PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Beginners Forum MIDI Videos

Here are eight REALLY GOOD videos that provide a comprehensive overview of MIDI.

+++ Video 01 MIDI Signal Path +++

+++ Video 02 MIDI Message Types +++

+++ Video 03 DIN (5 Pin) MIDI +++

+++ Video 04 MIDI Protocol +++

+++ Video 05 Channel Messages +++

+++ Video 06 MIDI Clock +++

+++ Video 07 SYSEX And More +++

+++ Video 08 USB MIDI +++

Most comprehensive. Thank you

Can you suggest some biab specific implementations of midi wrt styles and instrument tracks.

I am interested in moving my backing track work from 100% RealTracks/Real styles to Some percentage midi.
Hopefully that will allow some greater control over the tracks I produce.

Some videos to help jump start that effort would be helpful.

Extremely detailed, and covers just about everything with great thoroughness. Surprisingly, I didn't note anywhere that the presenter stated what the acronym 'MIDI' actually stood for in the video, but he did use it in the text description below his video.

Certainly a big effort went into the productions. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for posting these, Jim. I just started watching the first one and will save the links for later.

Although I know a lot about MIDI and prefer it to Real Tracks due to the ability to edit it and customize it to my personal desires, I'm sure there are more than a few new things to learn.

Plus sharing the links with some of my newbie customers might help them understand.

Insights and incites by Notes

Thanks for the videos Jim. I don't have a lot of time to watch them so I will squeeze watching them in during my 3 way popcorn guitar practice the last hour of the day :-)
1/ eyes and ears on video,
2/ left hand feeding me popcorn,
3/ right hand practicing finger technique.

Amusing but it works :-)

John

John,

The first video gives a pretty good overview. The rest of the videos dig deeper into areas skimmed over in the overview. I'd say 75 - 80 percent of what most people want to know about midi is in the first video.

Hi Jim, I have watched 4 of them. I think what I hope to learn is how some of these DAW programs sample instruments and get it into midi so it sounds like the instrument. So lets take an extreme example of a simple single note played with a sax and later a guitar (no attempt to articulate at all and in fact the exact opposite every attempt not to articulate). My understanding is the technology exists to get the midi to copy these two different sounds pretty accurately. How do they do this? What DAWs can do this? How accurate a playback does it produce in the end? Can a human hear the difference? Can a serious of humans do the blindfold test and guess accurately what the two instruments are? Where can I hear examples if exactly what I describe? What does it cost? Even if it costs too much I would love to learn about this and see proof it works from start to finish. I don't ask for much do I...lol. Produce a video like this and it would get attention. Pure marketing.

To add to this testing even better to record a real sax to .wav (with attempt to have no articulations) and compare that to a midi version. Repeat with several instruments. Create reviews to compare no articulation real against midi. In short create ways for buyers to compare oranges to oranges and apples to apples. If they want articulations in midi they pay extra. I personally don't want these.

Thank you, Jim.

I saved the eight links for later viewing. If it saves anyone time, here are the links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IQvu8zlmJk&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyk8eOSiaag&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0LmHM54nwc&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOmHXRdbDe0&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v14PtdoQTzs&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDO8Q3GK1eM&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubfwOT8ED2c&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb0MvwJ-bN0&feature=youtu.be

Emulating another instrument in MIDI is not all about tone. In fact as long as the tone is 'in the ballpark' it's not that important.

What IS important is copping the nuances of the instrument you are trying to emulate.

When a comedian does an impersonation of a famous person, does he/she have the same voice? Of course not.

Then how do we hear the famous person instead of the comedian? He/she studies the famous person's nuances, uses the ones he/she can copy, and ignores the ones he/she can't.

Same with a MIDI instrument. What are the nuances a player uses on his/her particular instrument. They are restricted by what the instrument can or can't do (for example a piano can't bend notes).

So for a sax, there are dozens of ways to articulate the note with variations of tongue placement, breath support, and airstream pressure -- there are ways to change the vowel sound of the tone by changing the oral cavity of the player - pitch variations of the reed are important, often scooping up to notes, or pitch vibrato that also changes the tone - grace notes mordents and other ornaments play a big part - throat growl and/or flutter tongue methods add various amounts of distortion - general tone gets brighter with more volume - and so on.

