Total Mu.Lab Newbie Seeks General Beginning Tips

[ProgRadioCat]

Hello! I just joined this forum at Jo's email suggestion.

A little background first:

I am a vocalist and have become pretty good at using Audacity to get high quality vocal recordings from just that program alone and my USB microphone (if you would like to hear a few, that URL is at the end of this post).

I am also pretty computer literate for an older guy. I have even operated a free form online radio music/interview station since 2003 and, to name drop a little, have done extensive music interviews with such folks as Chris Squire, Alan White, and Tony Kaye of Yes, Carl Palmer of ELP/Asia, and both Sam Bush and John Cowan x-New Grass Revival (the link to my station is also at the end of this post for those interested).

Now for the newbie part. I am totally clueless about sequencers and MIDI in general. I have some time this summer and really want to become able to use Mu.Lab to add music to my vocals and/or vis-versa. I am currently reading all of the accompanying documentation to Mu.Lab so I will have a basic idea of how it works when I read your kind responses.

My computer setup is a higher-end HP Pavillion desktop running Windows Vista. I just went to ASIO4ALL and installed it. I am reading that manual as well.

Question 1 - Do I even need ASIO4ALL to run Mu.Lab successfully? That would be good to know before I begin to make the changes suggested in my system by that manual.

Question 2 - The Mu.Lab demo comes up easily and quickly for me and I can click around on it and all of the buttons are responsive EXCEPT for Play. It looks like there is demo material on the screen but it will not play at all at present. Does that have anything to do with Question 1 above? If not, am I correct in that I should be able to hear something by pushing play as soon as I bring it up on my screen?

Thanks so much for your interest and assistance!!!

Best,

:)Steve S-N
http://www.myspace.com/tuxedocatmusic
http://www.live365.com/stations/virginiaprograsser

[MuTools]

Question 1 - Do I even need ASIO4ALL to run Mu.Lab successfully? That would be good to know before I begin to make the changes suggested in my system by that manual.

Yes you need an ASIO driver. If your sound device does not have an optimized ASIO driver from its own, then use ASIO4ALL.

Question 2 - The Mu.Lab demo comes up easily and quickly for me and I can click around on it and all of the buttons are responsive EXCEPT for Play. It looks like there is demo material on the screen but it will not play at all at present. Does that have anything to do with Question 1 above?

Yes.

If the play button does not work that means MU.LAB doesn't find the ASIO driver.
You can select an ASIO driver via MU.LAB's Edit menu -> Audio Setup. The available ASIO driver(s) on your system should be listed there.

[ProgRadioCat]

Thank you, MuTools! The Play button works now and I can see that the demo track is working great.

HOWEVER - Even though my sound is enabled there is no output sound from my speakers. And the only choice that the Output button on audio setup gives me is 'Not Connected 1' and 'Not Connected 2'). Where do I go from here?

:)Steve S-N

[pljones]

From that point it's into ASIO4ALL set up territory rather than MULAB. Down on your tooltray, you should have a green icon for ASIO4ALL that appears when MULAB is running; clicking that should get to ASIO4ALL's set up screen. Alternatively, you can get there from MULAB->Edit->Audio Setup->ASIO Control Panel.

In this panel, you should see, on the left a list of your PC's hardware audio outputs - almost certainly just the onboard soundcard. You need to have this lit up. In simple mode, that's pretty much it. In advanced mode, you can open out the settings to select exactly which outputs are in use. It may be that you have your speakers plugged into Left Rear/Right Rear and ASIO4ALL has selected Left Front/Right Front...

(My music PC is dead and I'm on a laptop with no music software installed, so apologies if my memory is somewhat off.)

[ProgRadioCat]

Fantastic! I disabled my system sounds and went into my computer's audio device controls, messed around a bit, and now I have GREAT, crisp sound from the mu.lab.

Now to thoroughly read the information provided.

I will get back to this thread when (probably not if) I need the next stage of help.

What a terrific board. Thanks!

:)Steve S-N

[ProgRadioCat]

OK, I'm back! I have read the manual up to the part re: recording audio. I have set Audacity as my external audio editor for muLab since I am very comfortable using it. A question:

Would it be better to record my vocals directly into Audacity as I have been doing and then import them into muLab or to record them into muLab directly and then edit them with Audacity?

