Computersight -

Hello, I’m Maya.  I am a multimedia artist who is very fond of music composition and recording, as well as a researcher in modern music production. My specialized areas in music include composition for MIDI orchestra, electronic wind instruments and surround audio mixing for Hollywood film score. To know more about me, please visit http://mayatong.blogspot.com

In my series of music/audio-related articles, I would like to guide you from beginner to veteran knowledge of modern music production, in terms of software and hardware. Other than just explaining each concept, I will try to include reasons, pros and cons, and tips. That should inspire some usages or ideas that even advanced people have never paid attention to. I will update my articles very often, so stay tuned!

What is in this Article?

In this article, we will talk about a kind of music software, sequencer, in modern music production. I hope this article can make your mind clear on a question like, what software is used to create music? But first, make sure you have a basic concept of MIDI. (Well, for advanced people, do you even rethink the meaning of MIDI?)

What is MIDI? (Well… The Old and New Meaning)

MIDI, Musical Instrument Digital Interface, is the basis of generalizing computer music production. Very often, you may find the name referred to a standard protocol (original meaning, a communication method) for connection between MIDI-based music equipment. However, in modern time, this widely-used protocol implies many innovations in software and hardware regarding computer music production, such as sequencer, sound module, MIDI interface, control surface, synthesizer keyboard, breath controller, digital instruments and sampler etcetera. The term now is accepted to refers to software and hardware used in modern music production with a computer.

Why We need Software for Modern Music Production?

In the light of software, modern music production relies heavily on software that cover three essential parts of music production: (I) arranging and sequencing music, (II) generating instrumental sound, and (III) manipulating sound (recording, editing, mixing).

(Part I) Arranging and Sequencing Music

While classic composers jotted down their scores and fine-tuned with a piece of paper and a pencil, modern composers utilize sequencer software to get the job done. A sequencer, in MIDI world, is software that provides graphical interface for composers to put their musical idea into a computer. Most sequencers offer notations of traditional score (staff), MIDI score (piano roll) and track score (loop-based music).

(I-a) Staff

Staff (sometimes called score view), came from traditional scoring staves, is very useful when communicating with instrumentalists about your music, such as those in a jazz band, a rock band or an orchestra. Very often, to get the best music, your music production can’t only restrict in the computer world but recording a real musician, and then merging it into your MIDI arrangement. For instance, it is wise to record a violinist, a guitarist or a trumpeter performance if you aren’t keen on writing such instruments, or lacking a good synth for such sounds.

figure 1: A typical notation view of a traditional staff in a sequencer.

Most popular sequencers, such as Cakewalk Sonar, Steinberg Cubase, Apple Logic Studio and Magix Samplitude, have both notations of a staff and a piano roll (will be discussed soon). Even if you can’t write music with a staff (like most of us!), you can write on a piano roll first (much easier for people having non-classic musical training), and then the sequencer will “translate’ it into a staff. However, remember that the staff here is “simplified”, which means it contains lesser musical expressions like those notated on a real staff. On the other hand, if you can write with a staff, you can consider writing with more advanced notation software like Digidesign Sibelius and MakeMusic Finale of which you can make a real staff that is fully understandable for musicians. 

(I-b) Piano Roll

Piano Roll (sometimes called MIDI view) is a basic score for MIDI arrangement. Came with the early age of MIDI software, the score is invented for putting MIDI specific information as well as musical notes. Left-hand side of the score is a vertical piano (notes with high pitch on top and vice versa), extending horizontal lines towards the right side to form grids for arranging musical notes. The bottom side accompanies a “MIDI Controller” view that is for putting MIDI specific information, MIDI controllers, controlling how a musical note should sound such as musical dynamics (crescendo and decrescendo).  

figure 2: A typical notation view of a piano roll. Musical notes (i.e. blue blocks) at the upper part, piano keys at the left, and MIDI controller information at the bottom.

Almost all sequencers provide the notation of a piano roll. It is also the most easiest musical notation for MIDI beginners though, to make good music, you still have to know some basics of music theory. For advanced users, a piano roll provides a flexible way to craft your music through various MIDI controllers. To learn MIDI music production you should spend time to familiarize with writing notes and different controllers on a piano roll. Reading a piano roll while listening to the music is a good way to study MIDI composition. 

(I-c) Track Score

Track Score is basically a track view often found in most professional audio or video editing software. Each track usually represents an instrument and you can drag and drop looping elements (such as an instrument repetitive rhythm in digital wave form) from the sequencer music library into it. Those elements are optimized for repetitive placement (looping) so you can create a piece of music by constructing with these looping elements. Loop music seems to be the easiest way to create a piece of music, yet rhythms and melodies in the musical elements (i.e. instrument loops) are predefined, so you cannot modify a note in a melodic line by just changing the score notation like in a staff and a piano roll. However, the nature of track score works best for arranging drum rhythm, as you notice that drums are usually based on repetitive rhythms.  

figure 3: A typical notation view of track score. In each track, the actual waveforms of these repeated segments (loops) form a score. 

