26 Feb
2007
26 Feb
'07
2:36 p.m.
Hi guys. Hope you can help me figure this all out ... I've been reading
this list for awhile and, even though I figure I'm a not-so-bad musician
and fairly computer literate ... I have to admit that half the
comments/questions I read here just turn to jelly in my brain.
Anyway, what I want to do is to create some decent recordings using MMA
backing tracks and me playing sax. So, what I'm doing right now is to
play the MMA midi file though a keyboard and record that onto a little
multi-track recorder. Then, I listen to the background track and record
myself playing sax. Next, I transfer the tracks to the computer and do
some rudimentary mixing with Audacity. Honestly, it doesn't sound all
that awful (for my latest effort,
http://mellowood.ca/music/recordings/). Biggest problem I see with this
is that I can't tweak just the (for example) bass or piano in audacity
since all the background is "mixed" into a stereo track.
But, I'd like to do better :)
So, I see a need to be able to split the MMA track into several audio
tracks ... one for each MIDI track. So, question 1: what linux software
will act as a synth which will split the midi out into separate audio
tracks? I looked at timidity, and it doesn't appear to have that
feature. If I've missed something there, I still have a problem with the
quite awful default sounds it has ... so if I need to use timidity,
where would I get better sounds. Or would I be better off to play/record
the background multiple times though the hardware synth ... But I don't
see how I'd ever get that synchronized.
Question 2: Assuming that I have recorded a decent multi-track
background, can I use audacity to record my sax playing off a mixer
board? I've got a ICE1712 - M Audio Audiophile 24/96 audio card.
Question 3: what questions have I forgotten to ask?
Thanks.
--
Bob van der Poel ** Wynndel, British Columbia, CANADA **
EMAIL: bob(a)mellowood.ca
WWW: http://www.mellowood.ca
5 Mar
5 Mar
7:34 a.m.
Bob van der Poel wrote:
... I see a need to be able to split the MMA track
into several audio
tracks ... one for each MIDI track. So, question 1: what linux
software will act as a synth which will split the midi out into
separate audio tracks? I looked at timidity, and it doesn't appear to
have that feature. If I've missed something there, I still have a
problem with the quite awful default sounds it has ... so if I need to
use timidity, where would I get better sounds. Or would I be better
off to play/record the background multiple times though the hardware
synth ... But I don't see how I'd ever get that synchronized.
I sometimes record exactly as you've described. I use QSynth set up for
separate engines per instrument, that way each engine can be assigned a
different audio connection in QJackCtl. I also use midirgui, a nice MIDI
channelizer/router that lets me set up discrete channel assignments so
that, for example, the engine playing the drums receives *only* messages
sent to channel 10 (and no other channels). Anyway, I route the audio
output to separate tracks in Ardour or ecasound, and voila, multitrack
recording from QSynth.
Btw, TiMidity uses soundfonts too, its sounds are only as good as the
font it renders.
Question 2: Assuming that I have recorded a decent
multi-track
background, can I use audacity to record my sax playing off a mixer
board? I've got a ICE1712 - M Audio Audiophile 24/96 audio card.
Sure, just route the mixer output into into one of your card inputs.
Make sure you check and test the output level.
HTH,
dp
10:24 a.m.
Timidity does also have a way of splitting midi-out. If you do
"timidity -Qx,y,...", where x and y etc. are the channels you want to
mute. Or, the other way round, you could do "timidity -Q0,-x,-y,...",
which will mute everything except the channels you specify with the
dashes. I've been pretty satisfied with the airfont soundfont, but I
can't remember offhand where I found it.
HTH,
terrence
2:47 p.m.
terrence(a)terrencevak.net wrote:
Timidity does also have a way of splitting midi-out.
If you do
"timidity -Qx,y,...", where x and y etc. are the channels you want to
mute. Or, the other way round, you could do "timidity -Q0,-x,-y,...",
which will mute everything except the channels you specify with the
dashes. I've been pretty satisfied with the airfont soundfont, but I
can't remember offhand where I found it.
Just found that same set of switches on the weekend. Almost works :) I
found that timidity strips off any leading silence on each track, so
once again one has to sync things up. I can't see anything in timidity
to fix that???
I finally found the proper incantation to use a soundfont file with
timidity. Simple, and is probably in the docs ... I was trying to do it
from the command line and I could not get it to work. But, just moving
the .sf2 file to the /usr/share/timidity directory and creating a single
line timidity.cfg file with
soundfont "fluid.sf2" order=0
seems to work. I'll grab the airfont file (now that I know that I can
play a .sf2 file life is simpler) and try that as well.
Best,
--
Bob van der Poel ** Wynndel, British Columbia, CANADA **
EMAIL: bob(a)mellowood.ca
WWW: http://www.mellowood.ca
7:50 p.m.
Thanks for the respose, Dave. Appreciated.
Dave Phillips wrote:
Yes, that part I understand. Guess what I was meaning to ask was what
quality I could expect compared to an external flash-card based recorder
I'm using now. Same/worse/better?
Oh, if anyone is interested I have put a few recordings I'm made with
MMA, etc. on http://www.mellowood.ca/music/recordings
Best,
--
Bob van der Poel ** Wynndel, British Columbia, CANADA **
EMAIL: bob(a)mellowood.ca
WWW: http://www.mellowood.ca
Bob van der Poel wrote:
Okay. Worked awhile today and got it going. Ending up playing a file to
my external synth and then sending one track to qsynth. The operation of
all this is not the intuitive ... but, I got it running. Gotta say it's
neat ... but gotta say it sounds awful as well. To my ear the tracks
going to qsynth are out of pitch and time with the external keyboard.
But, I suspect that is to be expected?
Now, I suppose I could bank up a bunch of software synths and get it
running.
... I see a need to be able to split the MMA
track into several audio
tracks ... one for each MIDI track. So, question 1: what linux
software will act as a synth which will split the midi out into
separate audio tracks? I looked at timidity, and it doesn't appear to
have that feature. If I've missed something there, I still have a
problem with the quite awful default sounds it has ... so if I need to
use timidity, where would I get better sounds. Or would I be better
off to play/record the background multiple times though the hardware
synth ... But I don't see how I'd ever get that synchronized.
I sometimes record exactly as you've described. I use QSynth set up for
separate engines per instrument, that way each engine can be assigned a
different audio connection in QJackCtl. I also use midirgui, a nice MIDI
channelizer/router that lets me set up discrete channel assignments so
that, for example, the engine playing the drums receives *only* messages
sent to channel 10 (and no other channels). Anyway, I route the audio
output to separate tracks in Ardour or ecasound, and voila, multitrack
recording from QSynth.
Btw, TiMidity uses soundfonts too, its sounds are only as good as the
font it renders.
Yes. I've just installed the eaw font and it sounds much better than the
default. Anyone know where I can grab anything better than that? I did
get something called FLuidR3 GM.sf2. It runs fine with fluidsynth, but I
don't see anyway to use it with timidity. I can't find the program to
create the config files.
Question 2: Assuming that I have recorded a
decent multi-track
background, can I use audacity to record my sax playing off a mixer
board? I've got a ICE1712 - M Audio Audiophile 24/96 audio card.
Sure, just route the mixer output into into one of your card inputs.
Make sure you check and test the output level.
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