People new to MIDI often chase tone and forget about the way an instrument expresses itself. If you play that sax or guitar patch like a piano, it isn't going to fool anyone, no matter how good the tone is. If you play that piano patch like a sax or guitar, it won't fool anyone either.

Of course there may be times you want an instrument patch to not emulate what the patch is. Vibrato on piano? Why not if you are trying something new.

Insights and incites by Notes

My uses for midi are fairly trivial. Eventually the Midi gets dumped and replaced by a real instrument. For example a vocalist needs to hear the melody exact so they can learn the song. The Idea was maybe there was a fairly inexpensive way to make it sound a bit better. I have discovered that dropping it an octave helps. It sounds like for my trivial use it is not worth any effort at all.

I agree with Notes.

I have found that using vibes works best for a vocalist. Maybe for your other uses also.

I agree MarioD, Vibes is my normal choice. If BIAB had the option to play in the octave it is written in that would help. It plays ah octave higher which makes it sound tiny.

John, if you want to change the register a MIDI instrument plays in, without transposing the notation, go to Preferences, Channels. Subtract 1 from the octave for that instrument. I’m not at a computer but I think it’s the second column. Bass, for example, is -1. Do that for Melody or Soloist where your vibes are.

Gee thanks Matt! I tried that and it works.

So this is interesting. As shown in the attached picture I opened a blank file in BIAB and entered middle C on every quarter note for 2 bars and set it to play over and over in a loop then I took a computer tuner (NCH Perfect Pitch) and tested it and at channel 4 octave setting zero it correctly plays C4. However again as the picture shows it displays as C5. A bug?

John, there are possibly two things happening here.

BIAB has several ways to do transposition, and this gives you the option to see the actual pitch being played, or not. If you want more details, write back and tell me what you want to see.

And, there is not universal agreement on what note Middle C is according to manufacturers of MIDI equipment and music software programmers. Some say C4, some say C5. Not smart.

Does that help?

Adding to the confusion is that fact that I have some software that uses C3! Plus they all have Middle C at MIDI note 60!

Yeah, I didn't want to scare John too much by bringing up C3.

I always thought Google was king :-)

I googled "what is middle c in scientific notation" and got.
Middle C (the fourth C key from left on a standard 88-key piano keyboard) is designated C4 in scientific pitch notation, and c′ in Helmholtz pitch notation; it is note number 60 in MIDI notation.

Here is the C Note Wiki

"Wiki SEE Wiki Do" or is that "Wiki C Wiki Do" :-)

I have seen some variation of C3 or C4 in software apps. I don't know why that is. Perhaps starting at zero or one???

However note number 60 is constant. So if you are in doubt, put in any note, transpose to note 60, then see if your software calls it C3 or C4.

How do I do this in BIAB? I am curious if it matches Matt's approach mentioned above and the confirmed result of my NCH Perfect Pitch Tuner test.

The midi standard defines note 60 as middle C. During the eighties (when midi was just an infant) Roland documentation defined midi not 60 as C3. At the same time Yamaha documentation defined midi note 60 as C4. The definition of what is middle C in midi has been a point of confusion ever since.

Most plugin developers will reference C3 or C4 as middle C but some don't even document that leaving it up to the user to find out for themselves.

Back on subject, most developers emulate realism by using three techniques; addressing velocity dynamics, articulations and round robins.

Velocity dynamics means a separate sample will be used in different velocity ranges to emulate how an instrument sounds different at various volume levels. For example a guitar that is strummed softly sounds way different than the same guitar strummed hard.

Articulations are the different ways a note can be played. A guitar can be muted, hammer-on, hammer-off, slide up, slide down for example.

Round robin means multiple samples of the same sound. Strum a guitar twice and it will sound slightly different each time. Round robin means you would use sampled strum 1 the first time and sampled two the second.

The plugin developer will normally have a way to use midi to make these choices. For example use CC 07 (velocity) (volume)or CC11 (Expression) to select a volume sample. Another common method is to use notes outside the normal instrument range to select round robins or articulations.

I always used the reference that A 440 Hz is for A above middle C, (based on equal temperament) and therefore as a reference note, Middle C is the first 'C' note below this frequency (regardless of whether it is referred to as C4, C5, C3, etc). The first C note that has a frequency less than 440Hz is 'Middle C'.

