Looking to hire a tutor

[Lalabell68]

I am totally overwhelmed when it comes to computer music. I want to be able to use my synth as a midi controller with all my sounds coming from my computer. I play in a worship band at my church. I have a completely different synth than the church has so this seems to be the best solution for me to prep for Sunday as far as assigning sounds for different songs. I have no idea how to do this and I’m willing to pay someone that can teach me. I have a Yamaha MOXF8 and run Windows 10. I’m not committed to any specific software because I don’t know what would work best to achieve my goal. Is there anyone that can help me?

 

[happyrat1]

It would help if you mentioned where you are.

Also, take a look in your local craigslist. Plenty of hired guns in there.

Gary

 

[Lalabell68]

Well I guess I was assuming this could be done via phone/FaceTime/Skype. But I’m in Tyler, Tx.

 

[Biggles]

Welcome.

I have just Googled Music Stores in Tyler and you have quite a few stores.

I suggest you visit some like Mundt’s or Guitar Centre and have a chat with them, in one of the Stores they are bound to be able to point you in the right direction of a local Tutor who will be able to help you far better than someone online.

 

[Lalabell68]

The guy at Guitar Center couldn’t even answer basic questions for me regarding a cable. I have reached out to musician friends to see if they know a keyboard player who could help me and they haven’t responded either. I posted this as a last resort. Sorry to have bothered you.

 

[CowboyNQ]

Sorry to have bothered you.

That's an unhelpful and ungrateful response. No need to throw your hands in the air - I think Col and Gary gave you very sensible advice and were being their usual helpful selves.

I'm struggling to understand why you don't just take your MOXF8 to church and use that? I would have thought it would be more than capable, and a far simpler option than having to purchase a heap of VST's etc from scratch, presumably for a laptop that's not properly spec'd to do the job, being used by someone who has zero experience of midi.

 

[Lalabell68]

I apologize to those who were trying to be helpful. I don’t live in a large city like Dallas so it’s going to be harder for me to find someone locally who can help.

Regarding transporting my synth back and forth to church, it’s too big and bulky for me to easily transport it. I even bought a gig bag with wheels on it which helped, but it’s still difficult for me. Not long after I bought my new synth, the church purchased one and did not ask me for any input on what they should get. I would have suggested getting the same keyboard so I don’t have to learn two separate keyboards and features. I live an hour away from my church so I can’t easily go up there every week and prep for Sunday.

Secondly, my Worship pastor wants us to eventually use a click track and loops so I have to learn about MIDI. If I need to purchase a Mac to do what I want to do, I am willing to do that. But before I go purchase more gear, I was hoping to find someone that could guide me on my set up. That was the whole intent of my post.

 

[happyrat1]

A quick Google shows you have a University with a Music faculty nearby to you.

https://www.uttyler.edu/music/about/facilities.php

Pay them a quick visit and find out if a professor knows anyone offering tutoring to pay his tuition. Likewise you could post a note on a few campus bulletin boards with your request.

Believe me, most of the kids these days are very conversant with the technology and eager to earn extra cash.

You may even want to consider auditing a couple of courses there while you're at it.

Gary

 

[Lalabell68]

Thanks. I have a friend who is a senior music major at UT Tyler who is looking for me. I have a friend who is the Dean of the School of Music at a university a couple of hours away and I’ve reached out to my own alma mater where I received my piano performance degree and they’re looking for me. I’m really trying everywhere with no luck so far.

 

[happyrat1]

Sometimes there's no substitute for elbow grease.

Take a look here on the website for MIDI tutorials as well as Google and start reading some primers on the subject. We all learned our MIDI skills the hard way here and nobody really wants to adopt a long distance protege under his wing unless it pays well.

Likewise, print up a few eye catching flyers and tack them up on every bulletin board at both universities. Sometimes to be a successful fisherman you need patience.

Gary

 

[Biggles]

I think what we Brits call a Pub Crawl may be of benefit.

Visit small venues where live music is played and talk to the artists playing, with enough perseverence you should find someone who knows someone etc.

Meanwhile register at BandLab and then download and install Cakewalk which is free DAW software, look at online video tutorials to help you learn how to use it.

Download the Driver from the Yamaha website, install it on your PC then connect up your keyboard via USB, you should be then good to go, if not post again to advise of problems.

As Gary suggests read up on the MIDI posts here

 

[SeaGtGruff]

Could you elaborate a little bit on what you'd like to do? You wrote:

I want to be able to use my synth as a midi controller with all my sounds coming from my computer. I play in a worship band at my church. I have a completely different synth than the church has so this seems to be the best solution for me to prep for Sunday as far as assigning sounds for different songs.

First of all, your desire to use your keyboard as a MIDI controller to play virtual instruments on your computer is something that a lot of people are interested in, so other readers could probably benefit if the members were able to discuss it with you here in the forum.

But I'm not clear on what your end goal is-- to set things up at home so you can use virtual instruments to play the songs, then take your computer or laptop or tablet to the church, hook the synth there up to your device, and play it as a MIDI controller with the same virtual instruments?

You mentioned that you have a MOXF8. What does the church have?

Were you thinking about taking your own computer or device to the church, or do they already have one there that you can use?

 

[Lalabell68]

Could you elaborate a little bit on what you'd like to do? You wrote:


But I'm not clear on what your end goal is-- to set things up at home so you can use virtual instruments to play the songs, then take your computer or laptop or tablet to the church, hook the synth there up to your device, and play it as a MIDI controller with the same virtual instruments?

