Set up a music studio using Qtractor
Part One!
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This issue we’re going to build a software-based studio using Qtractor (www.qtractor.org), a powerful open source DAW (digital audio workstation). Qtractor is particularly strong when used as a MIDI sequencer.
If the term MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry. Essentially, MIDI enables you to record every note that makes up a piece of music as a series of numbers. These numbers represent the exact time that the note was struck, it’s velocity (volume) and the duration of the note. MIDI also specifies the cables and signals needed to connect computers to instruments. Next month, we’ll delve further into Qtractor’s audio recording and manipulation facilities, which are fairly decent as well.
MIDI became popular upon its introduction in the early 1980s because computers at that time weren’t powerful enough to generate high-quality sounds, but they could reliably send MIDI notes to synthesisers. These days, most musicians have moved over to software synthesisers (‘soft synths’), available in the form of plugins. If you look at old footage of electronic bands in an 1980s studio, you can often spot dozens of keyboards lining the walls. However, these days, it’s not uncommon to see an electronic musician producing hits with just a laptop, a MIDI keyboard and some monitor speakers.
That sums up what we’re going for in this case. We’re going to set up a system with a MIDI sequencer that can control software synths. It’ll be useful if you’ve got a MIDI keyboard to plug into the setup,
