midi

USB Audio MIDI Interface Units

May 11, 2019 by Ken 2 Comments

M-Audio M-Track @x@M — M-Audio M-Track 2X2M

A USB audio MIDI interface is a unit that allows you to record both audio AND MIDI into your computer (or mobile device, in some cases).

In order to get great sounding audio into your computer, you need a good audio interface. And I talk a lot about those. But what if you want to connect a keyboard to also record MIDI?

Not all audio interface units have MIDI inputs and outputs. So if you want to record BOTH audio AND MIDI, you’ll need a USB audio MIDI interface unit. This is assuming you use USB, as most of us do. But if you use something different – like thunderbolt – you’d obviously need an interface specifically for that.

So which units have audio AND MIDI?

One terrific USB audio MIDI interface unit is the M-Audio M-Track 2X2M. As the name of the model implies, you can plug two mics into it (2X for “2 XLR”). These inputs are combo jacks so they will accept XLR or quarter-inch balanced plugs.

And there is a MIDI input where you can plug in a MIDI keyboard, as well as a MIDI Output.

So with this interface, you can record 2 mics with pristine preamps. And then you can create MIDI tracks to play your virtual instruments in your DAW recording software.

So what other inputs and outputs does this interface have?

The 2X2M has several other input/outs (I/O). The USB interface is a USB-C type. But it comes with a standard (USB-A) cable and will work with any USB input on your computer.

Then there are 2 quarter-inch instrument inputs that are optimized for guitar and bass, but can accept any instrument input. Also, you have balanced main stereo outputs so you can plug these into monitor speakers or a mixer running your monitors.

This interface, like most decent units, also has phantom power for your condenser mics.

Other USB audio MIDI interface units

Obviously the M-Audio unit is not the only USB audio MIDI interface out there. But if you want to plug a MIDI keyboard into your interface, you really need to be sure before you buy one that it has that MIDI capability. The interface I usually recommend – the Focusrite Scarlett Solo or Scarlett 2i2 do NOT have any MIDI I/O. The Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 interface, however. DOES have MIDI capability. So make sure you do your research.

One other USB audio MIDI interface is the Steinberg UR22mkII. It is similar to the M-Audio, except the Steinberg can ALSO record into your iPad! It also has what it calls “Loopback” for streaming performances live to the Internet.

As far as I/O it’s very similar to the M-Audio. Both units can record at 24-bit/192kHz. The Steinberg does not have 2 separate instrument inputs, but since the mic inputs are combo units, you can plug instruments into those.

List of a USB audio MIDI interface units

So here is short list of interface units with MIDI I/O. Obviously this isn’t a list of every unit in the world. But it should give you a good starting point if you need audio AND MIDI recording capability:

M-Audio M-Track 2X2M
Focusrite Scarlett 2i4
Focusrite Clarett 2Pre USB
Steinberg UR22mkII
iConnectivity iConnectAUDIO2+
Mackie Onyx Producer 2.2
IK Multimedia iRig Pro Duo (works with iPhone and iPad also!)

There are lots of others, of course, but this list should give you a good selection to choose from if you are looking for a USB audio MIDI interface.

Quickly Learn Your Harmony Part With A MIDI File

April 10, 2016 by Ken Leave a Comment

There are lots of really good singers out there who don’t sight read music as well as they would like to. Most of the folks in the choirs I’ve ever been in were in that category. Heck, I am in that category. For us it can be a bit time-consuming and difficult to learn harmony parts. One way of making the job much easier and faster is to be able to listen to your part all by itself. While there are obviously many ways to get audio recordings of all the parts of a song individually, one of the quickest and most versatile methods is to get a MIDI file of the song. If you need a reminder of what MIDI is, see our post MIDI Recording – What Is It And Why Is It Awesome? and our video Intro To MIDI and
Virtual Instruments.
MIDI files are especially awesome when your group is learning a classical, medieval/renaissance, or some other public domain piece. First, many of these songs are already freely available on the internet. Second, those files typically contain all the harmony parts so that all you need to do is import the file into an audio program on your computer and you can listen to any or all of the harmony parts together or separately.
If the song in question is not public domain (be careful of copyright issues), you can use a notation program to enter the parts. In fact, if you have a notation program (examples are: Sibelius First ($104.99), Finale PrintMusic ($89.99), Notation Composer ($98.99), Noteworthy Composer ($49) and Musescore (Free)), you can enter all the parts and tghen export the file as a MIDI file to share with other members of your group.
MIDI files are pretty universal and can be read by most audio programs. I use Reaper to do this, but it works in lots of programs, including Garage Band (for the Mac users).

So How Do I Do This?

