[linux-audio-user] Newb MIDI questions here...

[Dragan Noveski]

Vincent Jaubert wrote:
> On 3/26/07, clinart <clinart at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> 1) Why use MIDI?  I have heard stuff that I recorded professionally
>> sequenced with MIDI and must say that I can hear a difference. Is this
>> because it's all perfectly synced up?  What are other advantages, if 
>> any, of
>> MIDI over audio?
>
> Midi and audio are not the same thing. With midi, you record the
> "score" of the music (notes used, velocity, and timing). You can
> playback a midi file of "fûr elise", and link it with a digital piano,
> or a sampler that will play a trumpet. MIDI doesn't record any sound,
> just the score.
>
>>
>> I'd like to play with Rosegarden but don't have any MIDI files except 
>> the
>> ones I made with Hydrogen.  If I wanted to sync up a guitar track 
>> perfectly
>> with the MIDI beat, I guess the best way would be to have the guitar 
>> track
>> as MIDI too, but I don't have a MIDI hardware device.  Next question...
>
> If you want a real guitar sound, and not a synthesized or sampled one,
> there is no use for midi.
> To synchronize a midi track with an audio track, the only way, is to
> edit the guitar track in the audio domain.
>>
>> 2) Is there Linux software that can convert an audio signal/file to 
>> MIDI?
>
> There are such software (i don't know for linux), but they do a very
> poor job at it. And what would be the purpose ?
>
actually i just compiled CLAM and the clam-applications too.
Voice2MIDI can do this - very strange, i just loaded an audio file 
(someone speaking) and used the function "extract melody" and than 
played it with timidity - very strange experimental stuff!!
worth of trying, but compiling CLAM took me about 2,5 days, not easy at all.

cheers,
doc