Just dive in there mate!

But make sure you have a decent MIDI interface, and updated drivers etc.

What MIDI gear will you be hooking up? What version of cubase you using???

Looping MIDI in cubase is the same as looping with audio. It is piss easy.

Dont know about books though... I've never used any, just got stuck in and experimented

Good luck!

P.S I always play my sequences. I hardly ever use quantize, I try to treat it as a performance, and may have to adjust some notes if they are way off, but prefer to play it again to capture performance. Otherwise it sounds too "perfect".

My use of MIDI is pretty simple, just the way I like it.

The midi interface im using (its my m8's) is a Unitor8. Im using Cubase SX3. You say looping midi is like looping audio....could you quickly explain how its done? Ive tried to do it...and I see no functions that allow me to do it.

Yes i like to play parts in live. But the weird thing is....when the midi information is played back it sounds all weird. Are you saying...that for the parts I want to play in live I shouldnt record the midi info at the same time. That is, to litrally just record the audio?

Cheers bud

DS

DS, I agree with Jasedee, buying a book actually might slow you down. When I first started out, I bought a few books on midi and started reading them and about 10 minutes in was like "what the f*ck did I just read". Eventually I just said screw it and started experimenting. Now that I know midi pretty well (at least I think I do) I realize just how easy midi is. Now you can start to do some pretty sophisticated things using midi, but for my purposes (electronic - chemical brothers style) I keep it pretty simple. Once I have rendered the midi to audio, that's when I go to town on it!!

DS, I have to take off to work, but once I get there, I will write you some more detail on how I use midi and audio in sx 3.1 that will hopefully demystify midi for you. I guarantee once it sinks in, you'll laugh at how easy and flexible it is.

i think what you realy need is reading the cubase SX3 manual rather then a book about midi.
midi is explained widely aswell in there im sure.

With looping, you can either record your MIDI part, and then set the L/R locators and loop the section, or you can just make the MIDI part a certain length (4 bars) and copy and paste the MIDI part as many times as you like. On mac I just select the part, then press [Apple]+D. Maybe it is control or whatever on PC

As far as the MIDI not playing back right, it might just be that your timing is slightly off (no criticism intended) at least, that was what happened with me. Try recording with a click. Otherwise try to turn off any quantising you may have on there.

I always play live, but only as MIDI, not audio. After everything ha been sequenced, then I bounce the MIDI parts to audio, and do further processing/automation etc

SX is a great program, especially for MIDI.

our masterclock is a Roland SBX-80
MIDIA -> MPC2KXL (1/32) timing 4/4 and 4 bars used (MIDI tracks written in CUBASE SX2 and also recording by drumpads)
MIDIB -> Laptop with EMU 1616 & Ableton Live (1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64) timing 4/4 bars and choosen timing depends on the track and used instrument (note-editor or MIDI keyboard is used to record the patterns)
SYNCA -(sync)-> TB303 -(cv/gate)-> SH101

the sequencer MPC2KXL
MIDIA -> TR909 (note trigger) -> TR606 (note trigger)
MIDIB -> analog Filter (MIDI enevlope trigger) -> TC M-ONE - TC D-TWO (program changes & PBM sync) -> Pioneer EFX-500 (BPM sync)

the sequncer Ableton Live with EMU1616 MIDI out
MIDIA -> Dopefer MCV4 (to control the Roland SH2 by cv/gate) -> VirusB (note trigger & PBM sync) -> Korg electribe SX (BPM sync) -> Doepfer pocket control -> Clavia Micro Modular (note trigger & BPM sync, patches controlled by pocket control)

the sequencer Ableton Live with EMU 1616's MIDI in is controlled by an M-audio oxygene 8 MIDI keyboard (used to play all the synthies in the MIDIA chain live on stage and record the patterns while in the studio)

think our MIDI setup is easy to understand :wink:

DS, for me, I have found the easiest way to get a groove started is to start with a 4 or 8 bar loop. To create this loop, I set the left and right locators 4 or 8 bars apart and set cycle to on. In my project I typically have two or three midi tracks already setup with corresponding audio tracks (this is set in the default template) Each midi track is assigned to an external sound module, with my sl880 controller as the input. Each audio track is setup for each of the sound modules so as I play midi from my 880, the audio is bussed into cubase into realtime. This way I can record and test out different vst effects in realtime. With all this already setup and ready to roll as soon as I select the default template, all I do now is turn on the metronome and start recording away and the audio that is recorded all depends on which midi track I click on. Essentially what I have is midi tracks 1-3 are assigned to my 2080, Virus C and JP8000 respectively. As you can see I am a big fan of using my external controller keyboard to record midi data (it just feels more natural to me than drawing it in with the pencil - but it really is just a matter of preference)

DS,

If the MIDI sounds bad - you may need to plage the ignore port filters file into the Cubase SX directory - it can be found in one of the folders in the Cubase SX directory.

In Cubase are your MIDI ports emulated? - this can be answered by viewing the output in the inspector bar - I have a RME soundcard so if emulated mine would say "RME MIDI Out (Emulated)" - you need to get rid of the emulated ports - this is all detailed in the documentation that comes with Cubase.

Drammy