In today's video I'll show you creative ways to use MIDI files to make music or
just find some inspiration. If you've got a case of writer's block, beat block or
just need to add some fresh chords or sounds samples and MIDI files can help.
And I'm giving away a sample and Aurors MIDI pack by Sanjay C, to celebrate my 150,000
subscriber milestone. It's a thank you to you all. You can download it
using the link in the video description. And here's the best part. This sound pack
is gonna be free to my subscribers for the next two days (48 hours) so get it free while
you can. But wait keep watching because these few
tips will help you get the most out of my MIDI pack and others you may own. If
you're new around here I'm Sanjay C! I have tons of videos on my channel about
music production and gear reviews consider subscribing if you haven't
already I always get straight to the point in my videos and reviews let's get
started. First of all "Aurora" the sample and MIDI pack I just released is
royalty-free. So make songs make beats with it release it on Spotify whatever
it's yours. The pack contains two types of files WAV files for samples and MIDI
files. For every WAV file you will find the MIDI file that corresponds to it. The
WAV files are super easy to use just drag them onto your DAW and play. I've
recorded some chords and melodies using my vintage Juno 106 and a Prophet Six
synth. So they've got that full lush sound great for chords. The MIDI files
are where you really want to dig in though.
These can be used with any instrument any plugin you have in your DAW so just
load up your favourite sound and drag the MIDI file onto your track. Done! No
need to come up with an inspiring chord progression I've done it for you. Let's
try one of them out. And if you have some ideas for my next sample pack leave them
in the comments below. The Aurora sample pack is for constructing songs and for
finding inspiration as well so I've included the MIDI and the WAV files in
here so you can use them in any DAW and however you like these are all handmade
by me on my keyboard so there's a bit of my personality in everything. Let's take this one for example. These have all been recorded at 105 beats per
minute if you do change your tempo make sure in ableton that you switch the
Warped mode to Complex Pro.
(Sanjay C playing music)
So this is the dry version if you look at the processed version let's listen to
that. (Sanjay C playing music)
And of course you can do the same thing with the melodies and arps. Let's choose
an arp. So if you find the arp that goes along with these chords just drag them
over there.
So in addition to time searching you can also change the key if
you want to change the key of this you can just transpose. So you can do a lot
of stuff with the WAV files themselves. But now let's look into the MIDI files
because this is where it gets really interesting. Here are the basics of using
MIDI files and then I'll share a few tips with you as well. I'm gonna start by
just loading a piano onto a MIDI track so in your DAW might be called a
software instrument track. Alright it's just a simple piano and now we're gonna
load one of the MIDI files so let's go to the MIDI folder and let's load this
file here Inure. So now I've loaded a MIDI file not a WAV file into my DAW
over at this piano let's hear what this sounds like.
So there you go it's a simple piano chords and you can change them around if
you need to. But now that we have the chords in place let's change that piano
to something else. I'm gonna choose a Pad. One of these Pads from Ableton. So now
instead of the piano I've got this Pad.
That sounds cool right?!
Alright it's already getting somewhere. Now here's a tip, just because I gave you
chords that hold for a long time, doesn't mean that you can't do other stuff with
it. So let's copy over my chord set again and onto another MIDI track and on this
MIDI track I'm gonna add some Bell kind of sound
so let's look under Mallets I'll choose this one. And this time I'm going to add
some MIDI effects to it in particular in Arpeggiator and I'm gonna set this to
one sixteenth note and how about raising the octave of this bell sound and doing
a command A and a shift UP arrow and that raises it one octave. Go back to my
arp and let's change this up to something.
All right getting exciting now let's add another track. I'm adding another MIDI
track I'm gonna find the Aurora melody, Here it is, I'm going to insert that onto
this track now let's try Diva and I've chosen the MK Frost Piano to play this
MIDI.
(sanjay C music playing)
So that already starting to sound really nice but let's not stop there.
Here's another tip once you've laid down your chords you can add some movement to
them. In yesterday's news report I actually recommended the Micro Finisher
plugin by UJAM which is free and let's add that to these long chords here.
Alright there we go and I'm gonna pick one of the presets. All right now let's
listen to those same chords and I'm gonna apply this preset bringing the
other instruments.
(Sanjay C music playing)
Now we've got rhythm that these chords.
So all we started with
were the simple chord sets that I gave you. You didn't have to make them up
yourself and all we did was just add some instruments and then one effect of
them so far that's it. Effectrix is another really cool thing to add. Let's
add this to our chords and see what it does.
It's just
some different type of movement to it and speaking of Movement that's the
other plugin I want to show you that's by Output. You've used two of the MIDI
files from my pack. One is playing the chords the same chords again with the
Arpeggiator and then the third file is just the melody and all I did was add
this nice little piano to it and drop in a beat.
I can't wait to see what you guys
come up with with the Aurora sound and MIDI pack by Sanjay C! Don't be afraid to try some
unconventional plugins with these two you never know what you're gonna get. I
hope you enjoy the Sanjay C Aurora sample pack and I hope it helps you Make The Music
You Love! If you have some ideas for my next sample pack leave it in the
comments below and then watch one of these videos, see
you later! :)