Now, back to the program...

Having everyone on the same page as to midi 60 (middle C 262 Hz the one below A 440) being C4 or C3 or C5 has significant advantages. When I say everyone I mean everyone who has ever used (or will ever use) Scientific notation in the world. The first obvious example is we would not be wasting any time on this discussion. Another good one is I am trying to use the BIAB Vocal Wizard to adjust key for a Vocalist in my Jam Group and I keep having to remember to change the BIAB choice C5 to the one he gave me C4 (extra waste of time work).

So how is this fixed? This is the best answer I can come up with. Find the current most common and promote that so it is eventually the only one used. The best way I can think of to find the current most common is to get the one that all the free phone tuning apps in this video use (free phone tuning apps are the way of the future as I see it). I have posted to YouTube hoping Aimee (or someone else) can give me the answer relative to A 440. The more free computer tuning apps that can be added to this list the better. Free is the key word here (free is always the most popular). Ultimately the way I see it is PG-Music should read this, jump on it and fix BIAB to match this free standard. My bet is it is C4 because Google says this and it is also essentially free. Free NCH Perfect Pitch is using C4. I have another friend working on this.

To add to the C4 argument I looked up "what is the lowest frequency humans can hear" and it is 20 HZ. That matches up with This Musical Pitch table. So it shows C0 as being the lowest C humans might be able to here and it shows Middle C as 261.626 Hz (midi 60) and as C4.

It seems that we have some logic now suggesting C4 is correct. It comes back to my Joke "Google is King" :-) Hopefully I get some feedback soon on the free phone apps.

I have emailed PG-Music Support about this as well asking for it to be an option with the default of C4 (betting in advance that it is the most popular as a result of the music pitch table).

My friend says the very popular INS phone tuner comes in at C4. Another one in Aimee's video is C4.

HI ALL
I wrote an article on this its on my web site a sets out the reasoning for all this confusion.

Here is a copy.

The octave numbering confusion C3 C4 etc.

Some thing else to think about. Edited by Mike Head (07/17/17 10:31 AM)

Please feel free to copy and paste this text to a Word doc if you want a print out

or use link at bottom of page.

If you move you compositions around between different manufactures keyboards and different computer music software you will soon fall foul of the octave numbering night mare.

I will try and make some sense of it for you.

Normal Octave notation is given here in the International Organization for Standardization ISO system,
Here octave -1 (minus one) is C0 this means therefore that middle C will be C4 being the 4th C on a 88 note piano.

Great but:

Yamaha call middle C = C3 why? Because they start counting from 0 not -1
This sits well on a 61 note keyboard as it is the 3rd C from the bottom as a 61 note keyboard that starts on C1and not C0 or C-1.
Ok still with me.

Unfortunately each manufacturer and software music programme writers have their own ideas about this.
For example Cakewalk Sonar call middle C = C5

There's no universal rule, so it can be confusing. SONAR starts counting with MIDI Note 0 as C0. You can change the "Base Octave for Pitches" on the Options | Global | General tab. I have mine at -2 to match my Yamaha keyboard, where Middle C is C3...

Another strange thing about Yamaha is even on a Clavinova with 88 keys they still call middle C = C3 even though it is now the 4th C up the keyboard. Still at least it is consistent across the range of instruments.

Never mind in fact these octave names are only labels in this context and do not have any relationship to pitch really.in the world of electronic music.

As it all works by Midi anyway and midi has to work with note numbers, that is every note, has to have a midi number (computers can’t read sharps and flats from a score and interpret them like you can)

There are two golden rules that keep some sanity in all this:

All MIDI devices use these numbers.

The midi spec states that Middle C shall always be note number 60. (No matter what you label the octave!

And that A above middle C shall be tuned to 440 htz this is Midi note 69

Thank goodness for that.

An historic note in the early days of electronic music some bright technicians rather than musicians thought that some thing as basic as middle C must work to the power of 2
This was great for digital and put middle C at 256 Htz unfortunately this is not the correct frequency for middle C which is around 261.6 Hz

To summarise

When the A440 pitch standard is used to tune a musical instrument, Middle C has a frequency around 261.6 Hz. Middle C is designated C4 in scientific pitch notation because of the note's position as the fourth C key on a standard 88-key piano keyboard

But not Yamaha Middle C=C3.

