streaming, as in NOT pattern based, MIDI?

[funktoons]

i asked this question here many years ago when i had an account and never got an answer. as i'm hoping to get a job soon that will give me some extra spending money, i'm starting to think about trying to start making music again.

the thing is though, i DESPISE pattern based recording with every fiber of my being! it made me want to smash my HR-16 for TOTALLY preventing me from busting beats on MY timing and forcing me to play to its infuriating hellspawned click track so virtually every beat i attempted, no matter if i was using the max 256ppqn resolution, sounded soulless and quantized like kraftwerk with absolutely no loose sloppy funk, and i like beats so sloppy they almost sound random. (see: cloud chamber - byrne/eno)

i'd like to find sequencing software where i can create a capella guide tracks as audio, without soul stealing click tracks and then be able to copy and paste the MIDI i sync to that the same way one can easily copy and paste audio or play over whatever. i just can't wrap my head around the NIGHTMARE that MIDI still requires users to crawl inside hideous tempo based straight jackets. how the eff can you do TEMPO CHANGES with that crap?!!!

i'm not sure everyone here was even getting where i'm coming from last time.

i'm asking if there's a sequencer out there that lets you FREESTYLE at WHATEVER tempo, even if it's so sloppy as to waver a BPM or two, you play or sync to audio so instead of FORCING you to kowtow to the sequencer's abomination tempo, IT follows whatever YOU DO like IT SHOULD! basically, i'm looking to do MIDI the same way one can record audio... whatever you do, whenever you do it, is what's recorded, and it can be edited down to sample level and slid to ANY sample without EVER having to use a clock. a 110 BPM riff is no different from a 105.043 BPM one, and you can juggle ANYTHING within the same track without rigid grids.

is there a program that does that yet? i would think EVERY sequencer should let users edit MIDI exactly like audio now so one could used sampled footsteps, for example, synced to video at say 83bpm that ramp up as someone starts to run in a movie as well as clock ticks synced to "60 bpm" in the same track.

i'd prefer the easiest to use program (complex logic = last choice... unless it no longer has the steepest learning curve) or cubase (what i always dreamed of trying) as freestyled MIDI & syncing to audio would be the ONLY way i ever work. i doubt i'd use most "power features" except maybe for making dubstep wobbles or hand drawing modulations after the fact to tweak performances, but more than anything, i want to make MIDI without ever asking a "die mothereffer! die!!!" click track for permission to lay my beats down at whatever tempo i'm feeling.

i hope, despite not knowing the technical terms for EXACTLY what i'm trying to do (i haven't stayed current with tech for nearly a decade now), i'm making sense to you and you can tell me what program(s) i should be looking at.

infinite thanks in advance for your time and consideration. if software has FINALLY advanced to where i can do my thing instead of having it fought and blocked at every turn by the soul sucking click track devil. then, i can FINALLY start making music like i've always dreamed and NOT want to take a sledgehammer to a drum machine/sequencer for trying to make me slave to it when it should be the other way around.

i GUESS syncing MIDI to loops to create guide tracks is doable, but again... rigid tempos? UGH!!! i visualize beats as either lopsided rolling eggs that both rush & lag the beat with every rotation or as rubber bands that stretch "perfect timing" out of shape. click tracks destroy the slop and make it impossible, or to use another analogy, try to force a round peg in a square hole. i like my lopsided elliptical peg very much and i'd like to tell you what hole to stick it you click track square mofo! LOL

[lfm]

Any daw with midi let you record freely without any restrictions. No need for tempo, grid or anything.

Problems start arise when you are to use loops or arpeggiators and other tempodriven stuff, and if to import midi from elsewhere.

So do it in one daw where you record it and you are fine.
At least take notes what tempo were set on daw you recorded with, and which resolution in ticks per quarternote. Then you can import having set same overall tempo in another daw.

There are various tools in daws to create tempotracks from what you recorded freely though. But not done in a flash, it takes some work especially if you drift in tempo.

One principle for these detecting tools are to assign a range in timeline and tell this is four bars or similar.

[Groundhog #31684]

In Reaper:

1) Set project tempo to 240bpm
2) In Project Settings set Project Start Measure to zero
3) Set Preferences -> MIDI -> Ticks per quarter note for new MIDI items to 12000 (PPQ resolution)
4) In the MIDI Editor change the grid to 4 beats (so the lines are seconds if you don't disable grid).
5) Turn snap and grid off in MIDI Editor and project view
6) Save this empty project as default.rpp or whatever and point to it in Preferences -> Project -> When creating new projects use the following....

Now the bar numbers are the same as the time in seconds, so can be read as such, and you can move MIDI and audio events by a sample at a time if you are running the project at 48kHz, if you use a different sample rate the number in #3 is samplerate/4, so adjust to taste.

(oh, and turn the metronome off!)

edit: I should say that this is just a guide to having a blank slate, getting the concept of tempo out of the way to record it like a tape machine with sample accuracy.

[jancivil]

i just can't wrap my head around the NIGHTMARE that MIDI still requires users to crawl inside hideous tempo based straight jackets. how the eff can you do TEMPO CHANGES with that crap?!!!