You mentioned that you have a MOXF8. What does the church have?

Were you thinking about taking your own computer or device to the church, or do they already have one there that you can use?

Yes! This is exactly what I’m wanting to do....get my sounds selected for each song using sounds on my computer and then take my laptop to church and use their synth as a midi controller. I know it can be done because Hillsong does it. And the church has a Roland Juno-DS.

 

[Lalabell68]

I think what we Brits call a Pub Crawl may be of benefit.

Visit small venues where live music is played and talk to the artists playing, with enough perseverence you should find someone who knows someone etc.

Meanwhile register at BandLab and then download and install Cakewalk which is free DAW software, look at online video tutorials to help you learn how to use it.

Download the Driver from the Yamaha website, install it on your PC then connect up your keyboard via USB, you should be then good to go, if not post again to advise of problems.

As Gary suggests read up on the MIDI posts here

That’s a great suggestion about going to hear other bands play!

I used Cakewalk years ago but I can give it a try. My keyboard came with a copy of Cubase AI 9.5. Really not familiar with Cubase. I have used Ableton Live in the past and currently have a trial version on my computer. I really like Ableton and think it can probably do everything I need, I just don’t like the price tag!

 

[SeaGtGruff]

I have Cubase Elements which is similar to Cubase AI, so I might be able to help with that. I also have the "free" version of Ableton-- Live Lite-- which comes bundled with certain audio or MIDI equipment. Cubase would be more powerful than Live as far as being able to handle any MIDI-related stuff (Live doesn't handle MIDI SysEx at all, but Cubase does). However, my personal favorite DAW for playing virtual instruments is Acoustica Mixcraft (which also does not handle MIDI SysEx), because I love how easy it is to create layers and splits with Mixcraft.

There are also programs that are specifically designed for managing set lists and patch changes for performing keyboardists. The one that I keep hearing the most love about is Cantabile-- or, if you're using a Mac (which I know you aren't), then MainStage gets a lot of love. I have the free version of Cantabile, but I haven't explored it yet, and I think you need the Pro version for the more powerful features.

But just about any DAW such as Cubase, Live, Mixcraft, Cakewalk, etc. should be able to let you do what you want as far as being able to play virtual instruments.

Once you've gotten past the part about connecting things together and setting up your DAW or other plug-in host (which really isn't that difficult, just a bit bewildering), you'll want to focus on which virtual instruments to get, unless your DAW comes with some that you're satisfied with.

Another possible issue will be whether your laptop is powerful enough to handle the virtual instruments (VIs) without any hiccups, especially if you plan to use multiple VIs at once.

I don't want to try to dissuade you from using DAWs and VIs, but in the long run it might be best to make some sort of spreadsheet or list of patches/programs you like to use at home on your MOXF8, and the closest ones on the Juno-DS. They won't sound exactly the same, of course, but you might be able to gradually build up a series of patch files to use on your MOXF8, and equivalent patch files for the Juno-DS. You could start with a few for the most common "generic" voices, such as Acoustic Piano, Church Organ, Clarinet, Flute, Trombone, etc., and then develop a collection of more song-specific patch files for whichever hymns or inspirational music you'll be playing.

 

[Lalabell68]

Thank you! Those are all great suggestions. I haven’t heard of Cantible but I keep hearing of Mainstage a lot. And I’ll check out Mixcraft.

Really, the main instruments I would be using would be strings, pads and piano.

 

[Biggles]

Mainstage is for live play and it works with Apples Logic Pro so going this route will cost a couple of thousand bucks plus, MacBook, Logic Pro which alone is $200 and Mainstage.

As the Church has a Roland Juno DS they have a great keyboard right there, but Gary is the man here who is the expert on the DS.

On your pub crawl, do take along a nominated driver

 

[CowboyNQ]

I want to be able to use my synth as a midi controller with all my sounds coming from my computer.

So this is what was confusing me. I read this as wanting to use your synth as a controller.

You COULD use the church's synth as a midi controller, but understand that you're about to sign up for a lot of time, effort and expenditure as you buy VST's/buy new laptop/buy the software to manage it all/learn how to use the unfamiliar synth as a midi controller/get the whole rig connected and working properly.

I have nothing against the idea of software for live performance, I just don't see how the MIDI and laptop solution works for you in this example, unless there's something I'm missing.

Wouldn't it be easier to just spend a few hours with the church's synth (the very capable Juno-DS) getting to know how it works? I'm willing to bet all the sounds you need are already in the thing. It's just a case of finding them and setting them up for live use. I'm not an expert on this particular synth, but Roland gear is generally pretty easy to learn and designed with the live player in mind.

RE: The click track and loops. I play with clicks and backing tracks often. MIDI not required.

 

[Lalabell68]

I just like to complicate things!

 

[SeaGtGruff]

If you'd like to learn more about the JUNO-DS, I recommend downloading the PDF manuals for it if you haven't done so already:

http://my.roland.com/support/by_product/juno-ds88/owners_manuals/

You should start with the Owner's Manual-- which is only 22 pages, so it shouldn't take long to at least glance over every page before zeroing in on the sections that are of greatest significance to you.

But you'll also want to grab the Parameter Guide, which is where all of the voices (in Yamaha-speak, or "patches" in Roland-speak), drum kits, and performances are listed. The Parameter Guide is also where the information about connecting the JUNO-DS to a computer and using it with a DAW can be found.