MIDI » Kristie Addison

Yamaha DTXPRESS IV Electric Drum Kit

Gear Reveiw, MIDI, Recording 3 Responses »

Jul 242008

I borrowed a Yamaha DT Xpress 4 for some recording tonight, along with a drummer since drums are not really my forté. I thought an electric drum kit would be perfect for an evening recording session at home, as it wouldn’t keep the neighbors up like an acoustic kit would.

I wasn’t familiar with the kit before we started, so when it arrived I was actually expecting a USB port for MIDI. But unfortunatly only the higher models that come USB equipped (so I hear). The kit does have a MIDI out, but no MIDI in so my cunning trick I was planning was foiled from the beginning. (This cunning trick would have involved recording the drums on a midi track, quantising and editing to my satisfaction then running the MIDI signal back into the kit and this time recording the audio output. It’s a very cunning trick that works quite well with keyboards. )

Instead of the cunning trick I just recorded straight from the line out into my USB interface. I was really impressed with the easiness of the whole process. Just two leads. Not ten mics and ten mic leads and ten mic stands and endless soundchecks. And the whole kit folds down so easily that you can carry it up the stairs in one trip.

Obviously an electric drum kit can not replace a really nice kit in a great studio, but for home recording I think it’s a really great idea. I loved the samples in the DTXpress, it has some that are cheesy and fun and some that are very usable. While I probably wouldn’t go out and buy this particular model myself, as I definitly want a USB port (or at least a MIDI-in as well as a MIDI-out) after playing round with it I am definitly keen to try out some of Yamaha’s other electric drum kits to find something that suits my purposes.

New Toy – Yamaha CLP-230 Digital Piano

Gear Reveiw, MIDI, Piano, Song Writing 4 Responses »

May 032008

I have been dying to get a Piano for a while now, however with the stairs, and the tuning, and the space it just hasn’t proved practical. But I’ve been also needing a new MIDI controller Keyboard. Mine is only two octaves, and a few notes don’t work so good after the coffee incident… So I found a good medium point. A fairly decent digital Piano. I didn’t go overboard and get one with all the bells and whistles since I’m going to be using it with my computer anyway. It has a great Piano sound and feel, a USB port, and who needs anything else?

It has a GH3 Keyboard which has different weightings on the hammers, so the action is heavier in the lower end of the keyboard and lighter in the high end making it very realistic to play.

Within minutes of setting it up I found myself writing this piece. Apologies for my rusty playing – I haven’t lived with a piano since moving out of my parents house about ten years ago, so I have a lot of practicing to catch up on

Attack of the Meeplings.. Meep Meep!

Games, MIDI 6 Responses »

Mar 242008

The Beta version of a game I’ve done music for has just come out. The game is called “Attack of the Meeplings” And is a cute neo-retro bullet dodge arcade style browser based game. Well, that’s how I’d describe it I guess It’s made by TinyFrog Software, and the game can be found at http://www.tinyfrogsoftware.com/aotm/

The music I did is done with General Midi, which was a challenge in itself. I think I already blogged a little while back about rediscovering the joys of MIDI, and while MIDI is a little outdated,and quite restricting, is does have some advantages. Because Attack of the Meeplings is a browser based game, it’s preferable for it to have a small file size for fast download. MIDI file sizes are ridiculously tiny, so ideal for this sort of thing. The other advantage we had with MIDI in the case of this game, is the fact that you can change the BPM. The game starts off with the music playing at 140BPM, and as the game speeds up with each level, the music plays faster and faster. Unfortunately I’m really bad at computer games, and haven’t managed to get past the first level. Yet…..

General Midi – not quite dead yet?

MIDI, Recording, Song Writing 3 Responses »

Feb 012008

If you don’t know what General Midi (GM) is, you’re missing out on something which is at the time time both very awful and very cool. General Midi is a specific specification for synths, that basically means the the default synth on your soundcard or operating system should theoretically have the same instrumentation as mine. So, instead of having to save a big audio file, I can save a little set of midi instructions, and your GM synth will follow these instructions and play back the notes of my song with the drum parts sounding like drums, squarewave sounding like a square wave, and the pineapple tasting like a pineapple, and of course the schnozberry tasting like schnozberry. It’s awful it really is.