the results are so much better, that it IS worth the extra effort. WHAT IS MIDI? MIDI is short for Musical Instruments Digital Interface. It's a standard communication language between all sorts of instruments. At first only synths and drum machines used MIDI, but now you can get MIDI guitars, MIDI saxophones, etc etc. But where does the Amiga come into this? Well all notes played on a MIDI instrument results in a special MIDI code being sent out from the instrument. Not only notes in fact, but also all kinds of other commands, like pitching, program change, control change etc. are MIDI commands (or "events" as they are called in the MIDI language) that can be read by your Amiga - and stored in memory. While you have all these "events" in your Amiga, you can edit them, add some, take out some, and send all the events back to the synth, which will then of course react to the MIDI commands and play what it's told to play. When your Amiga does this, it acts as what is called a "Sequencer". I'd say about 80 percent of todays pop music and maybe 90 percent of film music is made with MIDI, or at least with some use of MIDI. WHAT DO I NEED? If you want to get started with MIDI music, here's what you need to go out and buy: - An Amiga of course -but if you're reading this, I suppose you already have one :-) - A MIDI interface for the Amiga. These are relatively cheap. - A good software package (i.e. Sequencer program). Which one to buy is of course up to you, but I've tried them all and "Music-X" is by far the best, so I strongly recommend that one. You can probably get a pirated copy of it somewhere - but if you want to get going for real, I suggest that you buy the package because there's a BIG manual and you couldn't possibly find out everything yourself. - Then of course you need one or more synths. (More on that below). WHAT CAN THE AMIGA DO FOR ME ? A lot. In fact, there would be an easier answer if I said "What CAN'T the Amiga do for me?" because the very simple answer would be: "It can't compose the music for you". It can do all the rest. I'll try not to describe one specific program too much here, but let's face it - Music-X is the best MIDI program yet made for any home computer, and some of the functions I'm about to mention are specific for Music-X. The depth and user interface of Music-X is out of this world and it's made with a sheer quality that can only be compared to that of DPaint III. I'm not going to go in-depth on Music-X this time, but for those of you who don't know what a MIDI music package can do - here's just a short summary: Your music can be recorded from the synth or tapped in directly as in Sonix. The music consists of a number of different "sequences". These sequences can then be put together to form a whole song. It's quite like "patterns" in Soundtracker really, but of course you can put as many voices as you like in one sequence, you decide how long each sequence is - and you have 250 different sequences to use (Music-X). Once you have a sequence recorded you can edit it and add to it as you want to. Besides taking care of MIDI signals, Music-X also handles 16 Amiga samples which can be used in addition to the sound from the synths. This is a great option for adding effects/speech etc. in the songs. In fact, there's nothing that says you can't make a song with Music-X that only uses Amiga sounds - although I suppose Noisetracker would do that job better. Music-X also offers a number of other options, for instance it can be used as a really powerful MIDI control station for live stage performance. It gives you full control of up to 16 synths - all at your fingertips from the Amiga's keyboard or from one specific selected synth. Another function in Music-X is the Communications part - where you're allowed to set up a protocol that can communicate more directly with your synth(s) and let you store and edit the synth sounds etc. with your Amiga. Another couple of things worth mentioning is the user friendliness of Music-X. It's so easy to use every second is a pleasure. And finally - I have deliberately tried to push the Amiga as far as possibe to see if the old GURU came to visit Music-X. But no matter how much pressure I put on it - I was using ALL the memory, running about 10 tasks with different priorities in the background, with all kinds of silly equipment connected to the Amiga - but Music-X has NEVER guru'ed out on me. What a program! Ok, that's enough talk about the Amiga part of the setup - now let's have a look at the expensive part - the synths. SYNTHS? BUT I DON'T KNOW THE FIRST THING ABOUT THEM! Don't worry, a lot of people are saying just that - well I'm going to try to explain the "basics" that might clear things up a bit. When you're looking for a synth, there are two major types to consider. (a) a sampler, and (b) a synthesizer. They both have their strong and their weak sides, so the best thing would of course be to get one of each, but most of us can't afford that, at least not at the same time. Samplers have the ability to "record" real-life sounds to get fabulous sound quality from other well-known instruments (Piano, Choir, Strings, Drums, Sax, Guitar...) whilst a Synthesizer gives you more freedom to "design" your own sounds and so to make cool lead instruments and funny effects. The ultimate funk song for instance, has sampled bass and drums and maybe a sax, but the jumping chords and the synth solo should be played from a synthesizer. From now on, when I say "synth", I don't necessarily mean synthesizer - it can also be a sampler. They are both often referred to as a "synth". Apart from choosing between a sampler and a synthesizer, (some synths also have both - more about that later), you should also choose between (a) a synth WITH a keyboard or (b) a synth WITHOUT a keyboard. The ones without keyboards are fully functional synths, it's just that they have no keys to play! These are called "synth modules" or "rack modules". They can only be played on with MIDI signals, using another keyboard to control it, or a sequencer. Most people buy only one synth with a keyboard, and then add to their equipment with one or several synth modules which they stack on top of eachother. The higher stack - the more to play around with! Now, which synth to buy I'm not going to tell you. We all have different taste in which sounds we like etc. But when you go out to look for a synth you should at least ask about the following: 1) Does the synth have a touch-sensitive keyboard (the harder you hit the keys - the louder it plays). Does it also support after-touch? (You can press the keys down harder AFTER you've actually hit them. 2) How many voices can it play at the same time? If you want to get started with some real music you should go for at least 30 here. Remember that a chord, including bass part, can take 5 or 6 voices. 