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The MIDI

Midi is a data system for music and electronic digital instruments. Midi operates by transferring data, by use of channels and instrument set commands. The sound created using midi are actually only instructions, no sound wavs go through a midi wire. On a computer, this means that midi may sound different on other computer based on the instrument set they choose to hear midi with. A collection of midi sounds or an instrument set has a certain sound assigned to each instrument. For beat makers in current times it may be wise to connect your keyboard to the computer and access a music production program's sounds by use of the keys on a keyboard. In order to do this you would need to connect the MIDI ins and outs of the keyboard to the MIDI ins and outs of a computer soundcard, interface or alternately with USB. The keyboard would now act as a controller to the music program with MIDI giving commands on what signal to generate based on the keys pressed and the instrument set used.

RECOMMENDED MIDI CORDS


Musicians Gear 5-Pin MIDI Cable
Price: $6.00-$17.99

The MIDI Keyboard Controller

You know all the inner and outer workings of programs like FruityLoops, Reason, GarageBand and Logic. In fact, you consider yourself a pro. One problem you face is frequent memory loss of keys you type in the computer keyboard and I can't blame you. ASDF JKL; is not like black and white keys in a piano. Another situation is if you want to spend less money on the keyboard workstation by buying it's sound module equivalent with all the sounds within. Using MIDI cords, you plug in your small Casio (Reminder: nobody is this stupid) into it to control sound,only to realize you need something with a little more versatility and keys. These situations are a perfect time a MIDI keyboard controller. A MIDI keyboard controller is a controller interface, which mean it has no sounds of it's own. Though it may have the ability to power up by adapter into an electrical outlet, many of these keyboard controllers get their power source directly from the computer by USB connection. Other features a MIDI keyboard may have is the ability to play keys outside it's physical key range. For example , by pressing a button you can shift an octave down or up, with those number now substitutes by your physical keys. They may also have pitch shift and oscillator wave morphing controls. Since they are light and often made with plastic they are more practical than heavy vintage synths or cheap heavy consumer keyboards in the case of using the ins and outs.

RECOMMENDED USB KEYBOARD MIDI CONTROLLERS (Sorted by price, lowest to highest)


M-Audio Keystation 61es USB MIDI Controller
Price: $129.99


Korg K61P 61-Key USB MIDI Controller
Price: $169.99


M-Audio Axiom 25 25-Key USB MIDI Controller
Price: $179.99


E-MU Xboard 49 USB MIDI Controller
Price: $189.99


M-Audio Axiom 61 61-Key USB MIDI Controller
Price: $299.99


Akai MPK49 Keyboard USB MIDI Controller
Price: $399.99

The MIDI to USB Cords

Many soundcards these days do not come with the ability to plug in MIDI straight into them. This means you must buy a pro-quality soundcard with the capabilities of MIDI ins and outs. With the invention of USB it has never been so easy to hook up your midi equipment to a computer. USB allows manufacturers to make products that allow the transfer of MIDI information to a computer. MIDI to USB adapters come in a variety of forms, 2x2, 4x4, this refers to the number of ins and outs the adapter is capable of connecting. The music program that you use will then allow you to set up how you want the MIDI connections and you'll be on your way to using your MIDI equipment in a flash.

The Mini Fridge

We all get hungry. We all get thirsty. Although I advise no food or drink in your studio, some hardcore studio addicts can develop scurvy, health risks or simply not ear at all because of intense love of making beats (Think about J Dilla "R.I.P") so it may seem as a contradiction that I state that a miniature refrigerator of some sort be a part of your studio. Well, I also do not want you to die or become unhealthy as a result of so much time being spent in your studio. The bad parts of having mini-fridges are that food and drink have a better potential of winding up on your equipment. Refrigerators were also not invented with the intention of being extremely quiet and so an electrical "buzz" may penetrate it's sound in your perfectly sound treated room into your mix, effecting how you find results of your beat. You may want to unplug it when you listen to your audio and always when you record vocals.

