Mixing Down MIDI In Cubase SX3 (SOS)

[liquidair]

Brandon I know it appears that this may be some ill-advised trainwreck of a thread, but I think you missed the whole point of it. And I agree with you on most everything you said in your reply, It is way easier to use a drum synth AND the sounds are going to be better, way better.

The point however, and this is my main gripe with forums in the first place, is that most people don't try to answer the question that people have posted. The problem Anthony had is he made tracks he really liked with Cubase, the A1, and the Ms wave synth. When he mixed his tunes down he got no drums, just the A1. He needed a way with the sounds HE HAD to get his song mixed down.

When I first started I was the same age as Anthony and back then, it was hard to get information on recording, dial-up was high speed internet and there was no soft synth drum machine. I got suckered into buying a Guillemot ISIS soundcard for recording by a guy who honestly had the same attitude about what I was doing, didn't care enough to actually listen to what I was trying do. Anyways, I started working on songs and used the samples on the soundcard's synth engine and when it came time to mix down, no drums! I called the salesman and was basically told I am screwed because there was no way to get the drum sounds mixed down without an external recorder of some sort and I couldn't return it. So I had to devise a method to get my drums recorded, just like Anthony here.

The method I had to use was what I described below. Sure, it sucked. I had to spend alot of time doing it, BUT I learned A LOT from the hardship. I learned how to compress drums, how to gate on the sound (if you gate a drum to cut off before the drum is finished ringing you get a great punchy drum sound), and how to edit latency out of a song. But the most important thing I learned is that sometimes you need to make due with what you have.

Is it rediculus to have to jump through those hoops, especially for MS wave table sounds?...prolly. Do I agree with you that it is better to leave MIDI as MIDI and not turn it into audio? Absolutely, I had a state of the art PII 450Mhz processor with 256MB Ram then, so tracks were at a premium (I still managed to run about 20-30 tracks back then). But does Anthony just need to abandon his first songs? Not really. When he gets a new soundcard this summer he will be able to salvage those drums and sounds that make his song.

The point is Anthony cannot go out an buy stuff like we can. If we teach people that every time they have a problem they need to go out and buy new equipment, then they are gonna waste alot of money and end up with alot of crap cause at the time they may be saving for something else. And when he does get the money to be able to buy better stuff, he will have alot of techniques under his belt from the trials he went through. Especially when this person is just starting out. I remember how exciting it was to play my first CD in my car. I remember that feeling when I wrote the first song that blew me away, my first song that said "My dreams may be closer than I think". That's really exciting for us all.

[Anthony_Musician]

"Vote for liquidair"...lol

[brandondrury]

Brandon I know it appears that this may be some ill-advised trainwreck of a thread, but I think you missed the whole point of it.

Did you read my post?

I told him that there are all kinds of free synths out there. He doesn't have to spend a ton of money on Native Instruments Komplete. By simply installing one of the hundred billion free drum synths out there and routing his midi drum tracks to it, he'd be done and could render in Cubase....(THAT was the point of his post).

The method I had to use was what I described below. Sure, it sucked. I had to spend alot of time doing it, BUT I learned A LOT from the hardship.

You learned the hard way to do something. While sometimes doing things the "old fashioned" way is worthwhile to gain a lesson. However, sometimes the better lesson is to find out that there are better tools available.


Yes, I did bother to attempt to solve his problem. You took care of it your way and I took care of it mine. I have a feeling that if he knew that there were zillions of free VST instruments out there, he would adapt his song to fit the new drums and write a new song before he was done manually rendering down the tracks manually.

I think it would be a crime on my part to let him think that there isn't a MUCH quicker and simpler way to achieve the same exact things.

As long as he can find a free drum synth that sounds good and can route different drums to different outputs, he can learn just as much as you did about compression, gating, eq, and other mixing techniques. I'm not sure how taking 30-60 minutes to render down each track is going to help with this.

The truth is I don't see a whole lot to be learned from having to render down 10 tracks of drums individually. I see an hour that could have been spent in more productive musical ways.

If we teach people that every time they have a problem they need to go out and buy new equipment, then they are gonna waste alot of money and end up with alot of crap cause at the time they may be saving for something else.

