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Ask K5: MIDI Recorder for Mac OS X?

By MichaelCrawford in MichaelCrawford's Diary
Sat Apr 14, 2007 at 04:59:19 PM EST
Tags: MIDI, Music, Mac OS X (all tags)

I'm looking for what I think should be a very simple program: I want to record the MIDI output of my keyboard into standard-format MIDI files on my Mac.

All the software I can find that seems capable of doing this is expensive. It's such a simple task, I would think there would be dozens of choices. But in searching Google and Apple's mailing lists, all I find are others asking the same question.

Note that I'm not looking for a MIDI sequencer. I've found lots of those. I want a MIDI recorder. What I'm astonished by is that I've found a number of sequencers that don't offer recording - instead you have to input your notes using the software user interface - QWERTY keyboard and mouse. They don't support MIDI keyboards.

Inside Why I want a MIDI recorder.

I prefer to compose music by improvising. But when I come up with something good, I have to play it over and over again to memorize it, and only then can write down the score.
What I'd like to do is freely improvising, knowing that the frequency and timing of all of my notes is being recorded in a format that would make it easy to transcribe to sheet music.
Once I have a MIDI file, I can clip bits out and feed them into midi2ly, a program that comes with the Lilypond music notation program, to convert it into Lilypond source format.
Thanks for your help.

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Ask K5: MIDI Recorder for Mac OS X? | 31 comments (31 topical, editorial, 2 hidden)

I have a suggestion (none / 0) (#1)
by horny smurf on Sat Apr 14, 2007 at 05:13:24 PM EST

unfortunately, it involves writing the software yourself.

I just might do that, but... by MichaelCrawford, 04/14/2007 05:16:35 PM EST (none / 0)

You have many choices... (none / 1) (#3)
by TheGaffer on Sat Apr 14, 2007 at 05:48:24 PM EST

Practically all sequencers offer the ability to record midi input. They will likely also offer the ability to edit or input notes via pianoroll or QWERTY, which is very handy - you can touch up minor cockups very quickly and easily.

If you need an Intel binary then it's going to be a bit tricky. If you're running a PowerPC machine then stop reading this, go on eBay and buy a copy of an old version of Cubase, Logic or Digital Performer. It'll do everything you need of it and far more in a simple and reliable manner. You should be able to buy an old or cut-down version of one of the above for less than $20.

Otherwise, go trawl the freeware sites, but you're not likely to find much - people just aren't porting stuff over to the Intel platform as virtually everyone doing music with computers uses one of the major sequencers, either pirated or legit. Not that I'm recommending it, but there are ISOs all over the torrent trackers for good sequencers.
Poker for Linux, Mac & Windows

Yeah, it's Intel by MichaelCrawford, 04/14/2007 06:23:59 PM EST (none / 0)

Sagan Metro was recommended to me once (none / 0) (#5)
by MichaelCrawford on Sat Apr 14, 2007 at 06:44:32 PM EST

Sagan Metro

Metro 6 SE is just $69.99.

Tom Lee Music in Vancouver has Cubase Se for CAD $149.99. However, it does a bunch of stuff I don't presently need; when I get to recording my new album I'll probably get Cubase 4.

I'll give the Metro demo a try.

Looking for some free songs?

Would You Recommend Cubase SE over Metro SE? (none / 0) (#6)
by MichaelCrawford on Sat Apr 14, 2007 at 07:24:18 PM EST

I downloaded the Sagan Metro SE demo, and it looks like it would do fine as a MIDI recorder, and it's just $69, but I have to pay by credit card, and my card is racked.

Tom Lee Music in Vancouver has Cubase SE for $149. The main advantage is that I could buy it tonight, and wouldn't have to wait for a payment to arrive at my credit card company.

I could use it to record my album when the time comes, but it only goes up to 96 KHz audio, and the M-Audio FireWire interface I was going to use to digitize my audio can do 192 KHz. So to take full advantage of that, I'd have to upgrade my Cubase - could I get credit for having paid for Cubase SE?

Looking for some free songs?

Cubase for sure... by D Jade, 04/14/2007 07:26:56 PM EST (none / 0)

But this is the SE version, not Cubase 4 by MichaelCrawford, 04/14/2007 07:37:05 PM EST (none / 0)

Definitely by D Jade, 04/15/2007 07:31:32 AM EST (none / 0)

Cubase SE3 is PowerPC only! by MichaelCrawford, 04/15/2007 07:48:10 AM EST (none / 0)

Have you looked at Ableton Live? by D Jade, 04/15/2007 08:53:19 PM EST (none / 1)

Does this help? (none / 0) (#9)
by claes on Sat Apr 14, 2007 at 08:15:26 PM EST

Java Sound API

The demo has a midi piano, and I'm pretty sure it's supposed to do capture.

I just gained a new respect for Tom Lee Music (none / 0) (#10)
by MichaelCrawford on Sat Apr 14, 2007 at 09:23:30 PM EST

I've always felt a little guilty, buying from Vancouver's largest music store, as if I were buying Microsoft software - there aren't a whole lot of other music stores around, and most of them are very small.

I was prepared to pay for Cubase SE, but they didn't have the current version, and the one they had in stock was PowerPC only.