3) Does the synth have a rythm part (i.e. built-in drum machine)? 4) But lastly, and most important of all : LISTEN to the synth! Are the sounds any good? Some synths have nice specifications, but the sounds are crap. An example is the very popular Yamaha DX7 which sells well on it's specifications but the sounds are pathetic (as on most other Yamaha synths). Casio is also something I would try to avoid. EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT THE KORG M1 ..? If you're buying your first synth, you should try to get hold of one that can do as many things as possible - at the same time! A Korg M1 might be a wise choice because it gives you many possibilities. But you will probably want to get rid of it after a while, because the sounds on it aren't too impressive. My personal verdict of the M1 is that the rythm parts are great - the brass and bass parts are ok, but where it fails to satisfy is the strings and choir which sound very "plastic" and the so-called piano which sounds more like a children's toy. All in all a good synth - maybe a bit overpriced. In the end it really comes down to what kind of music you want to make - what kind of instruments you need. You should NOT go out and buy a synth of the same kind that your friend has - just because he has it. MY SETUP At the moment, I'm working on the using equipment: - A Korg DW8000 synthesizer - A Roland U110 rack module - A Roland TR-909 drum machine - A Art ProVerb 100 reverb/effects unit. - A Tascam portable "home studio" 4-track tape recorder Which I'm quite happy with. I'm going to say a few words about each of them. I've chosen to describe these synths not because I think it's the best thing in the world but simply because I've used them a lot and I know them well. The DW8000 is a synthesizer with absolutely no samples, you have to design the sounds yourself. With time and effort you can get some nice sounds from it but it really all comes down to the well-known Korg blip-blop sounds. It has it's limitations, but it's good for lead synths and acid bass. What puts me off about the DW8000 though is that it's not multi-timbral (i.e. it can only play ONE instrument at a time!). That's why I have the Roland U110 rack module. It's only a little box, but a VERY powerful synth with sampled sounds. It can play 31 instruments simultaneously, has 100 internal sounds plus drums and room for installing 4 ROM cards at the same time. The ROM card is something you can buy as an addition later and plug it in to get more sounds. Most of the sounds in the U110 are what I would call "quite good", however the strings, piano and choir sounds are absolutely breath-taking. Simply the best around (as long as we're not counting the kind of REALLY expensive stuff that only professional studios etc. can afford). The drums part is more medium though, the sax and trumpet sounds could be better. For "serious" music or Jarre-style music, this box is a MUST (hafta have it!), but for rock or disco music, well you should get something else. The drum machine Roland TR-909 is of the older model. The sounds are pretty cool but I must admit they don't sound much like real drums. They are excellent for house music though. For those of you who have heard the group InnerCity - well they use TR-909. Not much like the real thing - but charming. The ProVerb unit doesn't actually MAKE any sound - it's a digital sound control unit. What it does is to "reformat" the sound by putting on echo, reverb ("big room" effect), chorus (detune/multiply the sound), flange (spacey sound) etc. etc. It's a great tool if you want a more professional output. It makes the music sound more "lively" and not so dry. It also works as a "false stereo" box, it makes stereo sound out of a mono signal. (Well, not REAL stereo, but it's hard to tell the difference!) The Tascam recorder gives you the possibility to tape your music bit by bit. Let's say you've made all the drums and synth parts ready on Music-X but later you want to put on some guitar and maybe even vocals. What you do is to record the synth parts on one or two tracks on the tape. When you're ready to put the guitar in you can listen to the tracks already recorded while you're taping the guitar on another track. When all the tracks have been recorded you can put different effects on each of them, mix them together and pan them (left/right). The Tascam uses a VERY effective noise reduction system called DBX, which removes all the dreaded tape noise. The stuff I'm working on is of course just an example of how you can set up to get going. There are thousands of other solutions. What to buy is up to you, but I strongly recommend that you don't just throw the money on the counter before you've heard lots of synths and compared them. One synth may sound very impressive, but there is SO much great equipment around - you will surely regret buying something in a rush. Ok I think that concludes my little trip into the MIDI world - for now. I know a lot of guys out there would like to start working with "the real thing" but can't really seem to get a grasp on how it all works. This article was meant especially for those guys - and I hope you've picked up a few useful things. It's possible that I might be back to give a bit more detailed info on how to get the best from Music-X. If you have direct questions about synths, MIDI or Music-X I'd be glad to help. You can reach me on the Crusaders BBS : +47 6 810881 or +47 6 810864. Bjorn Lynne hobby & freelance musician __ /// ...And remember where you found this first : __ /// \\\ /// T H E C R U S A D E R S B B S \\/// \// For maximum Amiga pleasure, dial (Norway) - 6 - 81 08 81 or 81 08 64