Here Bubba, I pasted it here for you thx!
Oh by the way what exactly does that text in bold mean?
So where do we start? I always need a new guitar.
Fisrt thing to understand… and reapet to yourself in the mirror 1000 times a day if you have to until it is firmly beaten into your head… “MIDI is only a means of triggering things” often, but not always, in relation to time. That is it. A standardize method of triggering things accepted by many devices and softwares, but still only a trigger mechanism. MIDI can put your garage door up and down, it could turn the lights in your house on and off. MIDI has nothign to do with music… really. However, it was desiogned for music. Huh? You say. Right, MIDI was designed to be used with music, but it is no different than a script that gets kicked off every five minutes on a computer. A scheduler (or sequencer in MIDI speak) has a list of the things it is going to do and when it does it. In Windows, the Task Scheduler kicks off a task… but it has no knowledge of what the task is. It simply tells script or program X to do Y at such and such a time. Or maybe you hit the a key on your keybaord. The computer could use it for 100 things. Actually typing A in a word processor, making Megaman jump, Accepting the license agreement on your new software etc. So let’s say it again, MIDI is simply a trigger mechanism.
Okay, so we have that under our belt. The most common use of MIDI is to trigger a sound in a sound module or sampler. However, MIDI can also trigger effects to change in an effects processor for example. The key thing to understand is that MIDI recording (sequencing) is relative to time. Not time like Windows Task Scheduler that makes a backup happen every day at midnight. It is relative time. So I “tell” MIDI I am going to make something at 120 bpm. In MIDI speak that means if I program quarter notes into a sequencer, the relation between those notes is 120 quarters play every minute… or trigger one event every .5 seconds from the point I press play. Changing the tempo in a MIDI sequence is just changing the base on which everything is built from a time perspective.
Okay, now we talk about ticks. You can create just about whatever scale you want in MIDI. Maybe I want that .5 second space to have a precision of 1/60th of a quarter note… which in our example of 120 bpm would mean dividing that .5 seconds into 60 0.0083s pieces. This is what we call a tick. A tick is that space between the main note divisions in MIDI that determin eour precision. It is hard to swing or have much expression when locked to hard cold metronomic quarter notes. By dividing the notes into ticks, you have more precision to do stuff like 1/8s, 1/16ths, 1/8 triplets slightly behind the beat, etc. HOwever, the more precise, the tougher manual editiing of time can be.
Does this make sense so far? To me a key thing in MIDI is understanding the time and the concept of an event (that is something triggering something on this time line we are creating). If you understand this, we’ll move on.
Bubba deslexic?
Calling the kettle black are we? Designed… it was a typo. There are a lot of typos in that tutorial. Don’t over look the next 8 pages that really tell the MIDI story.
Wekl… how dart yoi! I neber maid a tpyo in my lufe!!
D
Calling the kettle black are we? Designed... it was a typo. There are a lot of typos in that tutorial. Don't over look the next 8 pages that really tell the MIDI story.
Exactly bubba my pal, get the whole store! ;)
There it is:
the term MIDI MAP we unknown before we had MIDI controllers - when a knood/slider on a controller is set to do a certain thing this is called mapping - a MIDI track is asigned to an instrument - not mapped - one thing to remember is that a MIDI track is nothing but data, numbers, the majority od the numbers are notes which in reality mean that say number 55 tells a tone generator to produce a certain tone -
MIDI has TWO SELECT OPTIONS, BANK select which is generally reserved for hardware synths and PROGRAN CHANGE - program change asigns an instrument to the midi track - this is required by the M$oft synth so that in a multitrack MIDI song each track plays a different instrument -
a lot of VSTi instruments either give you the choice of blocking program changes, so a GM track will not foul thing up or they totally ignore the numbers that represent program changes -
generally just setting the program box to NONE will stop GM tracks from upsetting most VSTi,s -
with some VSTi,s if the MIDI notes are out of range when that range is referenced to the GM drum set then no notes are played - in other words the MIDI notes are higher than the position of the drums then there will be no sound from the drum pads - to get MIDI note to fit within the drum range you have to change the kbd on the piano roll to MIDI drums and drag the notes into the position that the drums are placed - IE any notes that have no drum reference on the left side of the piano roll will not sound -
so if your MIDI clips do not play in your drum sampler, switch to the piano roll, then change the keyboard to MIDI drums, use the scrollbar to find where the notes are -
M.R.
scan down the list and look for PROGRAM CHANGES - click in the TIME collum next to the program change (turns blue) then click on the DELETE button - do this for all program changes -
your MIDI clips should now work correctly -
BUT this not permanent it only works for that session - resaving the MIDI track under a new name does not work -
you have to ues another app to strip out all program changes -
http://www.sweetwater.com/k2000/smf-t.html
this app works BUT is not that easy to work out what to strip out as n often says it cnnot read the file, plays it OK though -
M.R.
You shouldn't need to strip out program changes, n-Track by default strips them out during playback unless the "Filter program changes" Preferences/MIDI option is disabled (it is enabled by default).
n-Track uses the program change events in MIDI files that you import to extract which setting to use for the "Program" track setting, but once the .mid file is imported the program change event is no longer used if "Filter Program Changes" is on.
I wasn't able to reproduce tracks not remembering the "none" program setting. There might be a bug somewhere, please let me know if you can reproduce it.
Or perhaps you're saying that the Program setting resets if you export the track to a .mid file and then reimport it, which is what indeed happens if the track has program change events.
Flavio.
AH - i intick those incase they stopped my controllers from working correctly -
“Or perhaps you’re saying that the Program setting resets if you export the track to a .mid file and then reimport it, which is what indeed happens if the track has program change events” - yes that what i meant - CAN YOU CURE THIS ? so than N exports the MIDI file as per the events list -
M.R,
"Or perhaps you're saying that the Program setting resets if you export the track to a .mid file and then reimport it, which is what indeed happens if the track has program change events" - yes that what i meant - CAN YOU CURE THIS ? so than N exports the MIDI file as per the events list -
n-Track shouldn't add program change events if the track Program is set to (none).
I've tested importing a .mid file, setting a track Program to '(none)', deleting any Program Change event from the Events list window, then exporting the song to a new .mid file. When I re-imported the new .mid file the track that I modified had the program still set to '(none)', which I think is the correct behavior.
Would you expect a different behavior?
Flavio.
from a personal point of view, i would like N to export a MIDI file as per the events list, this would allow me to remove program and controller info from other sources (download or MIDI files from other apps) - in other words to be able remove all GM info, pitch bend, velocity changes etc -
M.R.
from a personal point of view, i would like N to export a MIDI file as per the events list, this would allow me to remove program and controller info from other sources (download or MIDI files from other apps) - in other words to be able remove all GM info, pitch bend, velocity changes etc -
M.R.
When Program is 'none' in the Track properties box the exported MIDI file has only the events listed in the events list. When Program is not 'none' n-Track adds a program change as a way to remember and be able to restore the Program track setting when the .mid file is reimported.
I'll add in the Preferences/MIDI box an option not to save the extra Program Change event.
Flavio.
This DAW is going to have so many features - I don’t know if I can handle
them all.