Computer music project involving midi keyboard, each note triggering a sample .wav file, multi-tracking and layering. What program will allow this?

January 18, 2004 4:10 AM

I'm an amateur musician and since Multiple Sclerosis ate my hands, I can't play my guitar. So want to try to make music with my computer. I've got a fast Win XP machine, a SOundblaster card with midi and a midi keyboard, CoolEdit, Cakewalk and lots of ideas.

What I want to do is find a program that'll let me play my midi keyboard and record the music, allowing me to edit/ Quantize blah blah (Cakewalk allows me this). But I want those midi notes to trigger samples that I've got as . wavs, transposing them to correct note (so it plays the real sounds, not tinny midi stuff), and obviously allow me to multi-track to layer the stuff into the songs in my head.

Anyone recommend a program that's easy to get to grips with/ a way of saving the samples so I can do this/ a book or online resource to get me started?
posted by Pericles to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

For a starting point, what you're looking for are SoundFonts.
posted by Khalad at 5:14 AM on January 18, 2004

One of the many virtual samplers out there might work for you, with a loopback connecting it to Cakewalk.
posted by cmonkey at 7:50 AM on January 18, 2004

Response by poster: this is great help, you two - I'm already in trouble with wife for downloading stuff and playing with the computer on a sunday!
posted by Pericles at 9:25 AM on January 18, 2004

You can also use a variety of sampler-based VSTi plugins (for use in Cubase, Tracktion, Fruity Loops, etc.) that allow you to drag+drop .wav files onto notes, to be triggered by MIDI input. I recommend Kontakt, there's really not a software sampler out there that compares, IMHO.
posted by Jairus at 9:59 AM on January 18, 2004

Steinberg Virtual Guitarist focusses solely on guitar reproduction, and sounds pretty incredible to boot.
posted by kaefer at 11:48 AM on January 18, 2004

Mark of the Unicorn just came out with a software, sampler too... think it's called Mach 5.

CSound has moved into realtime processing beside its traditional "generate from a score" and I believe has some facility for receiving MIDI data.
posted by weston at 11:55 AM on January 18, 2004

Arg, sorry, munged the link in my head on CSound, should have checked it out first. Try csounds.com instead.
posted by weston at 11:58 AM on January 18, 2004

I like Renoise a lot, or any other 'tracker' style program.
posted by swordfishtrombones at 1:12 AM on January 19, 2004

I definetly recommend Orion. It's like a peared down version of cakewalk or cubase or logic. Also, It has this fantastic feature with it's sampler. you just load up your sample as a wave file and it'll cut it up for you. No need for messing with sound fonts.

Alternatively, if you're really into your sequencer and don't want to change, you could also check out Phatmatik. It's a software sampler that allows you to load in wav files and mess around with them - it'll run as a vst instrument in any major sequencing software.

I really recommend checking out Orion though. It's a lot of fun to play with and the learning curve is much much easier than most others.
posted by soplerfo at 7:04 AM on January 19, 2004