Popular loop-based sequencers include Sony Acid, Propellerhead Reason, Cakewalk Project5 and Steinberg Sequel 2.  Frankly speaking, sequencers nowadays are more integrated in terms of notation usage. It is very common now a loop-based sequencer includes a piano roll and a staff view. 

NINE Core Things to Pay Attention to a Sequencer

Beside score, some musical concepts and elements are translated to MIDI world and appear in sequencers with which you have to know when making music. The following NINE core things aims at assisting you in creating music when using a sequencer. 

(1) Hardware Setting (MIDI and Audio)

No matter what sequencer you are using, the first thing to do with your empty project is to set your music hardware to communicate with the sequencer. The exact steps are different from software to software, but in general you need to choose an audio port (your soundcard’s audio output) responding to the sequencer in order to have “sound” playing back when composing, and have “sound” coming in when recording by choosing a valid audio input port. The item is often found in “option” or “preference” of a sequencer’s pull-down menu. For detail, see the following images:

figure 4: Choose your soundcard as the playback device (the recording device for some sequencers). Set a correct sampling rate (its meaning is beyond the scope of this article, but you can find the answer on internet easily) for your music composition. Remember audio CD is 44100 Hz (44.1kHz) and broadcast media like DVD is 48000. You may also come across high quality music recording project using 88200, 96000 or even higher. However, always stick with 44.1 or 48kHz if you don’t know which is the best for you.

figure 5: Choose an audio driver to let the sequencer know how to “talk” to your sound card. Again, the explanation of an audio driver is beyond the article’s scope, but in simple words different audio drivers are good at different sequencers and OS platforms. ASIO (Audio Stream Input Output) is almost a must driver for almost all sequencers to work properly with your soundcard. There are others like MME, WDM/KS, GSIF etc. If your soundcard doesn’t come with an ASIO driver, consider a free driver called ASIO4ALL … remember, GIYF

figure 6: Now you should be able to see a series of input and output ports (here in Sonar, called driver) in your sequencer. Most professional audio cards offer more than one port for input and output. To choose a correct port, let’s say using the above image as an example, if you connect a pair of audio speakers to the first pair of soundcard’s output, then just tick “ASIO Fireface Analog 1 (1)” in Output Drivers (bottom part of this dialog box). Deselect others unless you still want to use them for connecting other equipment later on. For input selection (from CD player, microphone etc.), it is the same.

Beside audio port, MIDI port should be set in the same way. MIDI port refers to a physical input/output of your music hardware, such as on a MIDI keyboard, that connects to your computer (sequencer) via USB or MIDI interface. Let’s say, if a USB MIDI keyboard is connected to your computer, you need to choose something like “USB Audio Device” in the sequencer’s MIDI I/O option, so you can input notes through your keyboard into the sequencer. If you connect your computer (sequencer) to a hardware synth (external box of hardware sound generator), make sure you have chosen you hardware MIDI output port in the sequencer as well.  

Most beginners complain about no sound when first using MIDI software, and 99% of such cases are that they forget to choose valid I/O ports. 

(2) Inputting Notes

In MIDI world, there are mainly two ways to put musical notes into a sequencers: 

First is by mouse drawing directly on a score when you don’t have any hardware MIDI equipment like MIDI keyboard. Don’t laugh when you see people clicking mouse for inputting notes, sometimes it is very useful when you want to fine-tune the pitch or duration of a note, or adding some MIDI controller information that can’t be done in real time when you are playing a MIDI keyboard.  

Second is by hardware MIDI equipment, like MIDI controller keyboard (a typical keyboard like a piano without built-in sound), keyboard synthesizer (keyboard with built-in sound), MIDI pedal, breath controller or wind controller. You should know what is a MIDI keyboard, but for MIDI pedal and breath controller, they help you to create the sound of a “realistic” instrument like piano pedal and breath characteristic of a flute via MIDI controller information generated in real-time playing. Wind controller, my favorite, is an electronic wind instrument that can be played like an acoustic one, but translates your breath pressure and tonguing very well to MIDI controller information so as to simulate a “realistic” melody of an acoustic instrument through real-time playing. Currently, famous wind controllers include Yamaha WX5, AKAI EWI4000S, EWIUSB and Morrison Digital Trumpet (MDT). 

(3) Tempo

All sequencers need you to define the speed of your music. Do it first. Is it fast, moderate speed, or slow? Fast is often related to happy, vivid and funny while sad and emotional for slow. Of course you don’t need to use the same tempo for the whole music, change it in a particular part of your music based on a tempo that you think suitable. Tempos like 60, 80, 100, 120, 140, 180, 240 provides a good starting point of your music’s initial speed. 

(4) Key Signature

Sequencers with a staff and a piano roll request you to give a key signature to your song, a basic tonal structure of music. For beginners, it is okay to use C key (predefined by most sequencers) for easy writing while veterans will consider carefully the key used in terms of instruments and emotional contents. However, in MIDI world, key can be changed (i.e. transposed) instantly so you can experience your music in different keys with least effort. For loop-based sequencers, setting key signature helps the software to transpose the original key of the looping elements to an appropriate key. For example, B-flat key in a clarinet loop will be transposed to C if your music is set to C key.  

