rdmusiccreation Hi Damir - Thanks for sharing your lessons learnt and perspective . I guess I will just try and move to audio . Do you recommend I just render my midi songs to audio and just master it . I currently use e-mastered - as its simple to just upload an audio track and spits out a mastered output in Mp3 or wav - I am not very good at mixing- mastering in cubase . . Does that sound appropriate from an approach perspective - Any specific approach that you used when making the transition ? I can then use the old midis from keeping past consistency and transition to karaoke version for new song additions. Appreciate any inputs you may have here
There are many ways to do this, i used this opportunity to really make all my midi files to suit my PA system for a more perfect sound.
I actually used my sound system as my mastering of my final sound mixes, because the backing tracks were going to be used by the system so why not perfect the mix.
A lot of people use studio monitors , then the actual files get played on another PA system which might be totally different characteristics , this is a great advantage you have now.
Once you create a number of backing tracks to suit your PA, you can use other speakers now and playing these mixed songs on the studio monitors , once your ears get use to what those songs sound like you can then use those speaker monitors to do all other songs, this will make sure the end results will always sound good on your PA, with minimal tonal changes required.
This is one trick to consider for a good end result.
I normally used a daw to load in my midi file Cubase or Logic pro is very much the same i use to use Cubase but now i do everything in logic, if you like your keyboard sounds, and only want to use them , then its as easy as plug your audio out from keyboard to the DAW , you will need to do your mix on the keyboard in midi world .
But if you want more options then load in the midi file to the DAW and choose which midi channels will control the external keyboard and which will control the DAWs sound modules, sometimes you can get really good sound modules in the DAW , i use Easy drummer 3 and Easy Bass by Toontracks which give me very high quality sounds, but i also mix it in with my external Tyros sounds to give me a great result, thats the beauty of redoing your midi songs you can really make themsound much better. Once you have got everything how you like just do a bounce down to a complete file , i normally go direct to highest possible quality M4a as its ST3 preferred and saves space.
Keep your dynamic range as large as possible as this will sound more like a live band , using to much compression/ Limiting sounds less realistic to the audience.
I do use a mastering tool in logic which seems to work well , i then play this file through the PA and compare it to my other reference file that i created first , i always use the same reference song to check My new songs and i use the same speakers , this way all my backing tracks will need hardly any tweaking, if i am not happy with a file i go back to the DAW and correct the mix and repeat the final steps till I'm happy to move on to my next song, after a while you will get a routine going which will be much faster, you will find your backing tracks will sound much better and you will have a much easier time on stage with lots of power to manipulate the audience by using loops , Mix feature, permanent loops etc , with foot pedals , most songs will not need to be pitch shifted as this would be done in your editing process.
You need to think way ahead of what you need to do to create a great backing track so you don't have to stuff around later possibly on stage , this takes time to perfect and develop, but if you have been fiddling with midi you obviously have the capability to edit audio , in some ways its simpler and easier than midi .
So good luck, if you have any specific questions just let us know and i am sure we have plenty of people with great valuable knowledge here to help.