Hi everyone,
I’ve been fighting with this off and on since I started with n-track…
I can’t seem to get MIDI to work, playback, I mean. See, I’m a MIDI n00b. What I would like to do, is sequence my drum/bass/keyboard tracks using the piano roll in N. I’m able to create a MIDI track, and place notes in piano roll, but when I play back, I get no sound. The TRACK VU meter moves, but neither the main recording or playback meter does.
In Preferences/MIDI settings/MIDI Devices, I have both input and output set to “Creative SoundBlaster MPU-401”.
SoundBlaster PCI 128
Any help greatly appreciated!
–acorn
Hi acorn,
What you do is this,
1. Load your Midi track (which you’ve done)
2. Load your vsti or dxi synth etc. by: Track > Midi > New VST or DX instrument channel > select the one you want. (repeat for each instrument - which you should already have in your n-track/vst folder).
N-track will then allocate an appropriate number of channels for each instrument you select, according to how many outputs it senses that instrument has.
3. “Wire up” the midi track to the instrument channel by: Clicking on the top of the Midi track in the mixer window (once) to open it’s “Midi track properties” window. Open the “output” dropdown and select the correct instrument channel.
I think that should do it.
Mike F
All the above and …make sure that in your Creative Mixer you have the MIDI unchecked or no matter what you have setup, you won’t hear a darn thing.
Hi ,
My understanding is that if you have MPU-401 selected as the output device the midi information is being routed out of the computer from the gameport suitable for feeding to an external sound module.
If you have any output options saying something about “sb synth” try that one and then you will also have to have the right channels turned up on your sound card mixer.
Nick
Nick is right … the MPU-401 device is the hardware output of the card.
There should be an option for the internal synth as well as other SW synth’s such as Microsoft’s GS wavetable SW syth. The later one being the least favorable due to high latency … not to mention cheesy sounds.
Yeah. nick/cranz1’s comments should get you sound. However, it will be cheezy sounding and you will have to deal with latency issues plus the infamous “midi->wav wizard” window which takes forever to convert midi tracks for mixdown. Go to http://www.kvr-vst.com/get.php and search for some good keyboard VSTi’s (vst instruments). Then download sfz (you can also use sfplay, which I like but can’t find right now). These will all need to be saved in your VST folder. Then download ns kit and ns j-bass. You can also go to http://www.hammersound.net/ and get other drums, basses, as well as pad and lead key sounds. Load these using the method mike has listed. You will also need to load the soundfonts into the soundfont player (sfz or sfplay). You should be rocking’ and rollin’.
fish