i need help to make midi......... i have music that i''ve made on a guitar in wave format, and i wanted to know how the bloody hell do i change it to midi? (please try to refrain yerselves from using the midi dictionary the only word i know from the is "midi", and i dont even know what it stands for!

Unless you have a really amazing peace of software you can''t convert wav->midi. There are two ways to make a midi file. Both require that you get midi creation software (go on google, I''m sure there are lots of free/trials available). Then you either enter notes on the screen (like composing music), or you use the midi port (game port) on your soundcard to connect a musical keyboard/instrument, which will let the computer record what notes you play.

MIDI stands for Music Instrument Digital Interface

Bad news first, you won''t be able to convert a wave file to midi.

Why? Because of the difference between wave and midi data:

wave:
these files contain descriptions of sound waves.

whereas midi:
files contain commands to control synthesizers (sort of), for example "play note c4 on channel 1 (which might be assigned to grand piano e.g.) at velocity (volume) 120 (not dB) for the duration of a quarter note"

If you want to make midi files you will have to get some sequencer software (e.g. Cakewalk Sonar, Cubase or XGworks) which will allow you to enter scores via a masterkeyboard or using the mouse (though the latter is quite time consuming).

Just keep in mind: midi files don''t contain audio data but information for a synthesizer how to create audio data which can than be listened to. That''s why midifiles are so small compared to audio data.

Hope that gives you an idea... anyway feel free to search the web (e.g. using google) for more information on midi.

MfG

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"To a computer, chaos is just another kind of order."

thanks guys.........ok so then i can hook up any piano to my sound card and record on cakewalk audio pro (i have that one)

can i hook up a guitar?

I have never heard of a guitar-like input device (an acoustic or electric guitar won''t work), though you don''t need a keyboard (an acoustic piano won''t work either ), there are midi input devices in the shape of a saxophone for example.

You can always use the mouse but it is quite difficult, though possible, to create realistic guitar sound via midi (Yamaha XGworks for example offers a special guitar tab editor that uses six midi chanels [one for each string] to allow you to create good guitar sound easily).

Anyway if you have already recorded yourself playing the guitar you could always convert your audiofiles to a compressed format (like mp3). You can even use midi tracks as accompainment for your audio recordings; check your cakewalk docs to see how.

MfG

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"To a computer, chaos is just another kind of order."

can i hook up a guitar?

YES, YOU CAN!
I picked up the POD V2.0 direct box guitar processor from Line 6. (about $300, cheap for what it''s worth). It sounds phenomenal and has MIDI in/out. I use it all the time to record with in Cakewalk for recording/sequencing. I''m pretty sure there''s nothing else in the world that works as awesome as this thing does. I highly recommend it. I can''t work without it, it''s really that valuable to me. It works completely direct line so you can play through speakers or headphones which is also pretty cool if you can''t be externally noisy.



David R. Clark
www.megalithmusic.com