Confused with Midis

[Incronaut]

So ive been reading on threads the power of midi files and the wonderful things theyre capable of... however, acquiring the midi itself isnt an issue, but once i obtain it, i dont know what to do with it...

I just found ways of seeing what notes are being played in the midi... what else can i do with it? (btw, i have fruity loops, but i put it in the general thread cause im not limiting this topic to just FL)

[Tex]

You can copy/paste the notes to actual samples. Plus when a MIDI is imported, it displays the accurate bpm of the song and if it uses panning, pitch... whatever, those properties will be available in the file as well.

Some users do use midi files to make collabs. For instance, a person does an arrangement in FL and export it to MIDI. Then He/She will send it to another individual, who will import the MIDI and replace instruments to improve production, or add arrangement parts...anything. Imagination is infinite.

[Zephyr]

Midis basically are a series of note data contained in one file. It can be played through most soundcards (which often have the midi intstruments on them) but are mainly used within other audio programs for other purposes. They operate on a basis of channels and ports. Different channels often represent different instruments. When used inside a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) such as FL Studio, they can tell the instruments what to play. For example, you could place a midi file into the piano roll of an FL Keys channel and it will tell FL Keys to play those notes, at those times, at those volume levels.

Most DAWs work mainly with midi, some work mainly with audio, and some do both quite well. FL Studio is mainly midi, but still has some capability for audio. When using a midi based DAW and playing back a project within the DAW all of the sound is being formed by the instruments in real-time, whereas in an audio based DAW the audio has already been recorded and other than post-recording effects there's really not much that can be changed in it.

As for how to use midis in FL Studio, simply go File>Import>Midi file and choose the midi, after it imports you'll see all of the midi data pop up on different channels. You can replace the midi outs with instruments to create sounds or if you'd like you can make FL Studio like a soundcard and place an effect called "Fruity LSD" in one of the mixer inserts (you may need to make sure that the ports line up to get sound).

Sorry to continue on for so long, but in case you were wondering about midi keyboard controllers, they simply send these midi messages to the computer like a midi file would, it sends velocity (volume) note (which key was pressed) and timing (when it was pressed) data to the DAW to be recorded, or to be processed in some other way.

Sorry if that was confusing, ask some more questions if you like. Learning to use midi is vital to using FL Studio, luckily FL Studio has a great piano roll system for working with midi. Good luck!

[Incronaut]

Midis basically are a series of note data contained in one file. It can be played through most soundcards (which often have the midi intstruments on them) but are mainly used within other audio programs for other purposes. They operate on a basis of channels and ports. Different channels often represent different instruments. When used inside a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) such as FL Studio, they can tell the instruments what to play. For example, you could place a midi file into the piano roll of an FL Keys channel and it will tell FL Keys to play those notes, at those times, at those volume levels.

Most DAWs work mainly with midi, some work mainly with audio, and some do both quite well. FL Studio is mainly midi, but still has some capability for audio. When using a midi based DAW and playing back a project within the DAW all of the sound is being formed by the instruments in real-time, whereas in an audio based DAW the audio has already been recorded and other than post-recording effects there's really not much that can be changed in it.

As for how to use midis in FL Studio, simply go File>Import>Midi file and choose the midi, after it imports you'll see all of the midi data pop up on different channels. You can replace the midi outs with instruments to create sounds or if you'd like you can make FL Studio like a soundcard and place an effect called "Fruity LSD" in one of the mixer inserts (you may need to make sure that the ports line up to get sound).

Sorry to continue on for so long, but in case you were wondering about midi keyboard controllers, they simply send these midi messages to the computer like a midi file would, it sends velocity (volume) note (which key was pressed) and timing (when it was pressed) data to the DAW to be recorded, or to be processed in some other way.

Sorry if that was confusing, ask some more questions if you like. Learning to use midi is vital to using FL Studio, luckily FL Studio has a great piano roll system for working with midi. Good luck!

thanks a lot zeph for your explanation... i tihnk i understood most of it, i'll probably read over it again to make sure haha... but you were saying that FL studio works mainly with midi, what DAWs work mainly with audio (i'd like to research some of these)...

[Zephyr]

I'm not entirely certain as I've never used most of these... (correct me if I'm wrong) but I believe that cubase and logic* use a lot of audio, and live kind of uses both, (I think it uses midi to record the audio that is mainly used). Look into it a little bit, but I love the Midi environment of FL Studio personally. There are demos available for some DAWs, at least try FL Studio and reason.

*Logic is mac only I believe.