Recording

Everyone will have a different method for attacking a music project. My way may or may not work for you. Over time you will develop your own style. I like beginning my project by recording a scratch track. This is a single reference track to help me understand where I want to go with a song. It's not meant to go into the final product. I usually record this reference version on track 1.

From there I build up around the scratch track, filling in an intro sequence, special effects, drums, bass, leads, and whatever else is needed for the song. It would be difficult to convey exactly how to go about building a song in whole, but with a little experimentation and persistence you will become more and more comfortable with the process involved in making a song via a MIDI sequencer. I can tell you that, at least for me, it involves a lot of repetition, cutting and pasting, and patience.

Because we all can't play the stock market like pros, some of us have to make do with one, maybe two synthesizers. If you have a particularly complicated piece that extends beyond the capabilities of your single synthesizer, you should definitely check out TiMidity. Quoting from the Web site, "TiMidity is a MIDI-to-WAVE converter and player that uses Gravis Ultrasound(*) “compatible patch files to generate digital audio data from general MIDI files." This very handy program can turn your stale MIDI file into a full-bodied masterpiece.

Once you have your masterpiece created, you'll want to be able to record it on paper. For this we'll move into the area of musical notation. MIDI is great for musical notation, since MIDI records the actual notes being played and those notes can be used to print notes on a staff.