charles midi gfa pascal schrieb:
>
> WOW REALLY HOW MANY TRACKS PER SONG DOYOU HAVE ?
Oh,- that can be very different. Depends on the song itself.
You know, today I use also a PC based DAW w/ Cubase SX3, but have all my Atari stuff in addition, just because here are all my songs and arrangements fom the past in stock too,- mostly in Notator format.
A lot of ´em weren´t relased and include nice parts p.ex.,- so for me, it´s easier to use the Atari/Notator format instead importing midi files containing 16 tracks only per pattern and arrange/edit/requantize all this again in a modern DAW because of different resolution. I used always 1536ppq w/ Notator SL.
Too much work and wasted time.
Songs could be only a few midi tracks if there were many guitars and vocals in the front and if there were a drummer and/or percussionist available to record audio. I also don´t use all my midi outboard tone generators in every song.
But if I did complex arrangements alone, incl. all the drums, percussion and sometimes orchestral percussions in addition, the quantum of midi tracks rised fast.
I use(d) to have a separate track for each of the drum/percussion instruments and I use(d) to have a separate pattern of 16 midi channels for the orchestrations w/ 1 sampler in multi mode p.ex..
This makes it easier to record audio tracks one by one later because of better overview, easy muting tracks and better timing during audio record in sync w/a multi track recorder.
Some midi tracks are needed for separate midi controller lanes too,- you might listen to a kind of midi-mix during arranging incl. volume fades, pannings and so on and before you record anything.
This can cause some timing gliches if all is playing in realtime, so, if you start to record midi tracks to audio one by one, simply mute all not needed tracks and mute the controller lanes too, avoiding unwanted controller-events affecting the recording of your pure signal which has to be full volume throughout w/ no pannings because you do this in the audio mix later.
Rule:
Never change programs within a midi-track
Don´t insert CC-controllers in a midi track together w/ the midi-notes
Don´t change midi channels within a midi track.
Otherwise you aren´t able to copy patterns in the arrange list to only one pattern incl. rendered midi transpositions, velocity offsets and so on without getting cluttered program changes, transpositions, velocity jumps, volume an panning changes across the tracks resulting in a endless editing of these copied tracks during recording audio.
If you work w/ signature changes and timing offsets of patterns in the arrange list, it´s even more important to organize the miditracks and patterns right.
Good organization of tracks and controllers cost miditracks.
> WHAT TOS DO YOU USE TOO?
TOS 1.4 w/ ATari MegaST4
TOS 2.06 w/ Atari MegaSTE
Something in between ( the last one) for the 1040STEs
Today, the Mega ST4 and the 1040 STEs only run Steinberg Synthworks bankmanager/editor programs for the midi tone generators/keyboards, so I run Mega STE 4 w/ Unitor 2 and Log3, MegaST4 w/ Unitor N and Export and 1 1040 STe w/ a Midex.
>
> I GOT MY MIDEX WORKING AND BEEN USIG IT BUT THE ONLY SET BACK NOW IS SCREEN REDRAWS ARE A
> TOUGHY..THEY ARE SLOWER WITH THE MORE TRACKS I HAVE PER SONG.
I use Cubase Atari only in the case someone comes up w/ tracks created in Cubase Atari format ( this happened in the past).
I prefer Notator SL for the Atari platform, Notator is the tightest program w/ midi.
I use Notator Logic 2.5 to import Notator SL files/songs to change from pattern oriented sequence structure to a linear track based sequencer structure.
This makes it easier to import midi into any linear track based DAW.
I´m able to run all my midi outboard instruments ( 22 devices,- 30 if you count a TX816 as 8 DX7) some in mulitmode, w/ Notator SL, Unitor N (or Unitor 2), Export or Log3 and a Sycologic 16in/32 out midi matriss in realtime to DAT or any other stereo recorder without any timing issues at once.
Well, you need a lot of outboard FX and mixers for this, but I did this during the times I only recorded vocals and guitars to a 8-track recorder w/ the midi playback running into the mix in realtime.
Today w/ a DAW like Cubase on the PC, I can record all the tracks to harddisk, no question.
But it works like described above also and demonstrates the power of midi w/ Atari computers and Notator.
And I have still my 8- track tape recorder left here, running in SPMTE sync,- sometimes it´s also a great idea to route software instruments out of the DAW to the tape recorder and back to the DAW as audio,- makes a different sound.
>
> CHARLES
PeWe