I'm not an Acid expert, but I think what's happening is, your Yamaha keyboard is making a lot of the sounds you're hearing. If you're not recording the audio output of the Yamaha into the Acid tracks you'll keep getting the same results. You can record vocals, so you must have the technology. The MIDI doesn't make any noise, it only records what key you pressed, how long you held it, and in some keyboards it also tracks how fast and how hard you struck the key. The sounds you're hearing are being generated by the Yamaha, so record them to Acid just like you do with the vocals.

I might be wrong, but that's what I think is going on.

Good luck.

THanks for the reply. Yeah, you pretty much have the gist of it, when I put the cd in my stereo, I hear drums and bass(these are royalty-free loops from a cd), vocals,(I sung into the microphone with no problem), but the piano and the strings are left out. THe piano and strings are what I played on the yamaha keyboard as midi. I keep hearing that I need some type of VSTi or something. I bought my Yamaha PSR E313 keyboard off of craigslist and it didn't come with a driver cd. I cannot get acid to recognize my keyboard as a VSTi. I've found an alternative, just recording my piano sounds through a microphone, but it doesn't sound as good as if it were going from the keyboard to the soundcard directly. What doesn't make sense is, how come inside of acid, I press play, and can hear EVERYTHING fine, including my midi keyboard input. It's just when it's burnt onto a cd it's missing the midi. Just doesn't make sense.......I just hope maybe somebody knows acid well enough to alleviate the problem. Thanks for the reply though, your right about MIDI not making noise and just serving as a signal. I just wish that SIGNAL would be burnt onto the cd! Oh well, we'll see.........

Aviatorguy26 wrote: your right about MIDI not making noise and just serving as a signal. I just wish that SIGNAL would be burnt onto the cd! Oh well, we'll see.........

That's just it, MIDI is not a sound, recording it wouldn't make any sound come from your speakers.

Where are the keyboard sounds coming from when you're playing back?

Can you just plug the aux audio connector(s) of the keyboard into the same jack you plug the mic into when you record vocals? Except this time you'll be recording the sounds generated by the Yamaha. Even using the headphone jack would be better than micing it.

When Im playing the keyboard inside of acid, the sounds are being triggered by the yamaha but are coming through the computer speakers. I chose the yamaha as my midi input and the generic microsoft GS Wavetable Synth is the output to the speakers. The audio connectors of my keyboard are just the midi in/out male connector plugs that go into the back of the keyboard and the other side plugs into my USB port in the front of the computer. And my microphone is plugged into the back of the computer so there'd be no way to plug the audio connectors to the mic port. Good idea though, but I think Im going to need to solve the maze of VSTi/Midi Patches/Ports etc. unfortunately.

hello Aviatorguy26

i think you need to read this first:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_Instrument_Digital_Interface

then read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vsti

by now you should know the basics of midi and of vst/vsti.
you can't use your yamaha keyboard as a vsti (there are some hardware synth that can be used as a plugin, but i don't think your yamaha is capable of that).

I chose the yamaha as my midi input and the generic microsoft GS Wavetable Synth is the output to the speakers.

it seems you are not using the sounds of the yamaha keyboard after all. you use the sounds of your sound card (soundblaster?). your sound card has a synthesizer of it's own (generic microsoft GS Wavetable Synth) that plays back the sounds you have recorded via midi in acid.

on midi tracks acid records only data about what key you pressed when, how hard, how long..., that's routed back to the hardware (yamaha or sound card). there is no sound processing inside of acid! that is why those sounds are missing when you bounce/burn your project in acid.

so you have three joices:

1:
you have to route the sounds of the wavetable synth on your sound card back into acid and record that on a (stereo) audio track. i don't know how you could do that, so you'd have to do some research of your own. anyway, that's not the best method, since the wavetable sounds are quite crappy...

2:
you have to route the midi signal out of acid into your yamaha. you do that in the midi settings in acid, where you choose as the midi output your usb midi-interface (the same you selected as midi input). now your yamaha should play back the sounds of the midi tracks. connect the line out of the yamaha with the line in of your soundcard and record that on a (stereo) audio track. basically the same thing as above, but probably with better sounds.