I use Cubase (full Cubase, known now as Cubase Pro 9). The timeline can be warped to your audio or the MIDI you input, down to 4000 PPQN (1000 ticks per 16th note) display. The Tempo Track has to be activated of course. So, the workflow is this: you locate the musically meaningful points in your file, first of all the barlines, and drag a barline in the timeline to these points. In the Key Editor you can determine the beats within the bar, so when your tempo changes beat by beat (rubato does by definition, but we find that so does a lot of beat music) that can be displayed and now your whole grid is useful for further arrangement.

[JorgV]

Just use your daw as a tape machine... Turn off the click/precount hit record and start playing. And just ignore the grid.

I do this all the time when I create piano accompaniments for clients. The benefits of midi are you can still correct small mistakes

If you do want a grid, just don't quantize. And for tempo changes cubase's timeline and tempo is very flexible, as jancivil pointed out.

[woggle]

Reaper lets you make the inline midi editor background be transparent so you can see the midi notes over the top of an underlying waveform and then move those notes around with respect to the waveform. Very handy. I think FL Studio does the same and probably most of the other DAWs have something similar as well

You can set the timebase of midi to time and have no snap to grid, so the note movement can be very fine grained

[Clearscreen]

Do you mean like music memos on ios? The way you record an audio track into that and it automatically syncs midi drums\bass to what you've recorded after you've finished recording? That'd be great to see on a DAW...

[funktoons]

thank you everyone for your input, even if the technical stuff might as well have been chinese LOL. the last i knew, you couldn't bypass "grid mode" as i guess the technical term is in anything a decade ago. i'm happy to hear that ANY modern DAW has finally gotten around that artificial limitation. when and if i get a DAW, it will likely be either cubase, or something more stripped down & easy to work with.

the most common way i'd probably work is to crate my guide tracks in a capella and paste MIDI hits over them that i can turn into samples and edit velocities for, copy & paste bits into arrangements, then play keyboard parts over them. now that i'm no longer "locked out" of doing music my way, i can't wait to earn some spendin' money and get a DAW, sound card, MIDI card, keyboard, MIDI faders and an electro harmonix tube preamp to warm my VSTs up. it's really nice to be able to essentially install an entire recording studio in one's PC as freeware.

after that, i'd want to get an analogue synth and/or start a modular and get a light stringed telecaster with twangy brass barrel saddles and record that direct for a distinctive sound.

thanks again for letting me know that my dream of making beats is FINALLY within reach. years ago, besides hating my HR-16's tempo based sequencing and the lousy fidelity of the fostex 4 track cassette i bought used, i bought an emu emax on consignment that came with half a user's manual and that i didn't know i needed a keyboard to test that was broken and an 8 track rel to reel i didn't know i needed a mixer for, that i ended up using as collateral on my last month's rent. the reel to reel was really nice sounding & quiet, but i never got to use it other than tinkering around making dubs off CDs.

now i have to start doing homework to catch up on what's new in desktop music & software.

thanks a bunch for the good news that makes me want to start busting beats right now and collecting VSTs again. i had a really great collection of synths & effects including some that became extinct years ago on a thumb drive that got stolen. i really like the cheesy "kuzo" sound of (atari etc.) chip synths and would like to combine bouncy funk with a playful vibe, but with a fusion of many things like wobble bass. a multitrack that you can do edits on is a very powerful thing for the way i want to work.

now to start jumping into some discussions and learn what this rip van winkle's been missing these past 10-15 years

[funktoons]

i don't know what happened, my previous post got quoted, i think because i tried to edit it, but what i popped by to say is that i'm trying to read up on FL studio as a producer reviewing VSTs makes it sound like it's "the best" for syncing loops, or at least better than logic. i imagine it's also a more stripped down DAW being based on a former entry level one, but i still really need to read up on the pros & cons of everything.

[gaf_thit]

i don't know what happened, my previous post got quoted, i think because i tried to edit it, but what i popped by to say is that i'm trying to read up on FL studio as a producer reviewing VSTs makes it sound like it's "the best" for syncing loops, or at least better than logic. i imagine it's also a more stripped down DAW being based on a former entry level one, but i still really need to read up on the pros & cons of everything.

Now, I haven't used FL studio much, but I have thought that was the DAW that is most synced midi/beats/loops etc and patternbased DAW there is.
If you want streaming and not pattern based, most others would be better. Even using a recording program, like the free Audacity would be better in that case.

I quite like FL though, but never understood how to get things going. Too many other projects.

[whyterabbyt]

thank you everyone for your input, even if the technical stuff might as well have been chinese LOL. the last i knew, you couldn't bypass "grid mode" as i guess the technical term is in anything a decade ago.

hmmm, sounds like you were misinformed. Its been possible in at least one of the hosts I use for at least 15 years.

[mcbpete]

hmmm, sounds like you were misinformed. Its been possible in at least one of the hosts I use for at least 15 years.

In the mid 90's I completely dismissed DAWs like Cubase after playing with the school's version of Cubase Score as I couldn't work out how to quantize anything - it was all 'off the grid' ! So I moved to trackers for the next 20 years before working it out again and having the best of both worlds with Ableton.

