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Learning Supplement for
“Linking Science, Art, and Practice Through Digital Audio
1
Setting Up to Record Digital Audio and MIDI
Assignment Type: Lab Exercise Goal: To demonstrate how to set up sound cards, microphones, monitors, MIDI controllers, and software for multi-track digital audio processing Concepts: Sound cards, microphones, monitors, and appropriate connections among these; system default inputs and outputs for recording and playing sounds; inputs and outputs for recording and playing sounds (both digital audio and MIDI) set within a digital audio processing program; digital audio drivers; tracks, channels, banks, and patches; software synthesizers; arming a track for recording and recording digital audio and MIDI; track, piano roll, event list, and score views in MIDI; Software needed for this learning supplement: A multi-track editor that can handle both digital audio and MIDI, e.g. Cakewalk Music Creator (Windows) Cakewalk Sonar (Windows) or Logic Pro (Mac).
1 System Settings on a Windows Computer
1.1 The Environment
The first part of this lab exercise was created on a Windows XP computer that has an internal sound card as well as an M-Audio Fast Track external sound interface and an M-Audio Keystation MIDI controller attached to it. The exercise is written as if your computer is set up in the same way. However, what you see in your settings windows is different for each computer, depending on the operating system, internal sound cards, and external audio interfaces that are installed on the computer. You should try to find the equivalent settings and do equivalent activities with your own computer and software.
1.2 External Sound Interfaces and Their Drivers
If you have an external sound interface attached to your computer, you may need to install a driver for it. If you don’t have the driver, you can generally find it downloadable from the manufacturer’s website.
1.3 Default System Settings for Audio and MIDI
Find and examine the audio settings for your computer. You can make default settings for input and output. These can later be overridden by the particular audio/MIDI software you’re using. (^1) This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DUE-0717743. This worksheet was written by Jennifer Burg.
When you click on the volume icon in your task bar, you’ll see the volume settings for the various types of output. (If the speaker icon is not on the taskbar, it’s because you haven’t chosen that option in your Control Panel. In that case, you have to go to the Control Panel, click on Sound and Audio Devices, and on the Volume tab of the window that pops up, select “Place volume icon in the taskbar.”) If you want to make settings for Recording, you have to go to Options/Properties. Check the Recording button.
When we choose the internal sound card as the Mixer Device (in this case, SoundMAX HD Audio), then we have choices for the input source for the recording. Generally, you’ll want to choose the microphone as your input source. You can also make settings from the Control Panel.
After opening the Control Panel, click on Sound and Audio Devices.
This is where you set your default input and output devices for audio and MIDI. That is, this is where you choose the default sound card through which input and output is processed. We’ve chosen the M-Audio Fast Track as the sound playback and sound recording device. Above, the USB Audio Device is chosen as the MIDI music playback device. USB Audio Device in this case refers to a MIDI controller that is connected to the computer via USB. This isn’t a good choice for MIDI output because the MIDI controller we’re using at this moment doesn’t have a synthesizer, a sampler, or speakers. If we change this to Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth, then the internal sound card will serve as the MIDI sampler, generating the MIDI sounds for us. This setting is fine for now. Actually, we’ll override it later in our digital audio processing program. Now we’re ready to open an application program. First let’s try Cakewalk Music Creator.
Open Cakewalk Music Creator and create a new project. A “Normal” project will have an audio track and a MIDI track. If you select an empty project, you can always add tracks later. It’s important that you select the All tab. This gives you the best view of your settings for the audio and MIDI track. You can see all the settings for inputs to and output from the sound card on the audio tracks and also channels and patches on the MIDI track. You can see that the All tab is selected in the picture below because it says All in white in the lower left part of the window.
We’re going to change this later, but let’s examine the MME setting first. If the driver mode on the Advanced tab isn’t already MME, set it to MME. Then when you click on the Drivers tab, you have more than one choice for audio input and output.
The inputs and outputs that you select on the Drivers tab are made available as the input or output devices for particular tracks in Music Creator. (We’ll show you how this is done in a moment.) Different tracks can get their input from different sources and send their output to different devices. You can check all the drivers in the Drivers tab, making them all available to the Music Creator tracks. However, we’re not going to use the MME driver mode. Let’s go back to the Advanced tab. ASIO driver mode is a better choice for my setup, so let’s choose this one. The advantage of the ASIO driver is that it doesn’t do its processing through the main processor. There’s less latency when you use the ASIO driver. Latency is a lag between when you press a key on the MIDI keyboard and when you hear it. It’s very difficult to synchronize audio and MIDI as you record when you have noticeable latency.
2.2 Setting Inputs and Outputs and Recording on an Audio Track
Once your driver mode and input and output drivers are set correctly, you’re ready to select the inputs and outputs for the tracks in your project. You don’t need to record in stereo, so you can select the input as shown in the picture below. Set the output to the Fast Track. This implies that the Fast Track will have to be connected to speakers or headphones. The Fast Track processes the audio output, but it doesn’t create the sound since it has no speakers.
Record on the audio track by arming the track for recording and pressing the record button. Rewind and press play to listen to what you recorded.
2.3 Setting Inputs and Outputs for a MIDI Track and Recording MIDI
Now let’s work on the settings for the MIDI track. Set the input to USB Audio Device/MIDI Omni. This causes the input to be received from the M-Audio keystation MIDI controller, which is connected to the computer by USB.
Arm the MIDI track for recording and record MIDI notes. Press rewind and then play to listen to your recording.
2.4 Inserting a Software Synthesizer to Turn MIDI into Audio
Music Creator offers its own MIDI synthesizer called the TTS-1. To use it, you need to set up a track with this synthesizer. The MIDI track that you already have sends its output to the TTS-1 MIDI synthesizer track. The TTS-1 MIDI synthesizer track sends its output to the M-Audio Fast Track. Open the TTS-1 software synthesizer by making the selections shown below.
If you say that you want the Synth Property Page and the Synth Rack view to come open, they pop open and look like what is shown below. The Synth Property Page is the larger of the two, showing the channels of the TTS-1 software synthesizer. The Synth Rack shows all the software synthesizers you’ve inserted.
Set the channel to channel 1. Set the bank to the first bank available on the drop-down menu. With the MIDI track’s output set to the TTS-1, you can set the patch to be any of the available instruments, as shown below.
Arm the MIDI track for recording.
