Add a software instrument and record MIDI and quantize in your DAW

Introduction


The goal of this tutorial is to show you how to add a software instrument and record MIDI and quantize in your DAW. Including preparing the track(s), adding the instrument, setting the click and countoff, and recording efficiently.

For this assignment I have chosen to create a video, the following is the check list of software I am using:

DAW: Ableton Live 9  https://www.ableton.com/en/trial/
Midi Controller: Virtual Midi KeyBoard http://sourceforge.net/projects/vmpk/
Software Instrument: Syth1   http://synth1.com   http://www.geocities.jp/daichi1969/softsynth/

The video will guide you through the process of setting up the recording preferences, setting up a countoff, adding a software instrument, recording a clip using your computer keyboard as a virtual midi keyboard, adjusting bar length, setting up quantizing and  quantizing a clip, and as a bonus: adding a simple drum clip. 

In closing, Synth1 is a highly CPU/Memory efficient VST Software Instrument which virtually offers unlimited sound options for free, it has an incredible amount of patches and an unofficial manual that will easily guide through the process of creating your own sounds. It is available for Mac and PC.

I didn't have my MIDI Controller available at time of creating the video so my option was to use a Virtual Controller such as Virtual Midi KeyBoard instead, and it actually did a decent job.

Hope this small tutorial was useful. Thanks for taking time to review my post, good bye for now and good luck with this week's lessons.

Edit. I had to upload the video again to youtube, first one was low res, sorry about that. If the video looks blurry, please  in the  youtube viewer click on the cog icon and set your resolution to 720 HD