3:
get a vsti plugin. something like this should do it:
http://www.native-instruments.com/
http://ikmultimedia.com/
video from Audix
i have never worked with acid, so i just can give you a basic idea how you would use a vsti in it.
there are probably tracks that are specifically for vsti plugins in acid. you have to load the plugin into one of these tracks and record the midi onto that track. usually you can drag your already existing midi tracks onto this vsti track, too. now the vsti plugin should playback the midi data.
vsti's are the most comfortable way to implement midi into a project because all the sound processing happens inside the host program (in your case acid) and can be bounced or burned together with the audio tracks without having to re-route/re-record anything.

so these are the three options you have with implementing midi into your audio projects. the cheapest and most effective way for you would probably be the 2nd, because you already have everything you need to do it.

hope this helps a bit!

Wait - you have your keyboard hooked up via USB, I assume?

Then all you need to do is record the MIDI notes to the software (you seem to have done this), and simply bounce that MIDI track to audio (this is easy).

I'd do it by
- mute all other tracks
- set a track to record the Stereo Mix
- play the MIDI notes - they get sent to the GS Blah and then a new track will be recorded of audio
- mute/delete the MIDI track

Hey guys, thanks for all of the input, Im hopeful I will get this thing figured out with your help.

Inside of the acid options, preferences menu, I selected the MIDI tab.

Under where it says "Make these devices available for MIDI track playback(Output) and Generate MIDI Clock", I have:

Port Midi Thru From
Yamaha USB Out 0-1 None
Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth Yamaha USB In 0-1

Under where it says "Make these devices available for MIDI Input:

Port Midi Thru To
Yamaha USB In 0-1 Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth

When I do this, I can play the piano and hear sounds coming out the speakers. I can record as well, and acid paints a bar with blue coloring signifying that it is recording the signal Im playing. But when it burns on cd, it's left out of course.

Ouzo, I chose your #2 solution since I didn't know how to do the #1 solution, and if this doesn't work, I will try your #3 solution.

CodeMonkey, thanks for the reply, I am trying to figure out how to do what you told me.

You said:

I'd do it by
- mute all other tracks
- set a track to record the Stereo Mix
- play the MIDI notes - they get sent to the GS Blah and then a new track will be recorded of audio
- mute/delete the MIDI track

If I do this, record the midi track and play the piano, what would muting/deleting the MIDI track do? Wouldn't it just erase the input from the piano?

Im totally lost here and am not schooled well in these techniques.

Ok be careful, I think you may be misinterpreting some of the (mostly good) advice you're getting here.

MIDI can be very confusing! Hopefully this helps:

MIDI notes are like trigger messages. Meaning, you play a C# on your keyboard, and a little MIDI message gets sent from the MIDI out connector on the back of the keyboard & down the cable.

The trigger message goes into your computer over USB, and triggers something like your microsoft wavetable synth, telling it to play a C#. THAT'S what actually makes the sound. Like dvdhawk said, "MIDI is not a sound," its a trigger message The cable coming from your yamaha kb's MIDI connectors to the computer's USB in is not an audio connection, it's a MIDI interface.

Aviatorguy26 wrote:
When I do this, I can play the piano and hear sounds coming out the speakers. I can record as well, and acid paints a bar with blue coloring signifying that it is recording the signal Im playing. But when it burns on cd, it's left out of course.

The blue bar IS recording the signal you are playing, BUT its a MIDI signal-- again not a sound. The sound you hear is coming from the microsoft wavetable sw synth, so unless you record the sw synth's output you won't hear it on your cd.

For example (I think this is what's happening) you record your keyboard part, see the blue bar on the MIDI track, play it back afterwards, sounds great. Then you hit "burn cd" or "print mix" or whatever the command is that Acid uses ("bounce to disk" in ProTools) but you dont hear the kb part.
You can either:
-Record an AUDIO track in your session, then mute the MIDI track. Before even burning a cd, you should now be hearing your kb part even though the MIDI track is muted- remember the MIDI is just messages, and you've now got an audio recording on the new track.
Or,
-Record a mix within Acid. This is not the same as "bounce to disk," its more like the "traditional" (read: analog) way of making a final mix. You create a new stereo audio track, set it up so that it is taking a post-fader send from all the other tracks in your session, return to the start of the song, & hit record. The file that's created is now your master; if you have it in the right format you can just drag it into any CD-burning program (Toast, iTunes, etc) & there you go.