The MP3 Player

An MP3 player is a popular device that is able to take digital files and play them in audio to hear. Although some MP3 players do not limit the file size on an individual MP3 files or other extension (WMA, WAV), by importing gigantic high quality WAV files it would defeat it's main purpose, which is to pack many songs. For example, the average 80 minute compact disk in full quality may be well over 600MB, the average affordable MP3 player may only allow 512MB of space that can be filled. Putting full quality audio files on that MP3 player would be a bad idea, with one minor advantage in that the MP3 player is small. Fortunately, many MP3 players allow much more than 512MB of space and the popular brands like Microsoft's Zune and Apple's Ipod have ability to store 16GB of space and above. Still, working in the best conditions, your instrumentals may be of the highest quality in 32 bit WAV form (or above for DVD high quality standards), these files are twice the size of the 16 bit audio data which is stored on compact disks. It may not be worth the exchange to listen to your giant audio files in full quality on these MP3 players due to their space restrictions, and better use may be heard in the studio only settings and the use of data disks on compact disks, DVDs and external hard drives. An unseen benefit is that since you are listening to your beat in MP3 form and everyone might be as well, you get to hear what it will sound like should it ever be bootlegged or down processed in size.

The Piano Roll

Piano roll is a feature that can be found in most music production software. It is the ability to visually place where you want the sound in the art of drum programming. The piano roll window itself is a massive matrix of squares made by intersecting lines of X and Y axis on a graph. Each horizontal strip is interlocked with a note of a key on a virtual keyboard which stands at the very left standing up vertically. These keys on the horizontal strip can also be replaced with different sounds by using soundfonts. The procedure is to load up a sound or sample you like, go to piano roll and fill the empty squares with colored boxes in the places that sound best to you until you are satisfied with your newly created pattern. Depending on your bar settings, your newly created pattern should loop or may continue. Most bar forms are in 4/4 form, which means 4 beats for every bar. The average rapper spits 16 bars per verse, to you as a beat maker this means that there are 64 beats for verse verse in hip hop. Piano roll also has functions that allow you to change the velocity, pitch and pan to every note you make be using vertical bars in the bottom of the window which you can adjust negative or positive and can also act as left or right.

The Samplers/Sampler Workstations

A sampler is a piece of equipment that is able to load custom audio sounds into it's memory in addition to it's own stock sounds. High quality samplers in the music production workstation type can also allow you to alter the sample in various ways. Frequent abilities are to chop up and reconfigure sounds to looping patterns that may then be layered and edited by use of equalizers, compression, reverb, exciters and more. Unlike simple drum machines, a high quality music production sampler has the ability to edit sounds and make them much more than one dimensional devices. With expandable areas for portable memory, they are potentially able to pick an almost infinite variety of sounds to make a library with. With all these features and the ability to get sounds from outside sources output (vinyl record player, television, compact disc players) most beat makers simply do not see any reason to upgrade or buy any more equipment than this. Full workstation types like the MPC or music production center units made by Akai are very popular.

RECOMMENDED SAMPLERS


Roland MC-808 Sampling Groovebox
Price: $799.99

RECOMMENDED SAMPLER WORKSTATIONS (Sorted by price, lowest to highest)


Akai MPC500 Portable Music Production Center
Price: $599.99


Roland SP-555 Creative Sampler Workstation
Price: $699.99


Akai MPC1000 Music Production Center
Price: $999.99


Akai MPC2500 Music Production Center
Price: $1699.99


Akai MPC5000 Music Production Center
Price: $2499.99


Roland MV-8800 Production Studio
Price: $2499.99

The Samples

Samples are a portion of audio you use in the creation of your music. Although in hiphop, sampling refers to the use of using small bits of audio from vinyl, CD, DVD, MP3 or any other physical audio platform. Actually, keyboard composers who often "call out" samplers may be hypocritical. A keyboards sounds are simply high quality generated samples as well, although keyboard synthesizer experts who use sound creation techniques are much dissimilar to samplers. Like reffered to earlier, samples can be lifted directed from vinyl by using a record players outputs into your computer via soundcard, interface and also in a mixer, workstation, sampling device or drum machine. WAV is the high quality sample format many prefer, and can be captured by data, cd, dvd and outputs from outside sources. Other samples beat makers use are MP3 from digital stores and file sharing programs, ripping from Video sources or purchasing collections on disk or online. Some music software programs only allow certain kinds of files to be imported such as Reason. This "one file type policy" also cuts down on the amount of copyrighted material that is used and more potential for only high quality instruments being used in their software, it also means a monopoly of the sounds. This may be these companies driving motive, to milk mass amounts of revenue from the consumer.