If the answer is the former, how easy is it to import (and then sync effectively - an anticipated problem with this approach) from Audacity into muLab since Audacity is already set as my external editor?

Thanks,

:)Steve S-N

[ProgRadioCat]

Another quick newbie question: The metronome is pretty complicated (for a newbie like me). How do I set it for a simple "tic-toc", 4/4 time to begin with?

Now, assuming that is done,how do I assign it to a rack?

:)SS-N

[DaveL60]

Welcome to MU.LAB, it's a nifty tool. WRT the recording question, I would record into MU.LAB, and edit with Audacity when required.

The metronome isn't actually assigned to a rack, it just plays its sound when enabled. The metronome is explained in the docs on the Transport page.

You might find value in Johnny Pumphandle's MU.LAB tutorial; it may be a little dated WRT to the current MU.LAB version but is probably still pretty much on-target.

On a larger scale

I am totally clueless about sequencers and MIDI in general. I have some time this summer and really want to become able to use Mu.Lab to add music to my vocals and/or vis-versa.

You might want to take a look at the Tweakheadz Guide, which provides very thorough coverage of "sequences and MIDI in general."

DaveL

[ProgRadioCat]

Thanks for the thorough and informative reply, DaveL. This is just going to take me a lot of time and experimentation to wrap my 50+ year-old mind around. I have been using the mu.lab tutorial and I find it to be helpful at times but totally over my head at other times. But that's o.k.; I figured out how to use Audacity pretty well by mostly trial, error, and time spent experimenting so I am sure that I can figure mu.lab out as well.

Thanks again! I am sure that I will be back here from time to time asking more questions.

:)Steve S-N

[ProgRadioCat]

Last question for a little while:

I have downloaded a VST plug-in that I am very interested in - The Improvisator. I have also downloaded, to support it, the VSTi (yes, I now know the difference between VST and VSTi!) plug-in mda Piano. I even figured out how to load both successfully into the mu.Lab VST Plugin Manager.

Now - Step-by-Step, How do I get them to interact so that I can use mda-Piano to explore The Improvisator?

Thanks!

:)Steve S-N

[pljones]

Sounds like you need:
Keyboard -> MIDI In -> MULAB -> The Improvisator -> MDA Piano -> Audio Out

Alternatively, within MULAB:
Sequence Part -> The Improvisator -> MDA Piano -> Audio Out

In a Rack, insert The Improvisator in the top slot and MDA Piano beneath it.

Then either set the rack as the target for MIDI In or create a sequence part that targets the rack and put your MIDI events in there.

[ProgRadioCat]

I'll give it a try, PLJ, but since MIDI is a total mystery to me (I am going to read the Johnny Pumphandle tutorial on MIDI before I try this) we shall see... I also am not quite sure I know what you mean by ->. Sorry re: all the hand-holding!

:)Steve S-N

[DaveL60]

I also am not quite sure I know what you mean by ->

Nothing terribly profound, just the signal flow. In other words "Sequence Part -> The Improvisator -> MDA Piano -> Audio Out" means:

• There's a sequence part (i.e., MIDI data) in the composer
• The sequence part's MIDI data flows to a rack which has The Improvisator in the first slot
• The MIDI data output by The Improvisator flows into the MDA Piano
• The audio output of the MDA Piano goes to the audio output of the system

Hope that helps.
Remember that MIDI is just data describing events that cause a VSTi to produce audio. The data describes notes on and off, and various controllers. A quick MIDI overview can be found here and also good info in the KVR Wiki. There's probably an easier description somewhere in the Tweakheadz Guide, but that site isn't responding right now so I can't point to a page.

DaveL

[pljones]

Just to add.

Keep in your mind the concept that you're wiring stuff together - either connecting the MIDI/Event out of one thing to the MIDI/Event in of another or similarly for audio signal flows.

In MU.LAB, you've a lot of different controls that are implicitly wired up already, some you can change the wiring on if you like and some others you have to set up by yourself.

A few examples:

Racks are hardwired to have signals flow from top to bottom. Tracks can point at racks (or not). And you can insert "sends" into racks to put explicit signal flows in.

If things start getting confusing, grab a piece of paper and draw what you think you want to happen.

On screen drawing isn't always easy. I use "->" rather than writing "output connects to input of" because it's shorter!

[ProgRadioCat]

Thanks again, Dave. I will give it a try over the weekend and let you know what happens.

Best,

:)Steve S-N