Unfortunately I don't know enough about Acid to tell you exact step-by-steps, but I hope this helps.

The good news is, the whole idea behind this is that you can play the keyboard one time, record the MIDI, & then use the same notes to trigger different synth sounds by re-patching. And, you can edit the performance by tweaking the individual MIDI notes in a lot of ways that makes it more flexible than audio.

Hey Adavil, thanks for the reply and I think Im getting somewhere with this. My Yamaha keyboard has two midi ports in the back that I've plugged a yamaha ux16 usb midi interface to, and the other side is plugged into my computer's usb port. For my vocals I've got my microphone connected to the back of my soundcard. When I press Record inside of acid, two buttons come up. One for audio(my microphone sends the signal), and one for MIDI(my yamaha keyboard sends the signal). In Acid Pro 4.0 I don't believe you can record Audio and Midi at the same time, because you can only select one or the other when you hit record.

You said:

-Record an AUDIO track in your session, then mute the MIDI track. Before even burning a cd, you should now be hearing your kb part even though the MIDI track is muted- remember the MIDI is just messages, and you've now got an audio recording on the new track.

I believe I can only record one or the other and it might be because acid is a limited program. OR, could I try to plug the microphone into the back of the yamaha keyboard?

Again I am afraid I don't know Acid well enough. It sounds like you can record audio from the mic, ie your vocals into the mic into the soundcard into Acid. The "AUDIO track" I was referring to would be like, if you changed the "input" source of your audio track from "mic" to "microsoft wavetable sw synth." I have no idea how to tell you to do this in Acid, it might be easy & obvious, it might not be possible..

I know you said you think you can't record an audio track and a midi track at the same time, but you shouldn't have to: first, record the midi track while you play the keys. Then, go back to the start of the song, make sure the MIDI track is NOT armed to record, set up your audio track (again you'd have to figure out how to send the sw synth's output to the audio track's input,) & record. The MIDI track should trigger the sw synth, which will get recorded on the audio track.

There are other ways to get your problem solved but without Acid knowledge I will probably only confuse you more (by suggesting things the program can't do.)

A couple questions:
-When you make a cd, how do you do it? Like, for a given project, you drag in some loops, record a vocal track, record a MIDI track, & you can play it back & everything sounds good, right? Then what do you do from there to get a finished cd? Is there a menu command like I was describing or do you have to record a master mix track or something?
Also do you know where the microsoft wavetable sw synth came from? Is it part of a program, did it come on a disk with something you purchased like Acid or the soundcard? And, where do you "see" it in Acid, does it show up automatically or do you have to choose the sound?

I can say this: plugging the mic into the back of the keyboard will NOT help you here. And, the keyboard is just acting as a controller, sending note messages to the sound source which is inside the computer; VSTi is a type of plug-in . A plug-in, you may realize, is like a keyboard's set of sounds, appearing as a software program in your computer. The PSR cannot act as a plug-in in any way. For example, Korg has a keyboard called the M1, which is much like yours (MIDI out, no usb.) Recently they released the "Legacy Collection" of plug-ins, available as RTAS, AU, & VST formats, which includes all the sounds from the M1. Not saying that you need an M1, just an example, that a MIDI keyboard is a completely different thing than a plug-in; if you only have a "real" M1 keyboard you can't ever get it to show up as a VST plug-in (or any other kind of plug-in.) You could record its audio or use it as a controller, just like you are using your yamaha. but the only way to get an M1 as a VST plug-in would be to buy the software version of it. And, if you had that, you could use your yamaha keyboard to trigger the M1 plug-in.

ahavill wrote:
Also do you know where the microsoft wavetable sw synth came from? Is it part of a program, did it come on a disk with something you purchased like Acid or the soundcard?

