The Stereo Bus Blog - Daily Music Production Tips

This post focuses on the use of MIDI Time Code (MTC) and MIDI Machine Control (MMC) to synchronize multiple DAWs together.

SMPTE timecode was create for the purpose of synchronizing audio systems together, such as tape machines, computers, and other time sensitive audio devices.  MIDI timecode is an extension of SMPTE timecode into the MIDI format and is very useful for synchronizing MIDI enabled devices, such as DAWs, together.  Some possibilities for these sorts of arrangements include using one DAW’s transport to control other machines, using transport controls on your keyboard or controller to control the transport in your DAW, syncing sequencers/samplers to your DAW, and tempo-synching filters in synthesizer systems.
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This post focuses on describing MIDI - what it is and what it does.

Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) was created in 1983 to address the need for controlling instruments electronically.  As synthesizers grew more and more common, it became more and more difficult to control them all.  MIDI was created to allow musicians to control many devices from one ‘controller’ keyboard.  It was also created with a number of relatively robust features to aid in the creation of digital music.

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This post focuses on the process of recording your MIDI sequenced tracks to audio tracks.

Bouncing is the process of recording one or more tracks of audio to one or more other tracks of audio. I think the term comes from the days when tape channels were limited and multiple tracks of audio had to be condensed to a mono track or stereo pair. Why is it called ‘bouncing’, specifically? Because ‘rerecording’ is boring and ‘flootzing’ made the engineer crack up, reducing the efficiency of the session.

These days we have all the audio tracks we could ever need in our computers. But bouncing is still quite useful for many reasons. One of the best reasons is the preservation of sequenced instruments such as synths or samplers, especially virtual instruments. The fact of the matter is that MIDI is completely dependent on the MIDI instrument to produce the sound. If your precious vintage synth were to kick the bucket or if you loose the dongle for your favorite virtual instrument, you won’t be able to play back the track. Bouncing to audio has two advantages: a) if the instrument is a virtual instrument, you’ll save the CPU usage imposed by real-time playback b) should something ever happen to your instrument, you can still work with the audio track.
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The focus of this post is on capturing SysEx information from external MIDI devices in order to have a record of your presets right in your session or automate the settings throughout the track.

It happens to producers time and time again: you’ve created an awesome synth sound or guitar tone, you’ve recorded the midi part, but when you load up the session to work on it some more your sounds are completely different! Oh no! You didn’t save the preset…

Don’t let this happen to you! There are a ton of cool things you can do with a special feature of MIDI called SysEx. Essentially, SysEx is a way for a MIDI device’s system settings to be transfered over MIDI. This means that you can save the settings to the patches on a synth, guitar tones on a MIDI capable modeler, or automation/device states on a capable digital mixer.

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