[bustedfist]

thank you everyone for your input, even if the technical stuff might as well have been chinese LOL. the last i knew, you couldn't bypass "grid mode" as i guess the technical term is in anything a decade ago. i'm happy to hear that ANY modern DAW has finally gotten around that artificial limitation. when and if i get a DAW, it will likely be either cubase, or something more stripped down & easy to work with.

the most common way i'd probably work is to crate my guide tracks in a capella and paste MIDI hits over them that i can turn into samples and edit velocities for, copy & paste bits into arrangements, then play keyboard parts over them. now that i'm no longer "locked out" of doing music my way, i can't wait to earn some spendin' money and get a DAW, sound card, MIDI card, keyboard, MIDI faders and an electro harmonix tube preamp to warm my VSTs up. it's really nice to be able to essentially install an entire recording studio in one's PC as freeware.

after that, i'd want to get an analogue synth and/or start a modular and get a light stringed telecaster with twangy brass barrel saddles and record that direct for a distinctive sound.

thanks again for letting me know that my dream of making beats is FINALLY within reach. years ago, besides hating my HR-16's tempo based sequencing and the lousy fidelity of the fostex 4 track cassette i bought used, i bought an emu emax on consignment that came with half a user's manual and that i didn't know i needed a keyboard to test that was broken and an 8 track rel to reel i didn't know i needed a mixer for, that i ended up using as collateral on my last month's rent. the reel to reel was really nice sounding & quiet, but i never got to use it other than tinkering around making dubs off CDs.

now i have to start doing homework to catch up on what's new in desktop music & software.

thanks a bunch for the good news that makes me want to start busting beats right now and collecting VSTs again. i had a really great collection of synths & effects including some that became extinct years ago on a thumb drive that got stolen. i really like the cheesy "kuzo" sound of (atari etc.) chip synths and would like to combine bouncy funk with a playful vibe, but with a fusion of many things like wobble bass. a multitrack that you can do edits on is a very powerful thing for the way i want to work.

now to start jumping into some discussions and learn what this rip van winkle's been missing these past 10-15 years

Buy an interface that comes bundled with entry level DAW software. Steinberg units are good and come bundled. Also, in the meantime, download some DAW demos and go through them to see what's new.

[funktoons]

Also, in the meantime, download some DAW demos and go through them to see what's new.

NOT a fan of that approach. i already tried that years ago with up to half a dozen high rated freeware programs and had a major meltdown because they were so anti-intuitive i could only get ONE of them to do one thing... host VSTs so i could try a couple compressors out, but otherwise hated them all so much because they made absolutely no sense. when i commit to a DAW, it will be ONLY to that one, and i KNOW i will hate having to learn just that one. to me, computer most programmers are hacks, in the negative sense of the word. they create software only they can understand instead of intuitive programs that work like they should. at one time, i dabbled with the idea of working at the ergonomics end of programming to get programmers to make software that works like it should instead of cobbled together crap that works the way that's easiest to program.

in that regard, i LOVE audacity and have done a lot of remixing on it preferring version 1.2 over updates, but it doesn't do MIDI which is the main thing i want a DAW for and i've never been able to get it to cooperate with my computer to use it for recording. i've only been able to import & edit audio, and for that, it's a GREAT program you can figure out without an owner's manual (the mark of good software in my world)

i've always gravitated towards cubase for both its power and simplicity. i just watched a lame "review" that was really just a demo of new features in cubase 9 and really liked that it looked simple to use, BUT i'm also thinking of possibly going with ableton because that's THE defacto standard for dubstep and i really do like the bass wobble sound when it isn't so high pitched digital spitty and in dark otherwise industrial songs so it might be the top contender for that one feature as far as i know hasn't been programmed into a VST synth specifically for wobbling yet, but i'm behind the times here kids.

as to bundled soundcards, i've considered that route as the ones that came with cubase (i forget the third party that supplied them) was supposed to be pretty good, but i'd rather stretch my budget there and get the best AD/DA i can afford, especially if it has a more warm & analogue sound as re-synthesizing VSTs through analogue effects & tube preamps to warm them up would be ESSENTIAL to me and i insist on recording in 24/96 to minimize digital artifacts. yeah... it'd be nice to have a 24 track hotrodded studer, but who can afford that? i'm really not a fan of the digital sound (or rigid soulless beats too fast to dance to) of a lot of techno. i want to resample tracks for a fatter grungy vibe, and ULTIMATELY, would like to resample EVERYTHING binaurally for the ultimate spacious headphone experience. i've already dabbled in binaural field recordings with my sony casette deck and a DIY beauty school dummy head with shure PZM ears that would be part of "my sound", which is why it's important that i get a DAW/sequencer that handles BOTH audio AND MIDI equally well. a good binaural recording played back on a good pair of open cans sounds better than the best studio recording to me.

[jancivil]

Well, Cubase must be pretty easy to use or I wouldn't have stuck with it. I only ever resorted to RTFM for some pretty sophisticated moves. OTOH Digital Performer never happened for me. YMMV, but Cubase for me was look at the thing for a minute and it's apparent.