Converting midi to wav
 

ok. I wanted to write my own music so I could use it in Maya. The only way possible I see to do this is do write it in midi. As some of you might know, Maya only accepts aiff or wav files when you're trying to stick audio files in. So, my search for a way to convert midi to wav began. I have tried WAVmakerIII, but you have to shove out about 40 bucks just to get the good version that contains the wav files needed for conversion of nearly all midi instruments abaliable. I was given advice by the midi gurus at vgmusic.com to use Windows Recorder to record the sound as it played in Windows Media Player, but I can only get static out of the recording annd it only records for 60 seconds anyway, which is not long enough.

I have been trying to figure out a way to get this to work nearly all day and I am about to take a baseball bat to my computer. Why can't converting audio files just be easy?

Anyway, if any of you have any advice on how to do this I would really like to hear it. There isn't a plug-in that enables you to play midis in Maya is there?

On a final note, I may just end up buying a complete music-creating-do-it-all-machine that has every sound known to man that can save anything you create in any format. Do any of you happen to know of a good system to purchase that can do all that?

You can convert audio formats using QuickTime Pro ($30 if you don't already have it). Just open up the MIDI file in QuickTime Player and export it as an AIF or WAV.

You could use some free/shareware wave editor instead of the windows recorder. You just set it recording and play the midi with media player or whatever you normally use to play them.

You also need to set the windows mixer to take input signal from midi instead of microphone. This is propably the reason you were getting only static. You can access the mixer settings by double clicking on the little speaker tray icon near the windows clock. From the mixer window that opens up you need to choose Options->Properties-->Recording. Then you can choose the channel which is used as rec input.

(Not so good explanation but I hope you can make sense of it :) Btw, I'm using Win2000 so your system may be different...)

Do a search for CoolEdit 2000. It's a good shareware wave editor. The save feature only functions for 30 days then you need to register it.

The midi songs will sound a lot better if you have a soundcard which is capable of playing SoundFonts (like SBLive!). The default soundfont which comes with windows isn't the greatest. I for example purchased a better one called Utopia Live. It is cheap but the quality is very good. You can find it here: http://www.utopialive.com/

Hope you can get it working...

For making music, I use FruityLoops. I made my own techno song with voiceing, drums, bass, and Synthensiser. http://www.fruityloops.com/

Try Awave Studio. its a very handy tool made to convert any format to another.

I might be mistaken, but can't winamp convert Midi's to wav's?

Hey thanks for all the help guys. I'm finally getting somewhere with this problem of mine. I downloaded Fruityloops and all I have to say is that it is one awsome program. Very high-techy. You can use a variety of sounds, have a bunch of channels, and it exports as wav, which is exactly what I have been needing.

I was hoping that I could easily rewrite my midi in Fruityloops, but I ran into a problem. My midi has dotted 16th notes (basically three 32nd notes together) and the shortest note Fruityloops can create is a 16th. So, I'll have to increase the duration of each and every note in the entire song by a percentage, then change the tempo in order to rewrite it. Another problem I see is that there aren't many standard instruments. Where's the french horn, piano, and flute?

I'm sure you can do this, so it's probably just a matter of figuring it out, but I can't seem to set the duration of a note. I was using some kind of saw wave instrument. Every time I inserted a note, it would play for several beats. I tried shortening the green bar in the piano roll, but that had no effect on it. Also, I noticed that with some vocal stuff that if you played the vocal at a low note, it would go into slow motion, while if you played it at a high note, it would speed up. Can't you change the pitch without changing its duration?

If I can figure out these problems, I'll deffinently be buying this program. I'll probably download Awave Studio too just so I can have a good converting program.

I know most of you don't have Fruityloops, so this post is mostly directed toward HAL 9000 I suppose. Thanks! (oh and I posted here because the Fruityloops forums are down)

I haven't used the program in a while but I suggest you go through the tutorials. For your standard instrument question, have you looked on the left? theres hundreds of instruments. And if you still can't find it, i think you can download more.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help. I'll ask my friend when he comes online. He's a pro at fruityloops