MIDI into Audacity

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Koolkat

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« on: January 13, 2018, 11:20:39 PM »
I use Audacity for recording as I find it easy to use after many years and I don't really need a fully fledged DAW. I have tried to learn software such as Ableton etc but would rather be playing and recording rather than learning the intricacies of a complex workstation. However, one advantage of DAW's is that in the case of Ableton, it has a built in MIDI sound bank which can be accessed via an external keyboard to record directly into thr DAW. I would like to record into Audacity from my keyboard via a MIDI sound bank in the same way

I currently have Ableton and Audacity on one laptop and Audacity on a second laptop so I could use Ableton to generate the tones on one PC and then feed the audio monitoring signal into the second PC via an Audio interface to record into Audacity. However, this seems like it could cause problems, both from a latency and sound quality perspective. I know there are external MIDI sound banks out there but would Audacity recognise these as an input device as it does my Fast Track? If so, are there any recommendations for reasonably priced units with a good range of voices?

Boydie

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« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2018, 11:33:09 PM »
If you already have a pc then I think you are delaying the inevitable if you don't get a fully fledged DAW

I think softsynths are the way forward for you - an external midi unit that you record the audio from could be expensive and give you an unnecessarily complicated setup

If you don't want to spend a lot then REAPER may be worth a look

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CaliaMoko

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« Reply #2 on: January 13, 2018, 11:54:45 PM »
I use both Audacity and Reaper, and I agree with Boydie. I learned Audacity first and used to use Reaper only occasionally for anything. But I found myself gradually moving more and more to Reaper and now I rarely use Audacity. The main reason is how Audacity [doesn't exactly] handle effects like reverb, etc. Once you apply them, you can't just turn them back off. Frustrating.

Reaper is low-priced PLUS you can try it for 60 days before you pay. PLUS, if you don't pay in 60 days, it keeps right on working. It took me longer than 60 days to decide I really was going to use it. A lot longer.

Oh, and since you already have Ableton, you could keep practicing with that instead of downloading Reaper. Just keep trying it out a little at time, if you need to. If you get frustrated, export the files to WAVs, load them in Audacity and continue in the familiar environment.

Oh, another thing about Audacity that makes me crazy--when you delete a piece of a track, everything to the right jumps to the left to fill in the hole. Ugh! In Reaper it stays where it belongs. I don't know about Ableton.

My two cents' worth.

Vicki


pompeyjazz

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« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2018, 08:59:28 AM »
Totally agree with Boydie and Vicki. I'm a Reaper user who moved from Audacity. There are just too many limitations with Audacity