Which music sw should I consider for aligning audio waveforms to MIDI piano roll, looping MIDI, managing program change, SysEx?

Question

Which music software should I consider for aligning audio waveforms to MIDI piano roll, looping MIDI, managing program change, SysEx?

In my projects, I'd like to be able to:

• see audio and MIDI tracks/channels on the same screen, for timing, so that I can line up the audio with the MIDI to be in sync

• manage and copy MIDI loops easily

• manage SysEx in a effective way (in the past I've seen SysEx data treated by some sequencers as a special sort of track or block of music data - to me this is a half-baked kludge)

I use a MacBookPro 17" 2010 machine. Would Pro Tools or Logic Pro do all the above? Or another piece of software I would prefer not to consider Cubase or Sonar. Not Cubase because from experience of a very early version (perhaps a bit unfair now) I did not find its UI worked for me, personal choice, the UI could not do the above things I need. Not Sonar because this is Windows based - though I have BootCamp so if there is a compelling reason for it, I would reconsider.

Answer 1

What you need is a sequencer that can also handle audio data, or an audio suite that also handles sequencing. Collectively, these programs are known as Digital Audio Workstations, commonly abbreviated DAWs. While the term "DAW" technically refers only to audio editing (waveforms), it's very common for a DAW to also support MIDI sequencing, or to be more of a MIDI tool than an audio one, so the term has come to imply both.

Most, but not all of them will handle your scenario. As far as handling audio and MIDI tracks together, I imagine most any of them can handle this - Logic and Pro Tools should handle this fine, as will Cubase, Sonar, Ableton Live, Reaper, and even GarageBand. However, it's your third criteria - MIDI SysEx - that I think will narrow this down a bit. Ableton Live, for example, does not handle SysEx data of any kind, and I've never tried it with any of the others so I can't speak to their capabilities. This is the criteria you should first consider when choosing a DAW, since it's one of your needs.

Beyond that, it's basically down to how much you like it, as the general functionality between DAW packages is pretty similar. You've already said that Cubase's interface doesn't work for you, so try one of the other ones.

Answer 2

Note that SyxEx data is, by its very nature, vendor specific. Supporting detailed SysEx editing would require custom work for each MIDI synth ever made. EMagic's Sounddriver did this, but was discontinued shortly after Apple bought EMagic.

You can accomplish a lot of MIDI and SysEx manipulation with Logic's environment, though it is awkward, poorly documented, and the online user community is very limited.

And I'll second Warrior Bob's comment that Live does not support SysEx. This is an "interesting" oversight because the most common use-case for SysEx is storing synth patches at the beginning of a project for guaranteed correct live playback.

From the comments: Ctrlr is a great tool for building MIDI control panels that may (or may not) include SysEx.

Answer 3

FL Studio is the easiest to operate. It is not for Mac however.

EDIT: You can use it on MAC using parallels/virtualbox/vwware.

Check this

1. easiest worflow. I mean come on, even you hate FL, you need to admit the gui is very easy to operate
2. beautiful VST/VSTi support out of the box. Btw. Logic don't support VST at all. So, backwards in my opinion.
3. unbeatable beat making/ piano roll - the fastest way for "prototyping"beats. Making beats in Cubase or Pro Tools is a joke.
4. undisputed champion daw soft for electronic music like dance/house/trance/dubstep/drnb/hiphop/rnb/ambient stuff.
5. it's extremly cheap when compared with other DAW software.

Btw. these guys are composing their songs on FL Studio:

Deadmau5
Scooter
Basshunter
Avicii
Moby
Laidback Luke
9th Wonder
Madeon

:)

btw. search this aylar lie basshunter xxx for what you can get when using Fl Studio ;)