Frederic Petitpas Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Hey just wondering if some of you use anything other than simple midi controllers (without analog outputs). I use a PSR-273 as a midi controller but also have the phones output connected in my audio interface and I'm just thinking of sketching tunes like that since I press 2-3 buttons to dial an instrument. I find that loading and searching for the right samples is so much time consuming while I can simply play with a shitty sound from the keyboard and still record the midi data, but get an idea done in a minute instead of 15. Another thing that's time consuming to me is double-tracking my guitar riffs when not actually recording for a real production, simply trying riffs. I just decided to play with 2 channels and a 7 miliseconds long delay in the fx chain [right channel (wet 100% direct 0%) [and a few minor differances in the second amp sim)]. Yeah just wondering if anyone does that (specially with the keyboards) or is everyone just relying on MIDI these days ? should have done this sooner, Ive know a few jams ruined by time consumming issues pimp that jam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darangen Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 When I used a keyboard I would just go analog, but now that I primarily use a MIDI controller I go all out MIDI. For my guitars I actually quad-track most things but do something similar to what you're describing. I only do 2 takes instead of 4, but duplicate each one and offset it by 15ms or so. Then I process them with guitar rig using 4 different tones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frederic Petitpas Posted March 8, 2012 Author Share Posted March 8, 2012 Even when simply "writing" ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darangen Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Oh, when just writing it's usually just a microphone, my acoustic and a bunch of la's, da's, and na's for the melody. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanthos Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Even if you're only using MIDI, it's still not that hard to get your ideas down quickly and not worry about connections. Make a template in your DAW that loads a number of common instruments, anything you think you'll often want to record (piano, organ, electric piano, strings, etc.), and whenever you want to jam, load your template first, so switching between sounds is easy and quick and you don't have to load anything new, besides the template itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrett Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 What Kanthos said. Just fix up some decent samples/settings, then revise later. They don't have to be bad, just easily accesible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frederic Petitpas Posted March 8, 2012 Author Share Posted March 8, 2012 Yup I do have templates (for every style) but on my keyboard I have like 500 differant sounds while, for instance my orchestral template has like 30 insts. I rarely use them tho ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanthos Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 500 sounds on your keyboard aren't going to help you in an improv situation; unless you have all 500 memorized, you're just going to pick between a few good ones anyway, right? At best, you'll pick a category of sounds and browse a few presets in that category before you pick one to jam with. Same thing applies if you're sending MIDI into Reason. It strikes me that I'm not sure what your actual question is. Do you just want to know who uses a hardware keyboard to jam on? (If so, that seems kind of pointless knowledge) Or are you looking for someone to affirm that using a hardware keyboard to quickly choose sounds is a good way to get started on a track? Can't see anyone disagreeing with you there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrett Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 He's definitely just asking if anyone else does what he does. I don't see anything wrong with that, though. It's a good platform for a conversation about how we all jot down ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darangen Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 The only keyboard sound I use when I'm writing is a regular piano. I have a pretty good idea of what other sounds I already have and can hear them in my head, so that helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nabeel Ansari Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 You double track when you're sketching? Doing mixdown stuff before you even start composition totally flips the creative process backwards. Of course it's annoying, you're not supposed to do that if you're sketching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frederic Petitpas Posted March 10, 2012 Author Share Posted March 10, 2012 Yeah, I used to write my riffs but now I'm lazy and just want to jam to find ideas but double-tracked anyway some precise riffs cause I would just trash the rest of what I recorded if it didn't sound panned. I liked to complicate things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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