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DAWs and Midi

Discussion in 'Tips, Tricks & Talk' started by Rob Kennedy, Nov 11, 2020.

?

Best DAW for Midi

  1. Mixcraft

    1 vote(s)
    7.7%

  2. Logic

    1 vote(s)
    7.7%

  3. Cubase

    9 vote(s)
    69.2%

  4. Pro Tool

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%

  5. Reaper

    1 vote(s)
    7.7%

  6. Studio One

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%

  7. Reason

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%

  8. FL Studio

    1 vote(s)
    7.7%

  9. Abelton

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%

  10. Bitwig

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. #1 Rob Kennedy, Nov 11, 2020
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2020
    Hi All,

    I'm new here, from all the way down under.

    I write orchestral music in Sibelius Ultimate and I use the Wallander NotePerformer 3 as my main sound set. Now I reckon it's a pretty good sound. Not as good as Albion and such, but it's passable.

    What I like to do is export from Sibelius to midi. There are about 40 options to export the midi to different playback devices. Not one of them is a DAW, but there are other Sibelius sound sets and things like Roland keyboards, general midi and general midi 2.

    I usual export to general midi 2 (GM2). I find that when I open the GM2 in my DAW, which is Mixcraft 9, don't laugh, it does a fairly good job of bringing in all the dynamics, articulations, tempo changes and instruments with it. With Mixcraft, it actually assigns all the instruments from the midi information and it's immediately playable, how many other DAWS do that?

    What it does not bring in is things like tremolo on strings, harmonics, marcato and other string expressions. It does not bring in flutter tongue on woodwinds and other brass and woodwind techniques.

    It’s a lot of work reassigning all those techniques and styles in Mixcraft. What I’d like to know is, if there is a DAW out there that will bring in all these articulations?

    I zipped one of my orchestral GM2 files if you want to play with it.

    Cheers,
    Rob
     

    Attached Files:

  2. #2 Doug Gibson, Nov 12, 2020
    Logic behaves pretty well in my experience.

    I can't say for sure, but my guess is no.
    I think you will find most DAW's load the instruments, and then you have to assign the articulations.

    As far as I am aware, there is no universal articulation order that could be automated with all the various libraries out there.
    Each company has it's a way of organizing their instruments.

    I am pretty sure you will find this is why people have such large templates, so after you import you sync up as you need.....separate tracks or key switches etc.


    Have you tried XML file?

    You could see if any of the sound sets from here would help https://www.soundsetproject.com/

    However that would be impossible to combine with noteperformer. But it might work if you switched configurations before export.

    Ask the people at Mixcraft.
     
    Martin Hoffmann likes this.
  3. #3 Rob Kennedy, Nov 12, 2020
    Hi Doug,

    I have tried XML, it was not as good as midi.

    One of the things that struck me was maybe, these midi files do not actually contain those articulations. With what I like to call on-note articulations, like a staccato or dynamic marking, in Sibelius, you apply that directly to a note. With things like a marcato marking, they goe in as text above the note, so that may be the issue.

    I wonder how the other notations programs handle midi? I wonder if Finale and Dorico export more information into their midi files? Any experience with those?

    Have you heard of a program that can tell you what information is contained in a midi file? Clearly they have velocity represented in a midi file, and things like staccato and slurs. So I wonder of there is something you can drop a midi file into and it tells you all it contains?

    I have tried a few from the sounset project, I seem to remember that none were suitable for me.

    I have asked Mixcraft techies, they say ask Sibelius, which I have not done yet.

    Cheers,

    Rob
     
  4. #4 Doug Gibson, Nov 12, 2020
    As I mentioned, I think the answer is just going to be a flat out NO.
    Even if it did have information about the articulations, almost every library has a different assignment for those articulations.

    There are copyright reasons for all this stuff too.

    So.....I would say with 99% confidence NO.


    You could try something like staff pad which had higher quality playback within it.
     
    David Rubenstein likes this.
  5. #5 Hans Jonathan Hummelgaard, Dec 6, 2020
    Hey you can actually do your own import scripting in Reaper based on XML. So auto converting Sibelius xml to your own defined reaper midi data is possible. So in theory it's possible to just go with XML.
    Looking at it briefly - there is no data that Noteperformer is using inside Sibelius that is not exported into XML (hope Im not wrong..).

    BUT the hard part is the actual conversion - we all set up our DAWs differently so each solution is unique.
    I only know that Reaper can do it - I doubt other DAWs have scripting capabilities on that level but dont know.
    I'm a programmer and I get dizzy by thinking how long time it would take to write such an import script :(

    If I ever get around to do it based on my own VI setup in Reaper I'll post about it. I'd just start importing simple stuff like timpani.

    I think a likely future scenario is that you as a composer will pay someone to customize your dream setup. Future technology is not getting any less complicated, unless it's dumbed down.
     
    Marian Szewczyk likes this.
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