Tag: Sound Engineering

Songwriting & Indie Music: J Roland Kelly Marshals Against Karl Rove is released

Posted by J Roland Kelly – January 20, 2009

Today is the last possible day (and the safest) to release a political charged song about the Bush administration, while still technically under the Bush administration.

So, I give you… J Roland Kelly Marshals Against Karl Rove.

I’m not sure who would argue that there’s been any good political music about the chaos of the last eight years, so I thought I would try my hand.

And over the last few months, I’ve written a number of blog posts about the new use of Audio to MIDI in independent music, and I was anxious for a chance to apply what I learned.

This is my first song released as a single, and I’ve been curious to experiment with the single format.

Anyway, enjoy, and good luck to the United States and the new President.

- J Roland Kelly

P.S. You can buy J Roland Kelly Marshals Against Karl Rove here.

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Sound Engineering & Making Music: Converting Audio to MIDI In Your Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) to Perfectly Intertwine Organic and Virtual Instruments Plus a Lesson on Audio Plug-ins

Posted by J Roland Kelly – November 24, 2008

I’ve written a lot about the future role of MIDI in popular music. Two weeks ago I wrote about a software plug-in that I wanted created that would convert audio to MIDI in real time, and then play the MIDI as if it were coming from a real MIDI controller thereby allowing you to control a synthesizer with an organic instrument such as a guitar.

It already exists.

In my wanderings on the Internet it wasn’t like I didn’t find it right away, but it did take a while for me to understand what I was looking at… hey, is that a hole in the ground?

It took longer to write the blog posts than it did to download, install, and implement the conversion software. I feel a little strange about that, but the one consolation is that I predicted EXACTLY how the software would work.

Plus, it’s something I really wanted, and so now I have it. That’s a win.

First the lesson on audio plug-ins:

1. Steinberg created the Virtual Studio Technology (VST) plug-in system for Cubase. It had complicated and expensive licensing, it only became popular after third-party developers started to disregard the licensing rules. VST is now the standard plug-in format for most DAWs in the windows environment, including Adobe Audition 3.

2. Apple went their own way and created a new system for plug-ins on the Mac, which they call Audio Units (AU).

These plug-ins work at the operating system level and should work with whatever sound recording software you have installed at the time (that use plug-ins).

So, now the plug-in (this is really cool and I recommend that you try it even if you are not a musician)…

Widisoft makes an Audio to MIDI conversion audio plug-in to be used directly in the sound recording suite (DAW) that you are using. They have VST and AU versions of the plug-in.

I am going to focus on the Mac, if you need this for windows (or VST) you can find instructions on the Widisoft website.

You can try the plug-in for free. It will last 20 days, but will only work for 15 seconds before cutting out for 15 seconds, working then not working etc. It costs $80 dollars to purchase, which I recommend, it works well and I’ve not seen anything like it.

The whole thing should only take a few minutes.

1. Download the audio to MIDI conversion plug-in here.

2. Install it with the instructions (a few seconds).

3. Follow these instructions to get it to work with GarageBand.

That’s it. Now you can control a MIDI Synthesizer with an organic instrument in GarageBand.

Plus… Audio Unit Plug-ins breathe new life into GarageBand eliminating many of the things that make it suck. True.

-J Roland Kelly

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Songwriting & Sound Engineering: An update to last weeks post about MIDI ruling indie music and another suggestion for sound recording software creators

Posted by J Roland Kelly – November 8, 2008

UPDATE: Sound Engineering & Making Music: Converting Audio to MIDI In Your Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) to Perfectly Intertwine Organic and Virtual Instruments Plus a Lesson on Audio Plug-ins

After last weeks post about the new power of MIDI, I had another idea about how to incorporate my idea and hurry the future along…

The new power of MIDI rotates around the development of audio to MIDI conversion software, and I wrote last week that we would have to wait until a sound recording software maker like Apple or Adobe add this feature to their software packages like GarageBand, Adobe Audition, Logic, etc. in order for the full power of this to be seen, but it doesn’t have to be that way if some third party would create a new type of MIDI interface.

Let me explain.

A type of third party plug-in could be created that would work with every recording suite. It would work like this:

1. A microphone would record audio and convert it to MIDI in real time (this part is already done and you can download programs for free already).

2. Than a program (the program in question; not yet created) would take the MIDI newly being recorded from the audio and reconstitute it as the MIDI cable and USB pluses of a real MIDI interface such as a keyboard, thereby mimicking just another MIDI controller (again, all in real time).

The result would be that every sound recording program would just accept this as another MIDI input device and… Ta-Da the future!

More detailed advice to computer programmers:

1. Take one of the audio to MIDI conversion programs already created (lease it, buy it, or hack it at first, I suspect these are a dime a dozen and never make money) and look at the MIDI file that it creates as it converts audio to MIDI in real time. The MIDI file can’t be any different than a database.

2. Read up on USB and MIDI protocol to learn to generate MIDI signals from the file being created by the Audio to MIDI software.

3. Market the whole thing to cool young indie musicians, and feel cool and young… and rich and a music pioneer.

I just can’t get over what a good idea this is. Imagine laying down the guitar track, then you want the melody layered on top by an oboe but you don’t have an oboe or know an oboe player so you just play the melody on guitar and it gets converted to an oboe instantly… or forget the guitar for melody, you just hum it into the microphone.

I am currently reading a book on songwriting, and it mentions a few unorthodox songwriting methods; apparently Mel Brooks (who can’t play a single goddamn instrument) wrote the score for his Tony award winning Broadway show The Producers HIMSELF by humming into a tape recorder, and well paid musicians then took it from there.

And that’s the future I dream of… I want to be able to score an entire Broadway show (Tony winning) without knowing how to play a single instrument.

Of course Mel Brooks could have used the software that I propose, and his humming would have been turned instantly into a grand piano or a string section or what have you- for demo purposes.

- J Roland Kelly

Thank God.

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