[gofster]

Hi Eveyone,

Like most newbs to this forum, I'm here to learn while having fun creating music.

I just recently upgraded from a cruddy little Casio I've had the last 8 years to a Yamaha MO6 production synth, bundled with Cubase LE. While my Casio has Midi capabilities, I never messed with that end of it,but now that I have a real synth, I figured now is the time to take the plunge and start learning this stuff!

I understand the basics behind midi, a GREAT analogy told to me by one of the Yamaha techs was to think of midi like a spool on a player piano telling it what notes to play. And if you moved that spool into a mandolin, let's say, it would play the same thing, except now it would sound like a mandolin. So on and so forth for watever insturment you moved the spool to.

That analogy went a long way in clarifying the concept of midi to me, and I wanted to post it for other newbs that may be having a hard time with the concept too.

So far, I've been getting the grasp of recording in Cubase LE, but am still confused about a lot of things. I've been reading through a LOT of posts trying to find the answers to some of my questions, some of which has helped, but being new to the terminology as well, I'm still not qute getting it.

My biggest question, which I've seen a few post on, but didn't clearly understand some of the answers, is how to convert midi songs recorded in Cubase LE, using the voices from my Yamaha MO6 into MP3 or Wav file formats that I can play on my computer or burn to CD?

To clarify a couple things:

• I want to be able to use the voices from my Yamaha MO6 in the recordings, not the virtual insturments within CuBase LE.
• From what I understand, I have to convert the MIDI tracks and voices to audio format before I can export them to MP3 or WAV formats. I've seen mention of using an Audio Interface to turn the midi data and synth voices into an audio file, which can THEN be exported as MP3 and WAV files. Is this correct? Can some please clearly explain an audio interface and how and why it's used? Do I need one for what I want to do? Are there other methods of converting the midi data and my synth voices to audio format?
• In turning the midi data into an audio file, I've seen mention of looping from CuBase, through the synth, and through the audio interface, and back into Cubase as an audio file.... or something totally confusing like that. What is a step-by-step process for converting the midi data to audio format?
• What the heck is an Audio Interface, and its purpose? Is an audio interface and sound card the same thing? Is that what I need to convert my midi files into MP3's or WAV files?
• I also have a program called Mixcraft 4 that I was using with my Casio. It allows you to create fades on the midi tracks. From what I can tell Cubase doesn't let you do that, or does it and I just haven't found it? Or can you only create fades and other mixing effects after you've converted the midi tracks into audio tracks?
  
  
  Sorry, I know that's a lot of detailed questions that will most likely require detailed answers. I'm reading all I can in the forum so I can ask the right questions, and learn the correct terminology of things, but it's still pretty confusing.
  
  If, in your answers, you could dumb it down as much as possible, I would appreciate it.... at least until I can get a better grasp of some of the terminology and concepts involved in the whole process.

Thanks in advance for your help! I look forward to posting here and learning from all of you.