Microsoft Research Community

MIDI Input

rated by 0 users
This post has 4 Replies | 3 Followers

Not Ranked
Posts 2
danzman Posted: 03-25-2009 10:17 AM

Is it possible to use MIDI input to create a song using songsmith?

 

Top 10 Contributor
Posts 169

Danzman:

Thanks for your interest in Songsmith! 

Though we'd love to support this in the future, it is not possible right now to send MIDI input to Songsmith. 

If you're interested in doing this, though, and you're willing to put in some effort to work around this limitation, you have a couple of options:

1) Play your MIDI instrument through a synthesizer and send the audio output into Songsmith.  How exactly you do this will depend on your particular audio configuration, but just simply holding a microphone up to the speakers that your synthesizer is playing through actually works quite well (I did this lots of times while developing Songsmith; you get tired of singing every time you test your code :) ).  You could also set up Songsmith to record from the "what you hear", "wave out", and "midi out" channels on my sound card (instead of from a microphone), depending on exactly where your MIDI signal is going.

2) Record MIDI input to a file, synthesize audio from that MIDI data using your favorite synthesizer, and stick that audio into a .songsmith file.  This is actually a tricky thing to do, so mail me if you're interested in doing this.  We're hoping to make this easier with some tools in the future, but there are ways to do this now if you're interested.

Hope that helps; sorry we don't have direct support for this right now.

-Dan

 

Not Ranked
Posts 2

Thanks Dan, Your suggestions are good ones. I will try them and report back to you if I succeed.

Not Ranked
Posts 1

Hi!

It would be very usefull sending midi files to Songssmiyh "> !...

i'm eager it will be soon possible.

Phil

Top 50 Contributor
Posts 18

I too would love to be able to play MIDI files directly into Songsmith instead of using my voice.

Why?

  1. I play synthesizer much better than I sing
  2. After many years of synth playing and improvising, I think I come up with better ideas on the synth than I do with my voice
  3. My synth is always in tune

I think a MIDI input would be a great help to flesh out some song ideas while improvising on a single-note synth like a Wind controller.

Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton, owner Norton Music Add-on styles for Band-in-a-Box and Songsmith http://www.nortonmusic.com The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com
Page 1 of 1 (5 items) | RSS
©2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Trademarks | Privacy Statement | Feedback