Preview Course Materials

Course contents

1. A performance is not a recording
2. Find your way around the ArtistPro studio
3. Record, export, and reopen
4. Ports, channels, and one clear route
5. Read a note before changing it
6. Velocity, pressure, sustain, and pitch
7. Tempo, grid, and the sound of timing
8. Swing, humanization, and intentional variation
9. Program drums as a performance
10. Sampling: the source is part of the instrument
11. FM: change the spectrum at the source
12. Layering, registers, and the mono check
13. Higher resolution, with an audible purpose
14. Per-note expression and MPE
15. Discovery and Profiles: agreement before control
16. UMP and transports without the jargon trap
17. Property Exchange and safe configuration
18. Files, conversion, and the handoff package
19. Bring MIDI and live audio together
20. Arrange first, then shape the sound
21. Automation, Clock, timecode, and transport
22. A diagnostic path from silence to sound
23. Accessible practice and responsible collaboration
24. Capstone: a complete musical handoff

Sample lesson

A performance is not a recording

Imagine asking three musicians to play the same short phrase. The notes and rhythm can remain recognizable while the sound changes completely. A MIDI performance works in a similar way: it carries instructions that a receiving instrument interprets. An audio recording carries sampled sound. This distinction is the foundation of every lesson that follows.

A Note On message identifies a note and includes a velocity value. A later Note Off ends the key-held portion of that note. The instrument decides how those instructions become sound: a piano may continue decaying after release, while a sustained synthesizer may enter its release envelope. MIDI velocity can change loudness, brightness, sample selection, or several things at once. It is not an audio level measured in decibels.

Use the supplied Glass Steps performance as a small musical sketch. Its twelve notes are deliberately simple enough to recognize: 60, 64, 67, 71, 69, 67, 64, 62, 60, 64, 67, 72. The recording uses ArtistPro APX7 FM with GLASS EP. The MIDI file preserves note events; the WAV preserves the sound generated during the actual performance. A different instrument can interpret those same events differently.

Make a habit of keeping three things: the performance, the instrument state, and a reference render. A MIDI file alone does not normally contain the instrument's samples or synthesizer engine. A WAV alone does not preserve editable note events. A project file connects the arrangement to its sources, but you must still test that it reopens with its audio intact.