I agree. If I ALWAYS told people to buy new gear, I would be an idiot. That was one of the reasons I started this thread. The focus on recordingreview.com has ALWAYS been improving the source. However, there are a handful of situations that have proved to be unacceptable. I'd say that trying to overdub with a stock sound card is one example.

With that said, no one has asked our young dude here to give up his songs. No one said that he couldn't make music with the Microsoft synth thingy. If he gets the impression that he can't make music from my post, I'm afraid that he's completely distorted my statements to the point of dimentia. If he's trying that hard to find an excuse not to be able to make music, he would have stopped at the Xbox or whatever. Give the kid some credit. He can think on his own. He has to weigh all the options out there.

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These forums are about perspective. When multiple people come together and express their opinions, the best lessons usually don't come when people agree, they come when people disagree. Anthony_Musician can now decide if he wants to render tracks down the manual way or try searching the web for free synths. 10 Bucks says that if he can solve his drum synth issues, he'll write 10x the number of songs. Maybe not.

The fact that writing a song in the fashion that Anthony_Musician has would waste way too much of my songwriting with needless technical junk is important. It illustrates that the experienced recording guys have found a better way.

It gives him something to shoot for when he saves up the lawnmowing money or whatever. After doing things the VERY hard way, he'll be in heaven when eventually can afford ideal tools for the job.

While I certainly concocted some silly rigs in my youth, I don't have time to for this sort of thing anymore. I have to spend my time being creative as much as possible. By the time he's old enough to afford the real tools, he won't have the time to use them.

Brandon

[liquidair]

Hey Brandon, I'm not trying to pick a fight with you or anything if that is the way it came across. I am sorry for that if it did. My point was merely that the first things I tried and thought of was recommending said programs to Anthony. Anthony informed me that some samples he really wanted to use he didn't find on the lm7. So I gave him the only method to salvaging the tracks he had. There's no way around it, if you want those sounds you have to do it. Like I tried to point out, drum synths weren't around in the day I started. LM-4 was the first one, and my life went into simple mode when I got it. Just like his will when he gets my old hand me down lm4 disc in the mail.

Read below on this page and I said everything you did. I agree with you totally. Drum synths are the way to go. Period. However, if anyone wants a specific sound on the MS wave synth for what ever reason, you got two options. Record it on a secondary medium and fly it in, or buss it out stereo or indivdually using opposite in/outs. In no way am I telling anyone to do this as a primary recording method.

In any case, Brandon, I respect you. I've only been here a week and just looking at the site and all it's links is impressive you can keep such order over all that. Not to mention keep up with the posting. And coming from 10 years of study, formal training and experience in the recording field, I agree with you 95% of the time, which is a good thing. I agree with my girlfriend like 62.39% and that's if she's sober. It decreases from there. (of course, I am kidding). She's never sober.

[brandondrury]

I agree with my girlfriend like 62.39% and that's if she's sober.

You've got me beat! I agree with my girlfriend when she's asleep! (Although she did mow the yard today for me...so I guess I agree with that!)


It's cool, dude.

We've both paid our dues with this whole recording thing. I totally understand that sometimes you need to do things the hard way to "get it". With that said, anyone who is really obsessed with the damn Windows Synth thingy is in for a real treat when they get some real synths / samples.

I thought your previous post was borderline confrontational, so I felt I needed to explain myself. Never did I feel that your advice was wrong. I just wanted to explain that there are easier ways even if our new guy can't afford them yet.

In the end, it seams like we are fighting on the same team. (I don't know about you, but I'm getting my ass kicked! )

Brandon

[liquidair]

No worries my friend. I am told no matter what that my language tends to sound confrontational even when I am in a very light mood. I think it's just the way I write. And again I agree with you which brings it to like 96.3765%, we are on the same team. We just want to help people.

[brandondrury]

am told no matter what that my language tends to sound confrontational even when I am in a very light mood.

Join the crowd. I've pissed so many people off when I didn't even mean too. Of course, the good side is when I REALLY want to piss them off, I'm damn good at it!!