Another system known as scientific pitch assigns a frequency of 256 Hz to middle C but, while numerically convenient, this is not used by orchestras. Other note-octave systems, including those used by some makers of digital music keyboards, may refer to Middle C differently. In MIDI, Middle C is note number 60.

The C4 designation is the most commonly recognized in auditory science [], and in musical studies it is often used in place of the Helmholtz designation c'.

Thanks for taking the time.

Link to PDF printable version

https://app.box.com/s/nh31qsrn0ufuqytzf9qgwhplj8w35rd8

Link to DOC printable version

https://app.box.com/s/4cyggwjftidsrq7t62e0mt9c1hwz0vdu
March 2016 Mike Head.

Just to add fuel to the discussion:
Add to this that many orchestras don’t tune to 440 anyway, particularly Philharmonic
And many of the German ones, as each strive to get their own edge with their sound.
This is why it is often almost impossible to play along with some recorded orchestral performances.


Have fun
Mike

Thank you, Mike.

Applying this to BIAB, I do not see a setting in BIAB to declare what you want Middle C to be. You CAN set the split point between treble and bass clef staves, in Options, Preferences, Notation, Clefs Split At. However, if you specify C4, and then enter a middle C in Editable Notation, BIAB calls that note C5. This is the graphic that John Bowles showed many posts ago, and it doesn't make sense to me.

So, it would be nice if BIAB could let us define what Middle C is, allow us to apply any adjustment to existing songs or globally, and perhaps we should put this in a Wishlist post.

Thanks Matt and Mike. I emailed PG-Music Support directly asking for this and put 2 links directly to my posts above. I am sure they will read beyond and consider your extensions to the idea. I mentioned the problem shows in the vocal wizard as well.

Hi all

Just added a parra to my last post

Mike

I also just made a request to the developers to look at this. I found a thread from a few years ago where someone from PG Music said it would be passed on to the developers. Worth another try.

to all midi people. and mario and mr geeze etc.
the following is one heck of a midi resource.
how about a ton of midi tutorials from a grammy winner ?
https://www.reaper.fm/videos.php
then page down on right hand side , and clik midi and virtual instruments. and then a slew of midi vids will appear.
bout 70 vids listed.
et voila. ton of midi. keep you busy for a week.
the tutorials can be applied to lots of midi software.

merry xmas.
muso.

No offense Jim but I would like to correct this so beginners don't get the wrong idea. CC7 is not velocity. CC7 is volume, as is CC2 (breath/wind controller) and CC11 (expression. Velocity is how soft or hard one plays a keyboard or blows into a breath/wind controller and it is a one time event. It may or may not influence volume. In a GM sound source it will influence the initial volume but you will need any of the above CCs to preform crescendos, sforzandos, forte-piano, etc. This is the same for many other sound sources.

However some software uses the mod wheel (CC1) for volume, thus velocity does nothing. Also in some software velocity will change the timbre; this depends on how many layers there are per note.

I just want to clear up the possible misunderstanding that CC7 is velocity.

I generally think of the various volume 'controls' in MIDI to be like this:

CC7 (volume) is like your amp volume. Set it at the beginning of the track and leave it.

CC11 (expression) this is like the volume pedal on the organ or guitar volume pedal. Use it for crescendos, diminuendos, and other track volume changes throughout the song.

The beauty of having two is this: You can do all your changes in the track with CC11. However if you find when you are all done and compare the volume of your track to the others, say it's too loud or too soft, you can use CC7 to adjust that without having to change anything else in the track.

Velocity is the third one. It's called velocity because in the early days of MIDI they measured the interval of time between depressing a 'piano' style key and hitting the bottom. The quicker it went from top to bottom, the harder you hit the key, and the louder the note should be.

So the relative volume between notes for accents and other expressive differences between individual note volumes is expressed with velocity.

These are the basics.

In addition there are Aftertouch, Channel Pressure, and Breath Controller which can influence volume, but that depends on your MIDI controller and MIDI sound source. I advise new MIDI people to get the first 3 down pat before going on to these controls.

Insights and incites by Notes

Mario, No offense taken. Thank you for finding the error and pointing it out. The original post is corrected with CC 07 labeled as volume.