#Midi Junk
16 messages in this thread
I'm just gonna slide this over here for the subject change…
Wow, you really had yer plate full there for a while, eh? Hope you can relax
(read: stay up all night with 3DS<g>) a little now.
PLaying for your church, eh? Cool. The Full Pipe patch on my Korg is Killer!
I've got some new additions to my little studio here, most notably the Korg X3
and a Teac 688 MidiStudio. I've been writing tunes into the Korg to perform to,
and it's been lots of fun. I can save the .MID files out to the PC, and play
'em back so mixin' this stuff up with some animation is gonna be easy and soon
unavoidable!
-Alan
I mostly took the Kurzweil for it's legendary piano patches. Overlayed with
some medium strings, it sounds great. Of course with me playing, it was
strictly amateur night!
I don't even have a computer with a MIDI out just now. I have a couple of ISA
MIDI interfaces around somewhere, but the biggest problem is the computers are
downstairs in the dungeon while the synths are upstairs in the music "wing", so
for now they're live performance only. (I used to have a 286 up their with
Voyetra's best sequencer software, but some scientists in Russia needed it far
more than I did.) Someday I'll get another render slave and give it double
duty as a MIDI center.
JKJ
Hi Alan Hi JKJ..
<< I can save the .MID files out to the PC, and play 'em back so mixin' this
stuff up with some animation is gonna be easy and soon unavoidable! >>
If either of you have any good midi blues covers, I'd like to hear them 🙂 ..
The ones in "Go MIDI*" sound like they were all done by "Band In the Box". Have
any MIDI tunes with your personalities embedded in it? I'm also looking for
good "Xmas" midi tunes.. but they have to be good.. <BG> ..
jonas[adesk]
Jonas,
I have been collecting MIDI tunes for a couple of years now. I will send
you a complete list soon.
-Lee
Hi Lee,
<< I have been collecting MIDI tunes for a couple of years now. >>
Me too.. I was a beta tester for Winjammer when it was just an infant <g>.. The
best tunes I've collected have been from hiring a blues piano player from the
San Fran blues bar scene and paying them to learn and lay down the tracks for
me…
<< list.. >>
I'm looking forward to it. I spent many$ and much time downloading the
contributions in the MIDI forum and not being satisfied. The best midi
contributions, I found, were classical pieces, but I've got this *thing* about
blues..
jonas-[bred in chicago]
PMJI, Jonas, but it is interesting to hear your opinion of the
downloads from the MIDI forum. I feel the same way in general,
although I _have_ found a few gems – the most notable being an old
Frank Zappa tune off of Hot Rats called "Peaches en Regalia". It was
a nice transcription and is a lot of fun to play around with.
Hi Bob,
<< although I _have_ found a few gems >>
My MIDI gem was getting a summer of renting a 386 and renting a midi
keyboard, buying a Roland SCCS-1 and becoming a beta tester for the
Winjammer while living in Lake Tahoe and learning 3DS. It was a
personal turning point in my life, great sounds and great images. 🙂
Hey Jonas,
Since you're a MIDI kinda guy, do you know anything about the low end
keyboards? I need to get a midi keyboard with rythmn and other "group"
features. Is the Yamaha PSR-310 a good one?
Alec Jason
Hi Alec,
<< Since you're a MIDI kinda guy >>
Sorry. I've played tenor sax before and I can whip out a polka on an accordian
but I'm no keyboardist. 🙂 Midi was an interesting study of a language to
control non traditional computer devices.
jonas[adesk]
Hi Jonas,
All the MIDI stuff I have so far is strictly Bass/Drums/Keyboard parts that I
can play guitar and sing to in real-time as a sort of performance-oriented
accompaniment thing.
Current plans for blues stuff are "Red House" (Jimi Hendrix style) and the Led
Zep classic "Since I've been Loving You".
I actually bought a couple of those ready-done "Midi Hits" songs, and was so
dissapointed by the (lack of) quality that I sent 'em back! So now I just cop
the stuff off the record (the same way I've done for years in bands playing
cover stuff) and write it into the sequencer in the X3. Just play it back and
you've got pure 1st-generation accompaniment! I'll probably eventually add
backround vocals on the 688 and master to stereo DAT to finish off the work.
-Alan
Hi Alan,
<< keyboard parts and blues.. >>
Want to trade some of your for some of mine?
My wife, Marcella, is looking forward to the next SIGGRAPH after meeting all of
the musicians here that happen to be animators and hearing of your plans to gig
at SIG. An addition reason I'm stuck on the S.F. blues scene, is that she gets
called up to "sing a set" at the different bars we frequent. She also, uses
these midi tunes to practice her vocals leads and harmony.
I don't see why we couldn't trade some stuff, Jonas. I'll let ya know when I've
got some bluesy stuff done.
Hey, that's right; Marcella sings, huh? Well, she's more than welcome to sing a
few tunes at the "SigGig" (nice name)! Shoot me some Email and we'll talk about
possible titles, etc.
-Alan (never too early to plan!)
PMJI, Alan! How do you like your X3? I have a small MIDI studio, but it is
all older Yamaha equipment (DX7, TG55, RX7), along with Cakewalk for Windows.
I am not familiar with the TEAC MidiStudio, either. I, too, can't wait to tie
the MIDI stuff together with the animation.
Hello Bob,
Although I'm not an accomplished keyboard player, I like my X3 just fine! It's
a great little workstation for the money (I paid 1395$). I finally have a
performance-oriented PCM sample-based all-purpose keyboard for a very
reasonable amount of money. It's *very* versatile and let's me do about
anything I want. I'm sure I'll enjoy working with a PC-based sequencer
eventually, but I'm using the on-board one now. Even a fumble-fingered hack
like me can put together decent-sounding stuff with a quantizing sequencer!
The 688 is a casette-based 8-track recorder/mixer with midi capabilities. It'll
synch, do program changes, and all that cool stuff using a channel dedicated to
midi code. Very cool. Sonic fidelity is *way* better than I ever thought
casette could do (it's double-speed and uses advanced DBX NR) and the mixer
section is nicely done. Internal mixer/recorder bussing is digitally processed
and buss configurations are stored in memory for immediate recall so you can go
from multi-track recording to stereo mixdown at the touch of a button!
Fun stuff…
-Alan
Hi, Alan. Thanks for the reply – I am just now getting around to the
messages – it is SO hard to keep up!!
The X3 sounds nice – do you know it they make a rack-mount version? I
am still using my old DX7 as a MIDI controller and using the Yamaha
TG55 as a sample-based sound module, but one of these days I'd like
to update one or both, and I'v been seeing the Korg name a lot
lately.
I am not a keyboard player, but I don't let that stop me <g>. I do a
lot of bass/drums/rhythm accompaniment so I can play along on the
guitar, but I also do some "composing". After I sold my drums a few
years ago I bought a KAT MIDI pad controller – it is great after
trying to enter drum parts from a keyboard!!
The 688 sounds real nice!! I like the idea of the high fidelity and
the dedicated MIDI support. That's the only thing I miss with a MIDI
setup is being able to record some guitar and vocals!
Hi Bob,
Yup, Lots o' messages around here. Takes a little time to read 'em all.
Yeah, the X3 has a rack module — R-X3 or something like that.
The KAT is cool, eh? I use the keyboard or my Yamaha Digital set.
Yeah, the 688 is great for adding guitar and especially multiple vocals. I
think I'll eventually grab a DAT for mastering to…
-Alan