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How often would you want to stay away from midi?

I cannot live without MIDI!
I love it, how else am I going to communicate with my machines?

.wav's for days son

hmm.... well I guess audio files for bass and everything else can stay midi.

Just depends, I love working with midi and leaving it there, automation and all. Sometimes for basses I bounce but not often... However if I want to do something I can't accomplish simply with midi I'll just bounce.

I love the idea of bouncing and most times that I do it's easier to finish a track in good time... but the fiddler in me and the fact that my CPU isn't an issue means I do it less that I should.

That's right, I just said "the fiddler in me"

My CPU is an issue so I usually do all the MIDI in the beginning when the track isn't loaded.

Different things should be midi and different things should be audio depending on the song you're producing

Last time I bounced to audio was before I got my new PC. Now I hardly ever do (minus resampling basses, which I rarely do anyways). I like tweaking notes a lot so bouncing out constantly would piss me off. My CPU (quad core i7) has only recently started to lag a little, mainly due to my overly complex mixer bussing& routing template.

Never too complex when it comes to bussing

wormcode wrote:I cannot live without MIDI!
I love it, how else am I going to communicate with my machines?

I keep all my shit in midi except for when I'm glitching up my basslines. Seriously, if you can't do it in MIDI you need to try harder. Resampling is cool at times but I don't see why everyone sees it as something essential, you can resample (as in send through different fx chains) a midi synth just as you can a sample, only difference is it still responds to automation and changing the melody. Sometimes it sounds better with the choppier, fast attack of a sample though, but I doubt that's why people praise sampling so much.

Edit: Or I'm missing one of the fundamentals, which I guess isn't impossible. I dont know really.

When used properly, midi's only major downside is the very low resolution of faders/velocities etc. (0-127). Sequencing in midi is great and allows for a lot of freedom, I've recently found myself using raw audio in projects less and less without putting it in samplers first, but using midi dials or faders to draw in automation curves can result in some jerky step-ups of values. Midi should have been replaced by a better system years ago really, don't know why none has caught on yet

There's nothing wrong with MIDI - you just gotta use it wisely without sounding too cheap. There's an EQ for everything

at least 3 times a day

ortamusic wrote:There's nothing wrong with MIDI - you just gotta use it wisely without sounding too cheap. There's an EQ for everything

Wut..

1point5 wrote:When used properly, midi's only major downside is the very low resolution of faders/velocities etc. (0-127). Sequencing in midi is great and allows for a lot of freedom, I've recently found myself using raw audio in projects less and less without putting it in samplers first, but using midi dials or faders to draw in automation curves can result in some jerky step-ups of values. Midi should have been replaced by a better system years ago really, don't know why none has caught on yet

Gotta admit I'm not so sharp on the technical aspects of this, but when would you want to automate in MIDI? Do you mean regular automation clips or actually recording the automation with a midi controller/knob?

the key is understanding the limitations and advantages of both/either and knowing when why and how to utilize one or the other.

Maxxan wrote:

1point5 wrote:When used properly, midi's only major downside is the very low resolution of faders/velocities etc. (0-127). Sequencing in midi is great and allows for a lot of freedom, I've recently found myself using raw audio in projects less and less without putting it in samplers first, but using midi dials or faders to draw in automation curves can result in some jerky step-ups of values. Midi should have been replaced by a better system years ago really, don't know why none has caught on yet

Gotta admit I'm not so sharp on the technical aspects of this, but when would you want to automate in MIDI? Do you mean regular automation clips or actually recording the automation with a midi controller/knob?

Recording it with a midi controller, it's probably actually ok in most DAWs if they smooth out the curves, I'm not sure what they do to deal with it. I have got very frustrated with this restriction of midi controllers when using Max/MSP before though, the stepwise movement becomes very apparent when trying to use a midi dial to control an oscillator's pitch or something.

1point5 wrote:
Recording it with a midi controller, it's probably actually ok in most DAWs if they smooth out the curves, I'm not sure what they do to deal with it. I have got very frustrated with this restriction of midi controllers when using Max/MSP before though, the stepwise movement becomes very apparent when trying to use a midi dial to control an oscillator's pitch or something.

Yeah I almost figured that. Never been a big fan of that though, a bit too unprecise for me, but I've never noticed the stepping. Although generally a hands-on approach is always nice, but to me it seems a bit like crossing the river for water.