Recording along with Keyboard

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vishy

Post by vishy » Mon Apr 12, 2004 2:44 pm

I'm a beginner, so please... bear with my ignorance. I'm looking forward to the recording of my music. I have created midi files using my keyboard, edited and corrected using Sonar. It is now saved as .mid file. I'm bit confused how to record this along with my vocals to write into CD. I have a mixer, delta 66 sound card, keyboard and a microphone. What's the best practise of recording ? Can anybody share please ?

Thanks so much,


andychap
Posts: 685
Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2003 7:26 pm
Location: UK

Post by andychap » Mon Apr 12, 2004 4:25 pm

Best thing to do with the midi files is to route them through a soft synth such as edirol VSC and then bounce them individually to audio tracks. When I say individually I mean each instrument including each type of drum on it's own track. It's best to do it this way then when you record your vocals you are syncing them to audio tracks. If you recorded your vocals whilst monitoring the midi tracks, when you bounce the midi to audio it could be out of sync with your vocals.

Once you have them all as audio then plug your mic into mixer and mixer into amp. Arm a track and get your recording levels set correctly and you are ready to record your vocals. Monitor the track through headphones from the mixer and have a few practice runs then hit record and away you go. If you make a mistake keep going untill the end. Repeat the recording several times. Each time, do not delete any duff tracks because the might have a bit in them you need. With all the takes you should be able to cut and paste a good track.

Then its a matter of setting all the track levels and panning so that the mix sounds balanced. Add any effects that are needed. Once you are happy with the recording bounce it down to a single stereo track ready for mastering either within Sonar or externally. To get the track out of Sonar export it as a 16 bit / 44,100Khz stereo Wav file and it's ready for burning to CD.

That's the bare bones of it. Hope it helps.

Guest

Post by Guest » Mon Apr 12, 2004 5:51 pm

Thanks so much Andychap,

Will try it out..

andychap
Posts: 685
Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2003 7:26 pm
Location: UK

Post by andychap » Mon Apr 12, 2004 8:47 pm

You could try this link from the cakewalk site there is some general info that's quite handy.

http://www.cakewalk.com/Tips/Desktop.asp

This article from ComputerMusic Magazine on using audio in Sonar.

http://www.computermusic.co.uk/tutorial ... narmc3.asp

A whole list of articles from Sound on Sound magazine on things to do with Sonar.


http://www.soundonsound.com/index.php?s ... word=sonar

The last 2 links are to articles on websites for magazines in the UK but they are available in other countries. I have learned a lot from them over the years.

Guest

Post by Guest » Thu Apr 15, 2004 4:09 pm

Wow!!!

Andy, these sites are of very very useful tip :-)

Quick question,

edirol VSC -- Is that something one needs to buy separately ? If so, I guess I don't have it.

Is connecting analog out of my yamaha psr 2100 keyboard into sound card and recording into 16 tracks a healthy practise ? I tried connecting from the phones to the sound card ( since I had only one cable ) and it worked okay.. OR may be there is a better way of converting midi to audio, can you please let me know ?

I would also like to take this oppurtunity to thank you and all who has been patiently helping out others like me.. I'm working in a totally different industry and I hardly get some time in figuring out everything by myself.. These forums have been helping me a lot and once again my sincere thanks to all :)

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