“ IDI Channel Strips: Some different M MIDI channels for comparison. Nothing radically dissimilar — and, again, Cubase (bottom) needs the Track Inspector opened to access all the settings.
Sonar
Some DAWs use symbols instead of plain labelling, so you might have to do a bit of deciphering ” track won’t make it sound much different by itself — if at all. It’s how it interacts with other channels.)
And like Audio channels there will be a menu to let you customise just what you want available.
You’ll also have two Automation buttons for Read and Write. ‘Read’ means that any automation you have on the track will be obeyed — turn it off and it’s ignored. ‘Write’ lets you record automation on-the-fly. Things like fader moves and panning effects are common, but just about anything can be automated. The Panning slider adjusts your mono track’s position in the left/right spectrum or a stereo track’s left/right balance. There might be a Stereo/ Mono button that defines whether the track is — you guessed it — stereo or mono. Once you’ve made a recording this usually can’t be changed. So if you accidentally start, say, a bass guitar track in stereo and want to change it to mono, you’ll have to go through some complicated hoops or bounce the track. Sometimes it’s better to delete that channel.
1. Track Name: Like with audio tracks anything recorded will automatically have the track name applied to any MIDI clips. The connection between the track name and the patch you’re playing isn’t so strong. Under most circumstances altering the patch (the MIDI sound) won’t result in the track name reflecting that change — for example, if you apply a MIDI Grand Piano sound to it and later decide the programming works better with an Electric Piano, altering the patch won’t flow through to the Track name. Exceptions are some Instrument Tracks where you choose the patch with a browser instead of inside the virtual instrument itself. Check out the box item on the next page.
A very important button is the ‘Monitor’ or ‘Input Echo’ button. This allows you to hear what you’re recording in real-time through your soundcard and will be subject to any latency your audio driver and hardware setup causes. Without a mixing desk to monitor your playing or singing this is the only way you can hear yourself (unless your soundcard has ‘direct monitoring’ capabilities). Turn it on and you can listen to your recording as you play it. If you’re using speakers rather than headphones and have a live microphone, be careful when you switch this on because a live mic at high gain can create ear shredding feedback. By the way, this simple button is going to reveal just how well you made all those choices about your computer setup, your soundcard and the software drivers. Some software doesn’t offer this button. Instead, you’ll have a global function inside your Preferences that defines how your monitoring works when you arm a track for recording.
Cubase track inspector
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2. Input (Device): You can choose which MIDI device you want for an input, which is usually your soundcard interface. If you have more than one device, such as a piano and a drum pad, you’ll need to pick the right one. Possibly, if your computer has some kind of generic MIDI ability or there’s a soundcard included with your motherboard devices, these will also be available. When you set up your DAW software you can choose which MIDI drivers to recognise and get rid of all these unnecessary options. 3. Output (Channel): Possibly your MIDI device has a specific channel assigned for its output, especially if you do have more than one instrument, so you’ll have to choose the channel from 1 to 16 to suit. Otherwise, the ‘Omni’ setting, which is any or all channels, will always work.
8.Output: Like input, this is fairly simple… you’d think. But it will give you a choice of any hardware outputs (as many as your soundcard allows) and possibly a selection of soundcards, because any motherboard audio output your computer came with (apart from your DAW interface) will be listed, too (unless you turn off onboard sound via your BIOS). It will show any software outputs. These are output busses you’ve created yourself. We’ll explain them in the next chapter, the Mixer View.
4. Patch: This is a part of your Output settings. ‘Patch’ in MIDI lingo means which instrument, like a piano or organ — the sound you want. What patch you call up depends on whether you’re using General MIDI and on the complexity of the software driver for your MIDI device. Expanding the Patch will give you the choice of instruments for that device, or a Virtual Instrument. It’s easy to get confused though, because often the GM set of instruments will appear regardless of what is actually attached, either real or virtual. Like, the default patch list is the General MIDI list every time. Don’t assume that by simply checking ‘Flute’ in the Patch box that you’re going to get a flute sound. You’ll need to look harder and make sure your signal path is going to the right place.
MIDI Channels Audio and MIDI channels are like chalk and cheese — entirely different things. Still, some of the settings and icons on the MIDI channel strips are the same and perform the same function. The MSR and Automation buttons, for example, are duplicated in both; Volume and Panning too, but note that in some cases these use values between 0 and 127 because they’re based on binary bits and bytes values. Panning can be ±64 (half of 128 with 0 being centre), while some DAWs use a percentage value for panning instead.
5. Bank: If the Patch settings are working properly (thanks to a good software driver), chances are you’ve also got a choice of which Bank, too. Banks are sub-menus in your instrument settings. For example, Bank 0 is your standard GM instruments. Bank 1 will give you a different set of sounds as will Bank 3, and so on. If there are no extra Banks available you can possibly still pick a number, but the Instrument Patch will go blank, of course. Your software is allowing for the existence of extra Banks, but doesn’t recognise there aren’t any to acknowledge.
Otherwise, here is a brief description of the Track List settings you’ll find on a MIDI channel. Some of these might not appear in the Track Inspector, but are on the channel for the Track Pane. Things like the Scale setting are used so infrequently or only once that it’s not worth cluttering the Track Inspector with them.
6. Output: This is where you choose a real hardware MIDI output, possibly corresponding to the Input devices, or you might want a Virtual Instrument such as Native Instrument’s Battery 3 or IK Multimedia’s SampleTank 2. DAWs see these virtual instruments as if they are real hardware. They pretend there’s a
EQ Types The kitchen sink EQ for musicians and engineers has 31 bands, or frequencies, that can be boosted or cut by 12dB. The hardware versions were called ‘Graphic Equalisers’ because the sliders could make neat patterns, like a graph. On a channel strip for a DAW you’ll more likely use a combination of parametric EQs and high or low shelf settings. We say ‘most likely’, because you can choose for yourself how each frequency band of adjustment works. Parametrics are very, very neat and do some powerful magic. They’re fully explained in Chapter 20. DAWs and third-party plug-ins will offer three, four or even more separate bands to use. At first glance these EQs can be daunting. Don’t be scared, and use your ears.