new member

[barnburner]

Hello to all the forum members,
I'm brand new to the forum myself. I'm also brand new to using midi files. I thought that the forum might be a good way to get some advise along the way. I'm excited about the possibility of using midi files on stage. I'm 44 years old. I'm a school librarian. I keep a five peice country and rock band working here in southern Colorado. I live here in Pueblo, CO. . I play guitar, accordian, and am trying to teach myself some keyboard skills. I'm at least implimenting the keyboard into the act now. I'm having some fun with it. I have an extremely talented music partner. He covers a wide array of musical styles but over the years he's become excellent at playing and covering songs written by the great Jim Croce. He's also a huge George Harrison fan. Lately I've been working on some cool Burt Bacharach peices and can't quit listening to an Elvis Costello recording I picked up lately.
It's true that I've already run into difficulties with my first attempts to download midi files onto my new keyboard. I won't go into that quite yet. We'll save it for another time.
I'll just finish my intro by bragging about our new President elect, Barack Obama. We're excited to bring around a new attitude in the White House, an attitude that listens more closely to the thoughts and concerns of our neighbors. It's a new day. Let the healing begin!

[geraint]

Hi Barnburner and welcome to the forum.
I'm sure you will find all the help you need on here to have a better understanding of Midi, I know that I did.
Its a great place with lots of great members always willing to assist.

[Tubbs]

Hi barnburner and welcome, you will find lots of advice and tips here...good to have you on-board!!

[Steptoe]

Hey Barnburner

Welcome aboard!

[JohnG]

Hi Barnburner,

Welcome aboard. If you're completely new to MIDI you could try reading some of my explanations. They are numbered in what might be a suitable order. If there are things you don't understand fire away and we'll (others too) try to help you along the way.

Above all, enjoy!
JohnG.

[simmo123]

Hi barnburner,a very big welcome from me also, i just know that you will get plenty of valuable help & advice from the MM mob as i have since joining around a year ago,just ask & someone will put there hand up including a novice like myself,Simmo from down-under

[barnburner]

Hello forum members,
Thanks for your kind words and support. I really appreciate it. Perhaps they'll come a day when I might be of help to you. I'll work towards it.
JohnG, I'd love to look over some of your midi descriptions. I suspect they'll help me with the jargon and more. Where would I find these descriptions? Am I just overlooking them? I would'nt be surprised if I was. My navigation skills are weak but I'm learning all the time.
Good day to you all. I'm panning on posting and describing my current midi difficulties tommorrow. I'd appreciate your opinions.

[jacqui01]

Hello
A warm welcome from me.
If you are looking for information on midis & music
you've found just about the best forum going.
Have fun
Jacqui

[JohnG]

Hi BarnBurner (luv the monicker BTW),

If you're looking at the main forum page, then you'll find the forum is divided up into sections. You have the following "general" with just one section, "news, news, news" with two sections (keep scrolling down), then "Member's place" with several sections, "free talking" ditto, then "technical" with four sections. The fourth is my contribution. Click on the title and you'll find many threads. You'll find several lessons, all numbered, as well as answers to questions.

HTH, JohnG.

[cptkay0s]

And another cooeee from downunder Barnburner Welcome to the forum

regards

Warren

[Tiny]

Hi BarnBurner
A big welcome from me Too!! all the best..... rgd,s Tiny

[Emerald Midi]

Welcome to the good ship MM ;d

Hope you fine the forum useful and that you stick around and become a regular and frequent visitor.

[shyamwestwind]

W E L C O M E BarnBurner. Looking forward to your views and news and ofcourse, your music. Do fill us in on your experiences and if possible let us hear you.
Cheers buddy and a warm welcome to the family.

[barnburner]

Thanks again forum members,
Your kind words mean very much to me. A special thanks to JohnG for helping me with my navigation. I quickly found the technical section and so I'll now read them further and will ponder your descriptions to see if I "can get my head around" the concept of a wave file. It's making sense really. Your descriptions are effective. Thank you. I'm off and running. I may run some questions past you soon. Good day to you all.

[JazzCat]

Oops, I think ya mean a MIDI file. <smile>

[jford]

Welcome, Barnburner...lots of good stuff here to keep you busy for a long time. Just keep at it and you'll be a MIDI expert in no time.

[barnburner]

I'm feeling a bit apprehensive describing such simplistic problems at this point but these are problems that I have not yet overcome. I am attempting to download midi files from the main site and as I do all I end up with is the zip file wich just appears to be text. Shouldn't these midi files end with .midi that I'm downloading? I've been unsuccessful with loading midi files into my keyboard. I've tried everything that I can think of to get it to work. I purchased a Casio PX575R digital piano 4 months ago excited that it has midi capabilities. I cannot get the instrument to communicate with my new computer with Vista OS. Today I loaded their driver onto a computer with Windows XP OS. I still had no luck. This is even after having Casio support on the phone about 20 times over several weeks. So, I tried to circumvent the "communication" problem between the instrument and the computer by just dropping a midi file onto a DS memory card. As I mentioned earlier, all I seem to be able to download off of the sight is the text files. Does anyone have any advice for a pathetic beginner? I must be loading more than text files because I can get the midi files to play on my computer media player. But as I attempt to download any of the files onto the soundcard I don't seem to get the audio. Does anyone have any advice? Let me know if I'm posting in the wrong spot.
Hi Jazzcat,
I did mean wave file as I have never heard of such a thing but I'm glad your paying attention. Thanks.

[JazzCat]

No problem is simplistic when it's happening to you! <smile>

I'll repost my reply to your other message here as well and add some more info at the bottom
====================================

Most, if not all the files, at least on the main site, are zipped. You have to have a program to unzip them. THEN put the files on the card. The file name must end in .mid not .zip .
Why Notepad is trying to open them makes no sense to me.

There are free unzipping programs available here:

www.thefreesite.com/Free_Software/Unzipping_compression_freeware/

Once you have the files extracted from the zip file, they should load onto the card and play on the Casio. If they don't, then I cant help you.... Not without being there with your computer and your Casio and it's manual at my fingertips.


I looked up this keyboard on the internet. It does not appear to have the ability to connect to the computer for MIDI use. Below taken from a product description:

-----
All units are equipped with Internet Data Expansion Systems allowing users to customize preset tunes by downloading them from www.casiosongs.com or other musical downloading sites. For this purpose, users can also look for a USB terminal and direct PC connection through USB cable, and an SD card slot.
--------

I see in user reviews that people have returned it because there are no MIDI jacks and no 1/4 phono jack outputs. Personally, I would have never purchased this board because of that. Without these features you can't connect to PA system, nor use the keyboard to input live-played MIDI data to a software sequencing program.

=========================

On wave files- OK I understand. The main thing to understand is a wave file is audio, a MIDI file is not. MIDI files are simply digital instructions to tell a sound module what sound to find and play, how long to play it, how loud to play it, etc, etc.

You can compare an old player piano to the sound module and the paper roll to the digital instructions. The paper roll is the MIDI file. Without a piano the paper roll produces no sound, right? Now if you put the paper roll into the piano, and start it up, the piano plays.
If you put a cassette recorder in front of the piano and record the sound, that recording would be audio and equivalent to a wave file.
Other audio formats include aiff, MP3 and wma (windows media audio). ( there are a lot more but these are probably the most common)