Exporting midi selection from Reaper (or anything else)

[UKMark]

Hi
I have seen a couple of posts (mostly from ash…) about using Reaper as the tool to use on a Mac for editing midi drum files.

I too use a Mac and am struggling to find an intuitive, easy to use midi editor to use for chopping up some midi files I have found/bought of complete songs, and making song section parts suitable for use in BB.

I have Logic Pro X which can save a selected part of a midi file from the editor but do I really have to use such a big monster for such a small task? I don’t really want to spend the next x months learning to use some huge DAW, the idea behind buying BB was as a backing tool for our guitar/vocal duo. I would much prefer to spend my time pricing my instrument.

So can anybody suggest a nice easy to use way with minimum learning curve, to load up a midi song file, tweak the drum patterns and chop up/export the file sections so I can use them in BB Manager to create BB songs?

i have tried with Reaper. It seems pretty powerful but has a very quirky interface and try as I might I can’t find a way to export a selection of midi notes as a file.

I even tried Cubase, that won’t export a selection either. So if anybody can shed some light on how to chop up a midi song file and export in bits, please help.

As I said, I use a Mac but also have VMWare Fusion with a Windows 7 virtual machine on my Mac, so can use Windows at a push. But would prefer to stay on the Mac.

Many thanks
Mark

[emacnevin]

I use garageband on a mac. It is super easy on the front end. Download a midi song from a free midi site. Drag the midi file onto garage band. You will see it import all instrument tracks. Delete all tracks except bass and drum track. Change the Bass Key by selecting all notes in that track and dragging them ALL up to the E3 and above Range so BB can see the bass notes. (This is cool because when you find the ROOT note when you Drag up you will see the Letter of the root note as you drag and then just let it go when you get it above E3. i.e. Grab C1 and Drag to C4- make sure ALL notes are highlighted so they all move with the root note.) Next Select/Highlight the Bass and drum track together and then use the JOIN command in the edit menu to merge the tracks into one. Then highlight that merged track and select “add to loop library” in the edit menu and name the loop something you will remember so you can find the AIF file it creates later.

The back end to find the AIF file GB creates and to convert it to Midi is more complicated with a few specific steps below.

Download the free app GB2MIDI (google it). This app literally converts an AIF file to a midi file that you can then import right into BeatBuddy. It places the newly created midi file in the same directory as the AIF file- right next to it with the same name.

Read the GB2MIDI app instructions carefully on how to find that AIF file and its directory. This is probably the hardest part. Garageband stores it in a directory that is hard to find. But once you find that directory make a shortcut for that directory and place on your desktop -and from then on it is easy peasy.

**Note- I am working with Persist who a verified an issue with the new versions of BB manager that when you export a Beat Buddy midi file from the new manager it messes the midi file up and makes it un-editable in some DAWS and GB is one of those. He has reported it to the developer. But for stock MIDI songs right off the web it has allowed me to create many One Press songs with bass and drums.

[JN99]

It sounds like the main issue the OP is having though is breaking up the single MIDI file, the ability to easily cut or copy and paste sections. How is that accomplished in Garageband? I am a Windows user but have struggled with this as well. TBH I haven’t found tweaking the file that easy either but this is new to me so still in the middle of the learning curve. I have tried a couple freeware editors and can get the job done but it’s never as easy or as intuitive as it seems it could be.

[emacnevin]

I do this all of the time. It is super easy in Garageband to play and hear the song with bass and drums in GB. When you hear an area of the song you may want to modify or loop etc… Use the SPLIT and JOIN commands to slice up parts. I.E. Lets say I just want a 4 bar drum part of a midi song I imported from the internet. Just import the song into GB. Find the drum track. Highlight it. Use the timeline marker and place it on the 1 bar marker. Use the SPLIT command to split the long drum kit. Highlight just the small 4 bar clip and follow steps above to add it to loop library. It even has an easy tool to LOOP in Garage band - called LOOP REGION- to hear what the split/edited parts will sound like in BeatBuddy. You follow the same steps above for a split clip. Just highlight the split part of the song you want and follow steps above.