(5) Transpose

As mentioned earlier, “transpose” changes the key of your music, and, in MIDI world, it is done instantly by transposing up or down the musical notes on your score. Sequencers are able to transpose the score by changing the key of the whole music, or just a specific instrument. Remember that if you just want to grab the feeling of your whole music in different keys, choose global transpose function (usually found in MIDI pull-down menu).

figure 7: A typical transpose function from the pull-down menu. It is good for transposing (1) the whole music by selecting all the tracks, or (2) a specific part of all tracks by selecting the notes involved in the part.

For a specific instrument to be transposed, it can usually be done by typing a number (semitones to be transposed like +1, -2, +12) in the “track transpose” function. Very often, if you intend to write for a transposing instrument, like B-flat trumpet, you should use track transpose to achieve the purpose (so here, -2 semitones in the track), as the resulting instrument sounds 2 semitones lower than your written score. In addition, transposing a track for -12 or +12 semitones can be useful when the tonal range of a synth is too low or too high for your written score (it happens very often!). 

figure 8: A typical track transpose function. The “transpose” function here only affects all notes in this track (down 2 semitones) while others are unaffected.

(6) Loading Synths

Synth (Synthesizer) is a sound generator simulating an acoustic instrument or creating an unreal instrument like electronic musical pads, and usually contains more than one instrument (typical general-purpose synth over 1,000). We will talk about synth in detail in the further article regarding samplers and synthesizers. But now, to make your score sound, we have to load a synth to get the job done. 

We can load a “software” synth from a sequencer, which involves different steps in different sequencers. However, most sequencers let user to add a synth via pull-down menu containing words like “insert soft synths”, or “insert VSTi”. Once you added, a “synth track” (which is usually an audio track with synth capacity) will appear on the sequencer and you can manipulate the synth via this track.

 If you use a hardware synth, you can skip the above steps. But then for an instrument you want to assign to a specific synth, choose the output port of the synth in “MIDI Output” that is usually found in the track itself.  For example, a software synth output port may look like “Cakewalk TTS Port 1″ (means port 1 of the synth Cakewalk TTS), and a hardware synth may look like “Roland XV-5080 Port A”.

figure 9: Set MIDI Output of this track to a synth (Cakewalk TTS-1) so you have the instrument sound when you play back the score.

When using soft synth, remember that the more synths you loaded, the more computer resources are used, which can cause the degradation in performance of your computer. 

(7) MIDI Channel

MIDI channel is a way that tells a sequencer to map a specific instrument on your score to a specific instrument of a synth. For instance, you write a line for an electric guitar in your score, and you have to specific a MIDI channel, say channel 1, of the synth in order to get that sound out. You can do so in the sequencer’s MIDI track (i.e. your electric guitar track), just find the “MIDI channel” (usually range from 1 to 16) and choose a number. For beginners, remember that each channel can only carry one instrument at a time, so never set two instruments for the same MIDI channel. A standard MIDI specification (i.e. General MIDI) defined 16 channels for each MIDI I/O port while 1-9, 11-16 are for pitched instruments and 10 for drums, yet modern synths tend to not follow the rule in view of flexibility. 

(8) Volume and Panning

Volume and Panning (sometimes Pan) are essential MIDI elements to adjust the loudness level of an instrument and spatial position respectively. Both functions can be found in a MIDI instrument track. Setting volume (ranging from 0 to 127) helps you to keep the loudness balance of each instrument in MIDI composition stage, which saves your time from post production (like mixing your song) afterwards. Panning keeps your instruments to position across a two-dimensional space, from left to right, to simulate a similar listening experience as if from your audio speakers. Like volume, panning range is defined as 0-127, but L64-0-R64, or L 100%-R 100% are commonly used for a clearer meaning. 

figure 10: Volume (= 110) and panning (= to right 31%).

Never put all instruments in the center space as it will not only make you music muddy and lack of dimension, but also overload your audio hardware which could be damaged if there are too many loud instruments sounding together. For advanced users, panning may also reduce phase problem of nearly identical timbre of instruments (such as 3 solo oboes playing in a unison). 

(9) Choosing an Instrument

Bank is a term for how instruments are organized while patch usually simply refers to an instrument. To choose an instrument in a sequencer, you need to choose a corresponding patch (0-127) in the MIDI instrument track. For example, in a General MIDI synth, to choose an electric clean guitar, we can choose the 28th patch. For old-school hardware synths, banks provided users a way to find an instrument via a well-defined “catalogue”. For instance, bank 1 for pianos, 2 for guitars, 3 for winds and 10 for drums etcetera. Synths nowadays are more specific for just a few instruments in comparison with old-school general-purpose synths. So most synths don’t use bank to organize their instruments.

figure 11: Bank (= bank 15488, called ‘Preset Normal 0″) and patch (= trumpet, the 57th instrument in this bank)

Okay, I hope you can understand better for different MIDI sequencers, and can have a general concept of their characteristics, pros and cons, and the core things we just mentioned can assist your concentration in making music with different sequencers, rather than obstructed by numerous technology in music production.

We will go on talking about in detail those software generating sound for composing music, like synths and samplers, in the next article (part II – Generating Instrument Sound), stay tuned!