midi to mp3

[weeo]

How do you guys transfer midi to mp3?
I've going from midi through a USB interface to Audacity, but the sound quality is not that great, or am i missing something?
Appreciate any advice / comments

Ta
Eddie

[weeo]

After some research i realized i needed an analog to mp3 convertor.
I've just bought one so hopefully all will be ok.

Eddie

[geordiebennett]

Hi Eddie,
I've just started to change my midis to mp3,I do it on cakewalk pro9 and then tidy it up on Audacity or Nero,they sound pretty good.I'd be interested in how you get on with the analog,might be quicker than the way I do it.
Geordie

[weeo]

Hi George, that's pretty much the method i was using Cakewalk pro 9, to minidisc, then through Audacity, but for some reason the recordings to mp3 came through distorted.
Maybe if i tried to by-pass minidisc and take it straight to audacity it might have been better.
I spoke to a friend of mine who used to use minidisc and converted to mp3 years ago.
He advised me that i'd need an analog to mp3 convertor.
Bought one for 25 quid from Amazon, so I'll let you know how it goes when i get it up and running.

Eddie

[freeway]

Hi Eddie

I posted how I do it in Cakewalk Pro Audio a while back as it has its own on board mp3 converter to do it for you ... have a look here maybe it might help somebit..

midihangout.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=chitchat&thread=2961&page=1

You can then use whatever Audio Editing Software you choose for editing adding effects etc. I personally use Mixcraft 6.

Cheerz

Barry

[weeo]

Thanks Barry as always some great advice.
My problem is all my current tracks are on minidisc , so rather than doing them all again from scratch, i'd rather record from minidisc to mp3. Which is why i need the analog convertor.
I'll try your method for any future songs though and see how it goes,

Thanks again

Eddie

[freeway]

No Probs Eddie

I lost a lot of my songs over the years with crashes and various viruses on my pc ... but as I still had them on mini disk I recorded a lot of those lost songs back into Cakewalk and saved as mp3 back on to my hard drive so I now have back ups in case of emergencies .

I suppose I'll be going to usb/flash soon but for the time being I'm sticking with the mini disk.

Big advantage with the usb/flash is if you ever lose or damage your mini disks you have to sit and re record everything back which can be very time consuming..
whereas its only a matter of transferring from pc to flash/usb in a few secs and voila your back in biz.

Btw that distortion you mentioned sounds like your levels weren't set correctly .

Anyway good luck

Regards

Barry

[JohnG]

Sorry to be late in on this

My own way is MIDI out to the sound card or sound module (or virtual instrument like VSC or SyFon or VSTi via VST Host) and record as a wave file.

It's important to start with wave and do any editing in this format. Once converted to mp3 a lot of audio information has been, quite literally "thrown away" in the compression process. Once thrown away never recovered. If you then edit the mp3, in all but a very few programs, the file is converted back to wave, to implement the edit, then re-converted to mp3. More of the music is thrown away each time wav to mp3 is done.

So, once I have a wave file I load it into Audacity and make sure it doesn't clip. Go to the View menu and click on fit vertically to see the waveform properly. Clips can be seen as vertical red lines.

If you have clipping, before you even start the conversion process, the result will be awful. If you do, go back and do the recording again using lower volume settings. Aim to get the loudest sound 3dB below maximum (-3dB), no higher. If it's lower Audacity can amplify it for you.

Once you have a good recording in Audacity you can strip any silences from the start and end of the file using the edit facilities. If it's a bit too quiet you can highlight all, (Ctrl+A) then use Effect - Amplify. It tells you how much you can amplify to reach 0 dB.

Again aim for -3dB. Why?
Because the conversion process to mp3 can end up amplifying some parts of the file. If you start from 0dB this can introduce clipping into the converted file. Clipping equals distortion of a kind that sounds bad to the ears.

Once the file looks good and, more importantly, sounds good, save it as a renamed audio file (or overwrite the original if you wish. Then go to the mp3 conversion process, i.e. export as mp3.

Open the Options dialogue (bottom right hand corner) and select the quality. I always go for Mode = Variable, Quality = 0, 220-260 etc., Speed = Standard, Channel Mode = Stereo (but joint stereo saves a little space). My advice would be to use no lower setting than 2 for Quality.

Then do your export.
You should then have a high quality, free from clipping artifacts file.

My advice, keep your wav files until you have 650 MB of them then burn them to a good quality CD or buy a backup USB drive and save them there. Archive quality CDs are best.