The Step Sequencer

Some music production software makes use of a simple visual interface that includes a step sequencer which has a row of buttons or cells in the length of two, four or more bar that you fill to create looping patterns. A step sequencer will allow multiple instruments. Since you just fill cells, there is not much variation or creativity involved in the creation of the loop and some beat makers think this is far too constrictive and limiting, but to the beginning it can prove to be valuable in learning basic grooves and patterns before going into professional features music production software or hardware. Some step sequences allow you to change the velocity, panning or pitch of each cell however. After the loop is created you can move to another pattern and create another loop, then combine the patterns you have created in the matrix window of a song editor window. With all your patterns set in order you can now export them into the audio filetype of your choice.

The Synths

Synths are like highly customizable sound modules with keys (not all the time included however). Unlike midi keyboards, they do include a sound creation system inside, but they are both similar in that they do not generally have built in speaker systems built into them. You will need to buy external studio monitors or headphones in order to hear the sounds you make. Synths allow you to make your own customizable sounds by tweaking them by way of different knobs that generate various mathematical wavs such as sawtooth and sine waves. By using multiple waves layers on top of each other affecting your sound, you can make very distinct, unique or unusual new sounds.

RECOMMENDED SYNTHS (Sorted by Price, lowest to highest)


Novation XioSynth 25
Price: $299.99


Alesis Micron Analog Modeling Synth
Price: $399.99


Korg MicroKORG Synthesizer Vocoder
Price: $399.99


Korg R3 Synthesizer Vocoder Keyboard
Price: $549.99


Roland JUNO-D 61-Key Synthesizer
Price: $599.99


Kurzweil PC1X Performance Controller Keyboard
Price: $999.99


Dave Smith Instruments Prophet '08 Synth Module
Price: 1499.99


Yamaha S90 ES Synthesizer
Price: $1999.99


Nord Stage 76 Keyboard
Price: $2999.99


Moog Minimoog Voyager Electric Blue Analog Synthesizer
Price: $3199.99

The USB MIDI Pad Controllers

Some beatmakers who use software strictly for their beats also are slightly envious of some aspect of hardware. Drum pads are universally liked. Consider them controllers in the same aspects of USB MIDI Keyboards with the look of their drum machine cousins. USB Drum Pads have no sounds of their own and work by you using your music production software to assign sounds to their individual pads. The actual installation is usually simple, on windows it's plug-in-play for most anything USB, still you should refer to the manual to install any additional software or drivers contained in a disk or online.

RECOMMENDED PAD CONTROLLERS (Sorted by price, lowest to highest)


M-Audio Trigger Finger-16 MIDI Drum Control Surface
Price: $149.99


Akai MPD24 USB MIDI Pad Controller
Price: $199.99


Korg padKONTROL USB MIDI Controller
Price: $199.99


Akai MPD32 MIDI USB Software Control Surface
Price: $299.99

The Vinyl Record Player

If you way of creating instrumentals is going to be the technique of sampling it is essential you buy a vinyl record player. Not any record player will do however, especially if you are going to be "scratching" with them (In that case you would need a DJ needle). You must make sure your record player is not too old and still works, it is preferred you purchase a newer one. The record player must also have an output in which you can hook directly to your workstation, drum machine or computer. Record player output may be RCA, which mean those black connecting cords of red and white (and yellow, but for video) tips that is also used for audio and television input and output. You must then buy an adapter to connect the RCA connection to stereo, XLR or whichever format your soundcard, audio interface, drum machine or sampling device can use. You may have to record the song from start to finish to import the entire audio or skip to a section of your choice. Although this process is very time consuming, it can result in fantastic music.