I told the salesman that I just wanted something to record MIDI files as input to Lilypond. I said I'd be buying something much higher-end in the Fall, but right now I was on a budget.

Two of the salesmen discussed this with each other. They didn't think they had anything suitable that would be inexpensive - you can pay as much as you want for audio software, it seems.

So one of them brought up www.dontcrack.com on his computer, clicked on the freeware section, then the sequencer section. There are several available for the Mac, even as Universal Binaries (PowerPC and i386 packaged in the same executable file).

I'll report back on what I find - I'm in a wireless cafe downtown now, I'm going to download all the ones that look suitable.

Looking for some free songs?

I guess you get what you pay for... by MichaelCrawford, 04/14/2007 10:12:45 PM EST (none / 0)

Why The Rush? by Why havent I klercked myself, 04/14/2007 10:39:21 PM EST (none / 0)

uh by horny smurf, 04/15/2007 12:12:28 AM EST (none / 0)
It's an investment in a career change by MichaelCrawford, 04/15/2007 12:36:03 AM EST (none / 0)

This incompatability bullshit by drwav, 04/14/2007 10:56:35 PM EST (none / 0)

I wrote something that does this once (none / 0) (#12)
by Delirium on Sat Apr 14, 2007 at 10:31:38 PM EST

I couldn't find anything that did it well and in a way I could interface with, so I wrote something that does it (and does it cross-platform, at that). I used PortMIDI as a cross-platform library for interfacing with the MIDI device, and this guy's standard-MIDI-file library. I still have the code if you want it, which is basically some fairly light C++ wrapper code to instantiate those two libraries and pipe them together, though I haven't touched it in 4 years and cleanliness or usability isn't guaranteed.

Sure, I'd love that by MichaelCrawford, 04/15/2007 12:33:54 AM EST (none / 0)

it would be nice (none / 0) (#16)
by trane on Sat Apr 14, 2007 at 11:45:02 PM EST

if you could give me some software that would let me record from my casio keyboard, so i could provide something to back up my claim that I have a pretty good idea how swing works.

answer a couple questions, maybe I can help by MichaelCrawford, 04/15/2007 12:30:55 AM EST (none / 1)

Thanks by trane, 04/16/2007 04:48:47 PM EST (none / 0)

Luna Free does the job, but... (none / 0) (#22)
by MichaelCrawford on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 12:52:41 AM EST

... it took me a while to figure out how. The UI is kinda cryptic, and it's definitely not Mac-native. For example, when you save a file, it presents a homebrew UI that's kinda like the windows tree control, its menu bar is in its Window and not at the top of the screen, and it quits when you close its window.

But once I figured out how to work it, it works pretty well. I may still buy Sagan Metro SE - it's just $69 - but this gets me recording right away.

I was dismayed to find that my M-Audio ProKeys 88sx keyboard didn't have a MIDI In jack, so I thought I wouldn't be able to use its synth for playback. The MIDI Synth that comes built into QuickTime on Macs sounds pretty cheesy.

But a nice feature of the 88sx is that it has a USB jack for MIDI, and it's bidirectional. I had thought it was output-only. I had to set the "target" in Luna Free to be the MIDI port, and then it just worked. I was quite stoked to get it all working.

Luna Free is from MUTOOLS and runs on Mac OS X and Windows. The OS X version is a Universal Binary.

It's "Free as in Beer" not Free Software or Open Source. With Delirium's kind offer below, I could write one that was Free as in Freedom.

Looking for some free songs?

offtopic but checkout jfugue (none / 1) (#23)
by newb4b0 on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 01:54:34 AM EST

which is a java music lib. You can basically represent sheet music as a pattern String an play it

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Doesn't GarageBand do this? (none / 0) (#24)
by LittleZephyr on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 07:26:31 AM EST

I swear I saw my friend playing his midi keyboard, and the notes appearing on the sequencer in the software.
(\♥/) What if instead of posting that comment, (0.-) you had actually taken a knife and stabbed ("_") me in the eye? You murderer. ~ Rusty

Ah, but Garage Band is the 'MIDI Motel' by MichaelCrawford, 04/15/2007 07:41:10 AM EST (none / 0)

Rosegarden (none / 0) (#31)
by HackerCracker on Sat May 12, 2007 at 11:14:54 PM EST

It's cross-platform and built on the QT framework, so it should work on your Mac whether it's Intel or not. Yes, it's a sequencer, but it also records live MIDI (get the fuck over it already--any decent sequencer is going to let you record live MIDI. If they don't they're nothing more than toys). If you can get JACK working on your Mac then you get audio sequencing thrown in for free.

Oh yeah, a big FUCK YOU to Steinberg and their shit sequencer. I've thrown WAY to much money at them over the years and got nothing but problems. Fuck them and their dongles and their Virtual Shit Techonology. Thank God that I woke up and migrated my compositions away from their shitware locked up crap format which broke on EVERY FUCKING REVISION of their software. Fuck them.

Thank God that serious F/OSS audio apps have appeared on the scene like Rosegarden and Ardour (and, to a lesser extent, Audacity and Rezound). Death to the proprietary infidels!

Ask K5: MIDI Recorder for Mac OS X? | 31 comments (31 topical, 0 editorial, 2 hidden)

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