I haven't got the skill to transcribe them "well" (which is why most of my midis are just basic rock and metal riffs), but knowing my major from my minor and my lydian mode from my dorian mode has absolutely provided me with a way stronger basis for potential songwriting, so I agree very, very strongly with your last paragraph there. Well, I just want to throw in that my knowledge of music theory, while not "incredibly robust", was 100% the fundamental pillar to me being able to come up with way more complex riffs while playing guitar.
But at the basic level, definitely learn which notes are in which scales, the differences between major and minor scales, the differences among natural, harmonic, and melodic minor scales, and how to construct diatonic chords from scales. I like the Open Music Theory online textbook as a free resource for amateurs. If the theory you're reading doesn't match what your ear tells you about the music you hear, then you've found an opportunity to dig deeper and formulate your own idea of what makes a piece of music work, or else an opportunity to learn about a different genre's approach to music theory. Treat it as a description, not a prescription. The music theory that applies to Western court/church music of the 17th and 18th centuries, which is what a lot of music-theory textbooks focus on because of its beautiful clarity and complexity, as well as its longstanding prestige, often only bears a glancing relationship to Shawn's Got the Shotgun, video game music, or pop music more generally. Rigid adherence to theoretical doctrine can result in dull music obviously made by formula. I would only add to this, if you're learning music from a very basic level, that you should learn music theory, but you shouldn't treat it as a strict set of rules by which music elevates itself. I'd start with Bobby Prince's tried and true 12-bar blues progression first to get immediate Doom-sounding results.
Learning common chord progressions is also very helpful. If you can hum a few notes, put them into your editor, and say "this is in the key of E flat minor", then it'll make the transcribing process a whole lot easier. Learning the keys is a very overlooked thing. You can put in "music theory cheatsheet" and find some pretty useful information right out the gate. For example, the GM value for volume is 7.Īn imperfect, but potentially useful way to find info about using GM parameters in your DAW is to search "general midi", making sure the term general midi is in quotes because searching midi on its own will absolutely not be useful for GM, as it will usually yield info about connecting a MIDI keyboard to your DAW, or VSTi related madness.ĭefinitely look into music theory if you haven't already. Other things like pitch bend, modulation, expression and MSB/LSB/bank messages are nice to have, and if they aren't in a descriptive list (Pro Tools, I'm looking at you) the numeric values can usually be found online or by using another program like Sekaiju. There are a few bare minimum parameters that should be present: Program change, what channel the notes in each clip are using (Drums will only play properly through channel 10), volume and pan (even if they're static). Usually you can do this by finding the MIDI region's automation section (Not track automation, region/clip automation), and add an automation point to the beginning of the region/clip. mid will ignore anything you've set up on your tracks and only playback the info stored in the midi regions.ĭAWs like Logic, Cubase, Reaper, Cakewalk and FL Studio allow you to manually add GM parameters (some are more limited than others), and each one has a different way to actually put the data you want into each clip. No matter what you do to the faders, pan pots or plugins, exporting as. Modern DAWs require you to program everything in manually onto the MIDI region/clip itself. Īh yes, the joys of making Doom MIDI in a modern DAW. Can't say I am very clear on the process of how to avoid th at, bu t at l ea st I g ot a s tart in g po int now. That's exactly the problem I've bee n having - ma de a bitchin' am bient piece yesterday and in Doom it sounded like a racoon having a stroke on a Steinway.
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