REAPER supports MIDI and virtual instruments. This makes it very easy for you to start creating music using your favorite virtual instrument or edit existing MIDI projects.
This tutorial is written for a complete beginner in MIDI music production. At the end of this tutorial, you should learn the following:
a.) Understanding the basics of MIDI rendering.
b.) Adding or installing a virtual instrument.
c.) Composing MIDI music using built-in editor.
d.) Exporting the original MIDI track as WAV file or MP3.
e.) Importing existing MIDI, do some routing and isolation of MIDI tracks.
Some Basics of MIDI Rendering and Import
By its very basic nature, a MIDI file (with file extension .mid) is nothing but digital data stored in your computer.
Unlike a real musical instrument recording done in analog domain (using an audio interface) that is then converted to digital file as WAV; a MIDI file does not contain any information about the real sound of its instruments. What it does contain are musical notes represented in digital form.
As a simple illustration, try the following test:
1.) Launch REAPER.
2.) Download this sample midi file to your Desktop.
3.) Let’s import the MIDI file. Go to Insert — > Media File then locate moonlight_sonata.mid. If you see the MIDI file export options, just click OK.
4.) Now position to the start of the file and hit the PLAY button. You will notice that there is no sound coming out. Why? It is because MIDI is simply a data and is not a recording of a musical instrument.
It needs a virtual instrument that accepts the MIDI data as input that will render it as audio. As a diagram:
MIDI — > Virtual Instrument — > Audio
Installing Virtual Instrument
To play a MIDI file, you need to add a virtual instrument appropriate for the music. In the above example, since Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven is a piano sonata piece. You need a piano virtual instrument.
There are lots of free VST virtual instrument in the Internet particularly for piano. Do not forget to check the integrity of the installer and developer before using them. Let’s have an example:
1.) Supposing you will use mda Piano V.1.0 which can be downloaded here.
2.) Download the exe file to your desktop and install it (by double clicking). By default, it will be installed in Steinberg VST plug-in directory.
3.) Finally, click Install.
4.) Click Close.
5.) Launch REAPER and then go to File – New Project.
6.) Let’s insert the mda Piano virtual instrument. Go to Track — > Insert Virtual Instrument on New Track.
7.) You will then see several installed VST virtual instruments. Select or highlight mda Piano.
install VST
8.) Simply use its default settings then close the FX dialog box. Take note that it is set to record mode by default (record button enabled to red), this is normal.
9.) Now it’s the time to import the MIDI file. Go to Insert — > Media File and locate the test MIDI file moonlight_sonata.mid; in the “Midi file Import Options” just click OK.
This is the screenshot of the virtual instrument loaded with the MIDI input file:
completely loaded
10.) Now hit the PLAY button again and switch the volume of your audio interface/soundcard to around 50% maximum, you should now be able to listen to the MIDI sound output.
Creating MIDI Music using Virtual Instrument
If you want to create MIDI music, then you need to use the built-in editor provided by REAPER. Follow the steps below:
1.) Go to File – then create a new project.
2.) Insert your favorite virtual instrument as illustrated in the previous section.
3.) Go to Insert – then click “New MIDI Item”.
4.) Right click over the blank MIDI item added then go to “Open Items in Editor” and finally select “Open MIDI Item in Editor”.
5.) You will then see a MIDI editor with a piano keyboard.
6.) To add musical notes, press your mouse left click button and hold on to shade the notes in the grid. Below is an example of a C Major scale plotted using the editor:
notated in editor
7.) After writing some music, go to File – Close Editor. The MIDI item is not anymore blank but is now containing digital music data. It is not anymore an empty MIDI track since it will be updated with the music you have added in the editor.
8.) Render the MIDI music as WAV or MP3. For example, this is the rendered MIDI project in 320kbps MP3:
Importing Big MIDI projects, Routing and Isolating Tracks
It’s possible to import big MIDI projects consisting of several tracks. It is also important to learn how to route virtual instruments to its respective MIDI track or isolate a certain track in the mix. Below is an example:
1.) Download this sample MIDI project (Right click then save the zip file to your Desktop).
Credits: Piano concerto No. 5 in E flat major by Ludwig van Beethoven
Sequenced and arranged by Jean-François Lucarelli
2.) Unzip the MIDI file.
3.) In REAPER, go to Item — > Insert Media File then select beethoven_piano_concerto.mid
4.) Make sure the following is checked under MIDI file import options:
a.) Expand 20 source tracks to new REAPER tracks.
b.) Merge source tempo map to project tempo map at 1.1.00.
5.) Click OK.
6.) You will then see the entire MIDI tracks of the piano concerto being imported.
7.) Supposing you want to listen and isolate the piano forte track only. Let’s use the piano VST virtual instrument in the previous section to play this track. Add that instrument first then drag it to the top (as the first track). This is how it looks like:
added VST
8.) Find the Pianoforte MIDI track and configure it to be routed to piano virtual instrument. Select it and click “Master I/O” (enclosed in yellow box).
Aux sends
9.) In the “Add New Send” drop down, select “mda Piano”. You should be able to see “Send to Track 1 mda Piano” after doing this:
complete sends
You can then close it.
10.) Position the marker near the start of the piano forte MIDI track to prepare playback as soon as possible.
positioning before start
11.) Hit the play button. You should be able to listen only to the piano forte track. This is how it sounds like when rendered to MP3:
The above concept can be applied to any MIDI projects. For example, if you are importing a string quartet, you need at least 3 virtual instruments to play the entire project (viola, violin and cello). Route each of the MIDI track to their respective virtual instruments using the techniques illustrated earlier. You will then be able to listen to the entire string quartet or even render it as an audio file. The quality of the rendered sound depends on the quality of your virtual instruments as well as the settings used.
This tutorial can be applied to other genre using MIDI instruments such as pop, rock, etc.