First get a MIDI file for the song (download it or have someone in your group enter it into a notation program and export the MIDI file)
Open the MIDI file in Reaper (or any other program that supports MIDI and virtual instruments).
One each harmony part is on its own track, which happens automatically when you import the file, make sure there is a virtual instrument. For a primer on what a virtual instrument is, see our post Audio Recording Awesomeness – Virtual Instruments. In the video below, you’ll see how to use a free virtual piano instrument for this purpose.
Choose whether to listen to your harmony part by itself (solo the track by pressing the “S” button), all the parts together, or any option in between. You can also adjust the individual volumes for each part to maybe turn all the parts but yours down to practice singing your part while hearing the others, something that some harmony singers find difficult.

Can I Practice In The Car?

You can practice in the car, or anywhere else you can listen to your portable music player or phone. Do this by rendering an audio file (or several of them) from Reaper (etc.). Then you can put the MP3 onto your your phone or mp3 player to practice while out and about.
The video below shows you how to do all of this. I hope it helps those of you who may be having a bit of trouble nailing that harmony part.
http://homebrewaudio.wistia.com/medias/eqxdvil4wn?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=700

What Does Quantize Mean In MIDI?

March 29, 2016 by Ken Leave a Comment

When using MIDI (for a review of what MIDI is, see our article MIDI Recording – What Is It And Why Is It Awesome?), one of the coolest things you can do is edit the timing of each note AFTER it is already recorded, which is super hard to do with recorded audio.
You can even tell every note in a song to “snap” to the exact beat the song. So the answer to the question, “what does quantize mean in MIDI?” is automatically shifting every note in a MIDI file to align with a timing grid. That’s my own definition, but that’s basically what it means.
So for instance, let’s say you used a MIDI keyboard to play a drum part for a song. If you are ever ahead or behind the beat when you record, it’s OK. You can just go to the MIDI notes in the MIDI editor of whatever program you’re using (and yes, you can do this in Reaper:)), select all the notes, and tell them to shift left or right to get on the proper beat.
There are always settings you can choose when quantizing MIDI notes. For example, if you make each note absolutely perfectly on the beat of the song, it might sound a bit artificial and machine-like. That’s because we’re used to hearing music played by humans. And humans – even the most talented humans – can never be mathematically perfect in music. So slight timing variations OFF the beat of a song can actually sound better to us – more natural. That’s why there is usually a “Humanize” setting in quantizing tools.
Below is an AudiotTuts/EnvatoTuts lesson on quantizing MIDI using Cubase software. But like I said, the lessons will be applicable to just about any program with a MIDI editor.
See the Cubase quantizing article here: http://music.tutsplus.com/tutorials/quantize-a-brief-introduction–cms-25428

MIDI Recording – What Is It And Why Is It Awesome?

March 28, 2016 by Ken Leave a Comment

You may not be new to MIDI recording, but you may still not know what MIDI is or why it is so cool. MIDI is an acronym having to do with music and computers, but nobody ever really uses the full name so why confuse the matter? What? Because you’re curious? Okay, but it really doesn’t matter. People pronounce the acronym “middee.” It stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. There. Now you can impress your friends. But I digress.
I want you to know what you can do with MIDI, and not have to use the word “protocol” even once…err…twice. What it comes down to is a collection of things that are really useful. So instead of trying to define MIDI, I’ll just describe several things and hopefully build a rapid picture of why MIDI is awesome.

The Matrix

Have you ever wished that like in the move, “The Matrix,” you could just know how to fly a helicopter, or play a fiddle, is seconds just by clicking a button on a computer? MIDI is sort of like that, though no surgery should be required. Let’s say you’re recording a song on your home studio and decide the song really needs a fiddle part (or sax, or trumpet, etc.). You could try to play it yourself. Shyaa! Your cat never forgave you for your fiddle attempt that last time. You could find someone who plays the fiddle. That’s preferable, but not always practical. It certainly takes a lot of time and effort. Or you could “build” the fiddle part you’re hearing in your head a few notes at a time on a piano-type keyboard (which will be saved as a MIDI file, “*.mid”), load up fiddle MIDI instrument (say, using Garritan Personal Orchestra virtual instruments) on your computer, and skidoosh! You, via your computer, have just added a fiddle part to your song.

Like A Word Processor For Music Recording

In the old days, if you wanted a pretty document all done in gothic script, you had to get a special pen and actually write it by hand. If you wanted the same words in a different font, say, a brush-stroke script, you had to rewrite the entire document with a different pen! But in the age of word processors all you have to do is go back to the original document and switch fonts. The job is done in seconds.
It used to be kind of the same way with music (and still is when using live musicians). Let’s say you got a friend to play that fiddle part on your recording. After 57 listens to the song, you realize it should have been a sax playing those notes instead of a fiddle! Holy crap, now what? You don’t know any sax players. You don’t have time to search for one, or money to pay for a studio musician. MIDI to the rescue! On your computer, open that MIDI file that plays the notes you put together for the fiddle earlier. Now load up a sax MIDI instrument on your computer (say, using Garritan Jazz and Big Band 3) and the same MIDI file will play the same part, but as a sax this time! It is like changing fonts on a word processor. Cool huh?

