Need a suggestion for MIDI recording

[Sinewav]

Wasn't sure where else to post this, but feel free to move it if it's not in the right place.

A friend of mine wants to record her piano playing onto her computer via MIDI, and be able to burn it onto a playable audio CD. Preferably, something that isn't gunna break the bank. She says that she has Finale, but "it just has a tendency to give things the wrong value I still have to go back into it and reassign the values and such." She also says she doesn't like how finale's piano sounds sound fake. She wants something she can sing with. Suggestions, people?

[weggy]

Im afraid thats a big drawback of midi, that it does sound kind of fake. Midi's arent actually songs though, just basically a bunch of instructions to play this instrument at this pitch or whatnot on your PC. So you could download a new, hopefully better sounding instrument set and be good to go.

I remember a while ago, back when MIDI was in its heydey, there was a Rich Midi Format that sounded quite a bit better. Perhaps try looking into that?

Anyway, I wish you both luck.

[zylance]

Why doesn't she just record the part onto finale, then send it back to the piano, then audio out to the computer for audio?

So...

1. Midi out from piano to computer midi in(finale)

2. Record in finale

3. Midi out from computer to keyboard midi in

4. Keyboard audio out into computer line in

5. Record audio with program of choice

[Sinewav]

Why doesn't she just record the part onto finale, then send it back to the piano, then audio out to the computer for audio?

So...

1. Midi out from piano to computer midi in(finale)

2. Record in finale

3. Midi out from computer to keyboard midi in

4. Keyboard audio out into computer line in

5. Record audio with program of choice

Wait... you're just looping it around... if you're suggesting to record audio from the keyboard then why not just keyboard audio out to computer line in?

[zylance]

Why doesn't she just record the part onto finale, then send it back to the piano, then audio out to the computer for audio?

So...

1. Midi out from piano to computer midi in(finale)

2. Record in finale

3. Midi out from computer to keyboard midi in

4. Keyboard audio out into computer line in

5. Record audio with program of choice

Wait... you're just looping it around... if you're suggesting to record audio from the keyboard then why not just keyboard audio out to computer line in?

Because it seemed like she wanted it in midi for some reason.. for quantizing? I don't know. You are right, why bother with midi if you want live piano?

[Sinewav]

Why doesn't she just record the part onto finale, then send it back to the piano, then audio out to the computer for audio?

So...

1. Midi out from piano to computer midi in(finale)

2. Record in finale

3. Midi out from computer to keyboard midi in

4. Keyboard audio out into computer line in

5. Record audio with program of choice

Wait... you're just looping it around... if you're suggesting to record audio from the keyboard then why not just keyboard audio out to computer line in?

Because it seemed like she wanted it in midi for some reason.. for quantizing? I don't know. You are right, why bother with midi if you want live piano?

I got the impression that her problem with Finale was that it wasn't recording the notes correctly. I've never used the program, but my guess would be that it either tries to make the notes fit within a measure or rounds each note off to a quarter note, half note, whole note, etc. rather than the real-time length of the note.

[Yoozer]

Im afraid thats a big drawback of midi, that it does sound kind of fake.

The biggest drawback of MIDI is that hordes of people think it even "sounds" like anything.

Always blame the wavetable on your soundcard .

I remember a while ago, back when MIDI was in its heydey, there was a Rich Midi Format that sounded quite a bit better. Perhaps try looking into that?

Damn, you got that far but still snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory .

The "Rich" format most likely uses an expanded set of banks on top of the GM set. Yamaha has XG, Roland has GS - both which feature a bigger selection of sounds than the good ol' GM.

Sinewav: if Finale reacts like that, switch off everything that even remotely has to do with quantizing.

I second Zoola's suggestion. As for "looping" - there's an option called "MIDI Local". Set it to OFF and you avoid the looping. It means MIDI messages generated by the piano itself go to the output, but not to the piano's internal sound engine.

[ubernym]

Part of the problem with Finale is that it's not a sequencing program. It's a notation program with a very rudimentary sequence built in. Its primary concern is notation, not playback. When you use the record feature in Finale, it automatically quantizes all your notes and tries to assign them to the requisite value for the pre-assigned key and time signatures. The biggest difficulty you'll have is the fact that you are human and Finale is not. Finale has perfect timing, but you don't. So when you play, even slight variations will throw the recording and give you unexpected values.

If you just want audio, simply record audio. Skip the midi altogether. If you want notation, go ahead an record into Finale, but be ready to do some extensive editing.

As for the playback quality, you have a few options, depending on your hardware and software. Depending on which version of Finale you have, you can change the soundset. Finale 2004 and 2005 use a specific soundfont called synthgms.sf2, or something like that. This is a commercial soundfont that normally costs about $90, I think. It's actually quite good. Finale 2006 comes with GPO, which is a higher quality soundset, in that it uses a sampling engine and higher quality samples.

Still, if you aren't satisfied with the synthgms.sf2 sound or the GPO sound, you could locate a piano-only soundfount, via the usual sources (aka the Soundfont/Sample request thread, Hammersound.net, etc). I think Darkesword has some piano soundonts on his site as well.

If you need help changing the soundfonts in Finale let me know, but my suggestion is to forego the midi idea completely and just try to find a way to record some good audio.

[Sinewav]

Part of the problem with Finale is that it's not a sequencing program. It's a notation program with a very rudimentary sequence built in. Its primary concern is notation, not playback. When you use the record feature in Finale, it automatically quantizes all your notes and tries to assign them to the requisite value for the pre-assigned key and time signatures. The biggest difficulty you'll have is the fact that you are human and Finale is not. Finale has perfect timing, but you don't. So when you play, even slight variations will throw the recording and give you unexpected values.

If you just want audio, simply record audio. Skip the midi altogether. If you want notation, go ahead an record into Finale, but be ready to do some extensive editing.

As for the playback quality, you have a few options, depending on your hardware and software. Depending on which version of Finale you have, you can change the soundset. Finale 2004 and 2005 use a specific soundfont called synthgms.sf2, or something like that. This is a commercial soundfont that normally costs about $90, I think. It's actually quite good. Finale 2006 comes with GPO, which is a higher quality soundset, in that it uses a sampling engine and higher quality samples.

Still, if you aren't satisfied with the synthgms.sf2 sound or the GPO sound, you could locate a piano-only soundfount, via the usual sources (aka the Soundfont/Sample request thread, Hammersound.net, etc). I think Darkesword has some piano soundonts on his site as well.

If you need help changing the soundfonts in Finale let me know, but my suggestion is to forego the midi idea completely and just try to find a way to record some good audio.

The big problem with that is that I doubt she has the money to aford any decent recording equipment. I showed aher audacity, but to get reasonable sound quality at all, she would need to spend $50+ for a good microphone. I think she's doing this out of her dorm room too, so outside noise would likely leak in.

Lemme restate the main problem. She's not trying to do any extensive sequencing... I don't think she understands too much about that. The problem is that Finale is messing with the notes she puts in (which makes a little more sense now, thanks to Ubernym).

And thanks for the soundfont suggestions. I'll point those her way.