Another useful little freebie converter (wav to mp3) is Razor Lame. It uses the same converter (LAME) as Audacity but handles batch conversion.

Hope that helps.
JohnG.

[weeo]

Thanks for your input guys, it's been a great help.

Eddie

[geordiebennett]

Hi
I have found that to convert midi to wave on cakewalk pro,I have to cut the volume down by at least half,some instruments even more to stop distortion and clipping.
Geordie

[freeway]

Hi Gerodie

Is this after you have set your volume levels before recording?

I do this on a regular basis and Ive never had any probs they always sound fine to me you shouldn't have to bring instrument levels down at all.

Although it's always mp3 conversions I do wave conversion volumes shouldn't be any different once your input volume levels have been checked beforehand .

I always do a test beforehand I load my midi prepare my audio channel hit record and go to View/Console I can see the input volumes there and if they're clipping (in the red) I just reduce the input volume accordingly .

As far as I'm aware the conversion process itself shouldn't affect the output volume but maybe John G can throw some more light om this one
Regards

Barry

[geordiebennett]

Hi Barry,
These are midis that I use for gigging and the volumes are set for that.When I record in cakewalk to convert them, I have to set the input volume on the channel to about -50 Db plus bring some instruments down,usually brass,choir ahhs,Jazz guitar played as a steel,otherwise I get distortion on the finished song.John says that some parts of the file can end up amplified when converted to mp3,I find it can happen when converting to wave as well.
I do my mastering in Nero and they sound pretty good when I've finished.
All the Best Geordie

[JohnG]

Hi Guys,

Often channel volumes are set way too high in MIDI files, and note on velocities too, for the analogue recording process. We compensate by turning the main volume down for listening which pushes the levels right down to avoid distortion.

When I use my Yamaha MU1000 sound modules I turn them full up to get the best signal to noise ratio. Then balancing the level of the MIDI instruments matches the kind of level I'll get when recording.

I've written many times that channel volumes around 100 are about right to start with. We should remember too that note velocities of 127 equate to using Rocky Balboa using his fists to play a piano. Keep it down. Then you'll get sensible output levels for recording.

If you think of the channel volume just as you would on a mixing desk (in effect it's doing exactly the same thing) you aim to get the levels at about 80% (usually marked 0dB) but analogue has what's called headroom. With the digital process 0dB is often equivalent to +10 or even +12 dB analogue (it depends how good your mixing desk is). Digital 0 dB is as far as it goes, maxed out.

The pieces I put together and posted have velocities varying from 48 to 104 maximum. Channel volumes never higher than 100 and often down around 50 to 80 for quieter instruments. The result is often around -6dB, just noticeably quieter than FSD (0 dB).

The conversion to mp3 process can give an extra 2 dB boost on occasions, don't ask me why, it's part of the auditory compensation process that's carried out.

LAME is one of the best quality wav to mp3 converters available.
Audacity uses LAME.

I use Nero too to do the final burning, nothing else.

JohnG.

[simmo123]

Hi folks,just like to add my experiences with changing midi to Wav/Mp3.... firstly after editing the midi in my Cakewalk Sonar le to suit my requirements insert & open up an audio track under the edited midi tracks,i then click the R for recording button which highlights to red,next i go to options/project/metronome at the toolbar at the top of the screen & make sure that the recording box does not have a tick in it otherwise if i has a tick the metronome will play throughout your recording,so you must untick this box to stop this from occurring,all i do then is to click the record button on the top toolbar & presto you can see the audio track recording at the same time as the midi is playing.If i am happy with the result i just export the wav file by clicking file/export /audio on the top toolbar making sure i save it to a dedicated folder.If i would like to make the recorded audio track a little louder before i export it i highlight the audio track then go to the top toolbar & click process/audio/normalise it will automaticly go to the highest volume without exceeding the maximum,i then close the sonar programme & open up a programme called sound forge in which i can fine tune the volumes....all of this was learnt by advice from our own John G....THANKS jOHN
Simmo

[simmo123]

Hi again folks,i forgot to add that once i am happy with the recorded wav file i then open up a programme that John G recommended called "RazorLame" in which i proceed to convert my wav to mp3 format & as John mentioned it has the facility to convert batches of tracks in one hit,the other thing i have learned is that i always save all of my changes i have made during all of the processes which enables me to go back into the original midi & make any further changes ie tempo,key etc very easily,John taught me well ...Simmo...getting back into he's stride again