But MIDI Instruments Sound Bad, Don’t They?

Oh the innocence of blossoming knowledge. Many people are familiar with the music sounds that have come built in to most computer sound cards for decades now. Some of these sounds don’t sound very good, it’s true (though you can get some pretty interesting sounds). The “guitar” instrument sounds about as much like a guitar as the guitar setting on my grandmother’s organ. Some folks have come to associate the term MIDI with THOSE sounds. So in their minds, “MIDI instruments sound bad.” If you would like to have your world-view altered, let me introduce you to “virtual instruments!”

Virtual Instruments

For many years now, software programs called virtual instruments have been available that will play MIDI files and sound amazingly or even exactly like whatever real instrument you need. In fact, in some cases, it IS the real instrument (what?)! Yeah, some of these programs have actual recordings of THAT instrument that play when a MIDI file tells it to. This is one of the coolest things in the universe. And I will wax poetic about this kind of virtual instrument in another article (sorry;)).
Like any program, some are better than others, and cost varies from free to quite expensive. Either way, most sound infinitely better than the cheesy sound card instruments.

Correction Fluid For Your Song

I’ll mention one last awesome thing about MIDI, though the topic is vast and we’ve just scratched the surface here. Going back to the document metaphor…if any of you are old enough to remember, there used to be a magical thing called “correction fluid” that you could cover up mistakes with on a printed document. If you made a mistake, you could just dab some of this white paint over the mistake, let it dry, then go back and type the correct word over it. It prevented you having to start all over again from scratch. Are you sensing there is a MIDI comparison coming up?
Let’s say you have a MIDI file (basically bars on a graph representing musical notes) of “Those Endearing Young Charms.” (Bugs Bunny fans unite!) The computer is playing back just fine and then THAT NOTE hits. You know…the one that causes the piano to explode? Well, on your computer, it just causes a really sour note. If the sound being played back had been recorded audio (wave, mp3, etc.), you’d have no choice but to re-record the part to fix the note. But since it’s a MIDI file playing a virtual instrument, all you have to do is open the MIDI file on your screen, and drag the not to the right line. Bada-boom! Now the right note plays and nobody gets blown up. MIDI prevented you having to start all over again from scratch.
I hope the above information was enough to get you excited about MIDI. It wasn’t an exhaustive thesis (which would have been exhausting, trust me), but you should get the idea of some of the awesome things you can do with MIDI. And I didn’t have to say the word “protocol.”
Can you record and edit MIDI in Reaper? Why yes. Yes you can. And speaking of that…
If you’d like to learn how to use MIDI, check out our new home recording course, The Newbies Guide To Audio Recording Awesomeness 2: Pro Recording With Reaper Software – we have a 3-part lesson that shows you how to insert MIDI files into a project, record your own MIDI files, and use them to play virtual instruments (we use free virtual instruments in the course so you don’t have to buy any). We also give you so drums to use with Reaper’s ReaDrums feature. The course is a series of tutorial videos for only $47.

Why You May Not Want To Use 32-Bit Floating Point

March 25, 2015 by Ken Leave a Comment

Yeah, the headline uses a “techie” sounding bit (ha!) of lingo, which I usually try to avoid. But sometimes you will run into these terms and it helps to know a little something about them.
Bit depth in digital recording (using a computer or digital recorder rather than analog tape) refers to how many characters are used to represent the audio in digital language – you know, all that binary “ones-and-zeros” stuff. To get an idea what that even means, see my article: 16-Bit Audio Recording – What The Heck Does It Mean? where I tell you how “bit depth is like champagne”:-).
Anyway, the Reaper Blog recently published a video showing you why you might just want to stick to 24-bit recording and rendering, rather than thinking you can benefit from using something called “32-bit floating point.” You can see that video at the link below. But I wanted to say a few things about it before you check it out. The video not only explains what it promises in the title/headline, but in doing so, it shows you some other cool things as well. You’ll see what a “clipped” audio recording sounds like. That’s when you overloaded your interface and ended up with distorted audio. It looks squared off on the top. I always say that once you have distorted audio, you cannot “undistort” it just by turning it down. The damage has been done. You’ll see that in this video. You’ll also see a MIDI drum file in one of the tracks, along with the virtual instrument (Addictive Drums) that the MIDI is triggering.
So go and watch this short 6 minute video here. It’s full of great information: http://reaperblog.net/2015/02/video-24-and-32-bit-recording-formats-explained/