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Recording to MIDI / manipulating MIDI Recordings
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Postby Hugh-AR » 26 Jul 2021 23:17

We are all familiar with Recording to AUDIO. Either our keyboards will record directly to .mp3 or .wav format; or we have to have microphones or an audio interface or mixer to record to eg. Audacity on a laptop. We then listen to the music via speakers or headphones.

Most keyboards that will record to AUDIO will also record to MIDI. A definition of MIDI from the dictionary:
MIDI is an acronym that stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. It's a way to connect devices that make and control sound — such as synthesizers, samplers, and computers — so that they can communicate with each other, using MIDI messages.

Connecting various instruments together so you can play sounds generated from one device (eg. an iPhone) from another (eg. a controller). I cannot find a video that explains in simple terms what the MIDI does on our keyboards (apart from Den's).

Basically we are not connecting various instruments together. Well, not literally. What we are doing is treating the various sounds in our keyboard as if they were separate instruments. Our keyboards record to 16 MIDI 'Channels', and the information about what is played is recorded in these Channels. This is not audio information, but digital information. To record what you are playing as digital MIDI information rather than Audio you have to use the MIDI RECORDER, not the AUDIO RECORDER.

Yamaha have produced a booklet explaining what MIDI is and how it is used in our keyboards. Below is a LINK to the booklet on the Yamaha website. This is a PDF file so you can just read it .. and you can download it to your own computer too if you so wish.

Do a right-click on the picture below to open the booklet up in a New Tab.
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The advantage of recording to MIDI is that you can do so much with your recording after you have done it. If you don't like how you played the melody you can play it again .. whilst listening to the rest of what you recorded. You can have the various Channels ON (meaning they are playing back so you can hear them); or REC (meaning you can play and record to that Channel whilst listening to the Channels that are ON). I can do this on my AR80 organ too. Here is an example. I have recorded the drums, and the piano (left hand and right hand) as MIDI. Then whilst listening to what I have recorded I have played the melody, which records on another Channel. Play the complete recording back and there I am playing the piece with three hands! When doing this you do have to know where you are in the song as when recording the first part you don't have the melody playing!

Click the LINKS in turn to listen, clicking the back button after each one to get back to this page.
Backing track for Amarillo played first

Adding the melody whilst listening to the backing track

Please note. As this is digital information and not audio, you have to record from the MIDI RECORDER to the AUDIO RECORDER to get an Audio file (WAV file) to be able to listen to it from a device other than your keyboard (ie. put the Audio file onto a Memory Stick in your keyboard and then transfer the Memory Stick to your computer/laptop to play it through that).

Now have a read of some of the other Topics in this Category.
It's all about the music ♫ ♪ ♫ Organ: Yamaha AR80 & Keyboard: Tyros 4
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Hugh-AR
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