Plugin To Convert Audio To Midi Options

[Johnny Valium]

Hi,

so we are almost done recording our first album. However i'm not content anymore with the way the drums sound, especially the snare and bass drum. Too muffled and rehearsal room like. Is there a cheap and effective way to convert the audio to midi notes so i can trigger a sampler?

Greets
Johnny

[Teiwaz]

Hi Mr. Valium...

If you have a printer, copy & paste this post and print it out on a sheet of A4.

If you're using Logic, the best way to replace your live kick & snare track with samples is to:

1) Create a new midi track in the arrange window, ready to send midi to the midi/soft sampler/drum module of your choice.

2) Open the kick object in Logic's sample editor (make sure the kick file is a contingous file first from start to end of the song - this applies to any audio file that you're about to perform this function on, and make sure the file begins exactly from bar 1 (or where the song begins.)

3) In factory, select "audio to midi groove template" and then play around with the granulation, attack, smooth and velocity parameters until you can see only markers directly below all the attack points on the kick's waveforms in the audio file exactly where you want the midi notes in your soon to be created midi track. The main parameters to play with generally for best results are the granulation and velocity parameters. I tend not to mess with the attack and smooth parameters that much.

4) When you're satisfied all of the markers are correct below the kick's waveforms (excluding background noise from other elements on the kick track audio, such as "kit bleed" in the background - very important) hit the "use" button and watch your new midi track appear on the blank track that you allocated for it in the main arrange window. You will now have to make sure that the midi notes on the new track match the midi note in your sampler/drum module where your preferred kick sample resides.



For quantizing re-cycled loops to an existing live drum track without changing/editing the original drummer's performance...this is a cool one, people...)

1) Create an audiofile of both the kick & snare track together in mono. Make sure the file begins exactly from bar 1 (or where the song begins.) The file must be contingous from start to end of the song. The easiest way is to select both of the respective track's objects and then use the glue tool to perform a "digital mixdown." (If you wish to include the hihat pattern in the groove template, then mix this into the kick and snare audiofile too...but beware, things can get messy if you're not totally focused on what you're doing with drums.)

2) Open this combined kick & snare track in the sample editor, and in factory, select "audio to midi groove template" and then play around with the granulation, attack, smooth and velocity parameters until you can see only markers directly below all the attack points in the kick and snare waveforms exactly where you want the midi notes in the groove template that you are about to create. Again, generally you will find that the granulation and velocity parameters are all you will really need to play with.

3) When you're satisfied all of the markers are correct below the kick and snare's waveforms (excluding background noise from other elements from the kick and snare's audio, such as "kit bleed" in the background - very important) hit the "use" button and watch your new midi track appear on the blank track that you allocated for it in the main arrange window. Delete this track, you don't need it for this purpose.

Now select your recycled loop's object in the main arrange window, make sure the midi object is looped, go to "functions>sequence parameter>turn loops to real copies" and select (I have this function on the mac keyboard's return key.) Now select this track in the column and glue the looped objects together. Apply the new quantize value (from the bottom of the quantize list in the parameter box.) It should have the name you gave the original audio object that you made the groove template from - the kick and snare file's object's name.

I find that when working with a professional drummer, it is generally a shame to have to "chop his performance up into little bits and loop", just to get a tight (and sterile) performance with your loops, unless you're doing club type beats with an organic sound.

PT users may like using 'Beat Detective", but unfortunately, this too irons out a great drummer's natural feel and "homogenizes" his performance to a quantize value. It's great for drummers who are not so tight though(!). Anyhow, there is an equivalent to "Beat Detective" in Logic called "Quantize Engine", but there is no function built into PT itself that can make recycled loops follow a live drummer that I'm aware of...

Logic's way of creating quantize templates to lock your loops to a live performance is rarely understood and even more rarely implemented. It is a fantastic feature that is fiddly at first, but hopefully this post will help those that are interested go that extra mile in their rhythm production.

You don't need a plug-in though there are a couple available, just good programming skills, and of course, Logic! (I ought to be charging for this, but who cares?!...enjoy!!)