the wavetable synth is a chip on the actual sound card/on-board sound. it's not a software!

i have to correct myself. the microsoft wavetable synth is a part of windows. there used to be a hardware wavetable synth in old sound blaster cards. i don't know if they still have it.
nevertheless your yamaha synth will definitely sound better (except it's some cheap home keyboard for kids)

use "Yamaha USB Out 0-1" for midi out and connect the line outs of the yamaha with a cable like this
http://www.thomann.de/gb/the_sssnake_ypk2030.htm
to the line in on the back of your computer (usually the blue one)

play back your project. the yamaha should now play the midi tracks. set up an audio track and assign it to the line in of your sound card. then record the signal of the yamaha to this audio track. now you should have the sounds of the yamaha on a track in acid. it should play back even though the yamaha is switched off or disconnected.

bounce/burn your project.

"If I do this, record the midi track and play the piano, what would muting/deleting the MIDI track do? Wouldn't it just erase the input from the piano?"

Not sure if someone covered it yet but what I meant was...(I see ahavill has explained the concept of MIDI)

After you've bounced the MIDI track to audio, you'll have a track of recorded audio (which, btw, may be very slightly out of sync - you may have to nudge it left a little in the timeline) and along with this audio, you'll still have the original MIDI notes - the MIDI will still be sent to the GS Synth thing and so you'll have 2 piano tracks - by muting the MIDI track, you'll have only the audio when you play it back - and burn it to CD.

(Again, I don't use ACID - I don't use MIDI either but I know enough about it).

Hey guys, thanks for continuing to help me out with this one. I have failed at trying to just record a clean audio track and mute out the midi track. In acid 4.0 it's only one or the other. No way to record "Audio" without talking into the microphone. I can only record midi from my keyboard and only can record audio from the microphone. However, I think the key would be to find a way to plug the keyboard into the back of the computer's soundcard, so that recording "Audio" will now mean playing the
keyboard instead of talking into the mic.

In response to your questions posted below,

A couple questions:
-When you make a cd, how do you do it? Like, for a given project, you drag in some loops, record a vocal track, record a MIDI track, & you can play it back & everything sounds good, right? Then what do you do from there to get a finished cd? Is there a menu command like I was describing or do you have to record a master mix track or something?
Also do you know where the microsoft wavetable sw synth came from? Is it part of a program, did it come on a disk with something you purchased like Acid or the soundcard? And, where do you "see" it in Acid, does it show up automatically or do you have to choose the sound?

Inside of acid it's really easy to burn a cd. You just go to tools, and select "Burn track at once audio cd" This is one of the reasons I use such a primitive program like acid 4.0. It's simplicity allows me to spend more time on the actual song than setting everything up.

Also, one of you suggested:

use "Yamaha USB Out 0-1" for midi out and connect the line outs of the yamaha with a cable like this
http://www.thomann.de/gb/the_sssnake_ypk2030.htm
to the line in on the back of your computer (usually the blue one)

I think this may be the answer, however, what would I plug this into? I know one side goes into the back of my computer, but what about the two connectors on the other side? Not sure what I would plug these into. On the back of my yamaha keyboard There's only two female midi slots, a plug for the ac adapter, a slot for a sustain pedal, and a slot that says "phones/output"

what's the model name of the yamaha?

Finally got the cord that I needed

Well guys, I spent $30 to talk to a tech guy over the phone and he basically told me to buy an audio cord and run it from the yamaha to the back of my sound card. I bought the cable(1/4 inch to 1/8 inch) and plugged the 1/4 inch side into the yamaha and plugged the 1/8 inch side to the back of the soundcard. The back of my soundcard only has 3 slots to plug into. One is light green and I've got my computer speakers hooked up to. One is light blue and I assume is an input slot. Nothing is plugged into that one. And the last one is a pink one for microphone. I plugged the new cord into the pink one and it worked. miserably. The volume is all messed up and it sounds like crap. Acid recognizes this as my audio slot. I could record, and even burn onto cd ,the sounds that I made with the keyboard. But I think this slot was more meant for a microphone than for a keyboard. It sounded horrible, so I tried plugging the new cord into the second slot, the light blue one I assume is for input. I could play the piano, but it didn't record it in acid. It didn't even paint the blue signal like it usually does when I put in vocals. So now I've got an entirely new problem unfortunately. If only I could get acid to recognize my keyboard when it's plugged into that light blue input slot on the soundcard.... Anyone know about this? Thanks

Onboard sound cards are not meant for anything other than internet messenger programs.

