Although you can tweak the arrangement as the result of style-based sequencer so much, it won�t sound as professional as a real musicians laying down MIDI tracks using high end Sequencer like Sonar or Cubase/Nuendo. Building a MIDI arrangement from scratch can help a person develop their real musical talent since they need to see the entire part and know how to ensure multiple coinciding registers of various instruments won�t be overlapping badly. For experienced arranger, the process can be a lot faster than creating an arrangement using style-based sequencer.
What do you need to know to be able to make this kind of arrangement?
You need to be an accomplished musician!!! (just kidding, it�s only if you need to build a professional one). At least you need to be able to operate a MIDI keyboard controller. You also need to know basic drum and bass style. Being able to play a piano or keyboard instrument is an advantage. There are a lot of keyboard controller in the market, M-Audio and Edirol are good brand. A good simple book for beginner that I recommend is �Arranging in the Digital Word� or for intermediate arranger the book �Arranging Techniques for Synthesis� is an excellent choices for MIDI arranger.
Can I play live with all my band fellows and record all instruments simultaneously?
Of course you can!!! Provided you have many various type of MIDI controller such as wind controller, drum MIDI trigger, MIDI guitar, etc. We�ll discuss more on live recording in Digital Recording (Part 2 of this article).
Before you ask another questions, let me guide you through the basic steps of creating MIDI arrangement from scratch:
1. Make sure you have a software sequencer (Sonar, Cubase, etc). A legally installed software is preferred! :-)
2. Set the metronome of the sequencer to the tempo that suits your song. Set the count in measure to get yourself ready before the song actually starts.
3. What can you play? Guitar? Piano? Drum? Fine, play the entire song using the instrument you are most familiar with and record it as guide track. Always remember to use the metronome to keep up with the tempo.
4. Once the guide track is recorded, work on the rhythm part (Drum and Bass) using MIDI controller and record it. There are many MIDI files on the internet. Study them so you know how the bass and drum part are played for various musical styles and see if you can use any of them for your song. Be careful when you put drum fill on the transition of the verses in the song. It can sound so fake if you don�t do it properly using MIDI keyboard controller. It is better to use drum pad for this purpose if you have one. For bass, make sure it is tightened to the bass drum, use MIDI quantization as necessary. For rhythm part you can actually copy the repetitive part and paste it to create a loop. But if you are confident with your skills, record it from beginning to the end will give more human �feel�.
5. If you�re happy with the rhythm part, add other MIDI instrument such as brass, strings, piano as you like it. Be patient not to record your guitar part yet as we are creating the backing track at this moment. Knowing the register of each instrument can help you put the music phrases at the right spot in the song so it will blend beautifully instead of creating a mess. For example the cello and saxophone have registers which overlap, having the music phrases for both at the same time might create messy sounds. Using arpeggio instead of full chord will provide more variety to your music and minimize the �wall of sound� effect.
6. Less is more. Only add essential instrument instead of creating wall of sounds. Remember to leave some space for your guitar part later on. There�s a good book which explain the mixing technique that takes into account the 3 dimensional of the overall mix. I forgot the name of the book, or you can read any book about mixing. I should talk more about mixing in part two but building musical arrangement needs to also consider how the entire instruments will be mixed. Some instruments actually have a broad spectrum in the overall mix and can make the other instruments unheard, for example distorted guitar or saxophone.
7. Once the arrangement is finished, add different intensity of reverb effect to different instrument to create space feel of the backing tracks.
8. Again, if you don�t have any clue of what I�m talking about, call me or send me an email! :-)
I think it�s time for me to stop writing for this part 1 and leave the office as it�s getting late and I need to go home. I hope this writing provide some guidance for composer to-be or at least give some insights for those who are not familiar with MIDI arrangement.
Here is some links that contains useful MIDI materials:
http://www.iaekm.org/p3.html
http://x.i-dat.org/~csem/UNESCO/3/
Until later, keep on rocking!
Deden