You are now discovering why you need a computer recording interface-in your case one with midi support.

What is a computer recording interface? I have something called a usb midi interface(yamaha ux16) that goes from the yamaha keyboard to the usb port in my computer. Im disappointed that I keep spending money and buying cords, and paying for over the phone technical support and Im still left with the problem. Maybe I need a new soundcard? Maybe my version of acid needs updating? Not sure what to do now. When I plug the new cord from the keyboard to the back of my soundcard(in the line-in slot), it's like acid doesn't even recognize it. I can record audio from my keyboard but I have to plug it into the microphone slot on the back of the soundcard and it sounds really really horrible. Maybe I have a faulty soundcard if acid isn't recognizing the piano when it's in the line in-slot? Does anybody here also use acid? If so, where do you have your keyboard hooked up to? Which slot? Do I need to go deep into my soundcard settings and do some tweaking. Im totally lost now.

Well the new version of Acid Pro is v.7. The front page at Sony says:
MIDI Track Freeze New!

New in ACID Pro 7 digital audio workstation software you can freeze MIDI tracks that are routed to soft synths. Once frozen, the tracks are streamed and played back as audio files. This creates a more efficient workflow and saves valuable CPU processing power.

This sounds like just the ticket. Then theoretically whether you have the midi generator set to the keyboard or the M$ in built midi you would get an audio track once it is "frozen."

Even so, the little 1/8" jacks on your computer's motherboard aren't adequate for any recording purposes. They really are pretty much there for messaging programs.

I think what ouzo77 is suggesting is that you use the keyboard to record your MIDI tracks, which are triggering the microsoft synth while you are recording.

Once you've got your MIDI track, you patch it BACK to the keyboard, by connecting MIDI Out on the USB interface, to MIDI In on the PSR keyboard.

Now when you play back Acid, your MIDI track should trigger the sounds inside the PSR keyboard. You could then either hold the mic near the PSR's speakers (it has built in ones right?) Or you could connect an audio cable from the "phones/output" jack on the back of the keyboard to your soundcard's input (whatever the mic is plugged into would work, you just need to find the right audio cable to go from the keyboard's output jack to the soundcard's input jack.)

If you really want to use sounds OTHER than what's in the PSR (maybe that's why you got started trying to figure out MIDI...) you'll have to find a way to get the audio routing happening in Acid. It may be that the microsoft wavetable synth is such a basic , generic thing that it doesn't work well in a real music program like Acid. You should search online for some other plug-ins, there are many available for free, just make sure they are VST format and that they are instruments not FX.

TheJackAttack wrote: Well the new version of Acid Pro is v.7. The front page at Sony says:
MIDI Track Freeze New!

New in ACID Pro 7 digital audio workstation software you can freeze MIDI tracks that are routed to soft synths. Once frozen, the tracks are streamed and played back as audio files. This creates a more efficient workflow and saves valuable CPU processing power.

This sounds like just the ticket. Then theoretically whether you have the midi generator set to the keyboard or the M$ in built midi you would get an audio track once it is "frozen."

this will only work with vsti plugins.

the blue input in your sound card is the right one. you just have to tell your system which input to use.
here are some things you can try to set the right recording input in vista and xp:
http://www.acoustic-labs.com/multitrack-plus-audio-setup.html

by the way you can get good results with built-in audio or sound blaster, if you know how to use them correctly. it won't be as good as with a good audio interface, though.

a recording or audio interface looks like this:
http://www.thomann.de/gb/mackie_onyx_satellite.htm
or
http://www.thomann.de/gb/terratec_phase_26_usb_se.htm