Practical MIDI

A few columns back I told you about two friends of mine, Terry and Rich, who were once in my band but had branched off to do a MIDI-based duet act on their own. I told of how they were playing at a Holiday Inn when John Fogerty walked in and heard them doing some of his material. I also told how Terry invited John up on stage with them and he accepted. The story went on to say that on the second night of their two-night gig, Terry had brought along even more MIDI files when he learned that Fogerty would be staying overnight and would join them again on stage the following night.

That in itself was a pretty interesting story, at least in my mind. But if I may go back just a couple of years prior to that point in the story and give you a little background, it may make the rest of the story even more interesting.

Rich, Terry and I had a three-piece band that played more than a hundred twenty-five jobs a year and we were doing quite well when Terry got the itch to become a solo performer. Rich and I continued in the band with a replacement for Terry, while Terry embarked on his solo career. Keep in mind, this was before the advent of MIDI files to aid a solo performer’s efforts to sound like an entire band. Here’s how Terry did it.

Terry stopped over to my house one night and asked if I’d lay down a drum track for Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl.” I agreed and played my part of the song the same way the three of us had played it a couple of hundred times before as a band. Terry recorded that drum session and took the tape home where he had a second tape recorder. There he proceeded to play his bass guitar along to my drum track. This second layer was recorded on the second tape player. He then took that tape with him on one of his solo jobs and played live guitar along to the tape. He was thus able to play the same song the band had done, only without the other two members waiting at the end of the night with their hands out for their share of that night’s take. Even I could see the economic logic in a move like that.

A year or so later Terry had stumbled across a machine called a sequencer, which was just a machine that held digital samples of certain instruments. He found through experimentation that he could sequence three or four parts of a song, capture it on tape and take the tape to the job to play along with. This procedure was still a bit crude and risky. I noticed that Terry had brought along a backup cassette of his sequenced songs in case something were to happen to his master tape. This doesn’t even take into account the fact that the tape player could, and sometimes did, eat the tapes, producing live sounds similar to radio static. There had to be a better way.

Enter MIDI files. Terry soon learned that his sequences could be stored digitally and played back on the job with far less complications and breakdowns. He’d found a way to run his sequencer through his P.A. system and simply play along to that. A year or so later Rich dropped out of my band only to join Terry in the duo. It wasn’t long after that that John Fogerty came into the picture and really cemented their belief in the MIDI system. It also was the catalyst that got me to seriously consider looking into the MIDI procedure.

I had the advantage of learning from Terry’s struggles and was able to bypass the tape players, sequencers, and most of the trouble he’d encountered along the way. I went directly to a MIDI keyboard, which played my MIDI files through its processor, thus enabling me to play along on the guitar or the keyboard, allowing me to reap the monetary benefits of a solo performer. I left my six, five, four and three-piece bands behind me forever and never looked back. These days, when I’m not doing solo jobs, I play in a MIDI-based duo. Either one is just as satisfying to me and I can’t imagine myself back in a band these days with all the personality hassles, money splits, crowded stages or truckloads of equipment to haul and setup anymore.

I’ll take MIDI any day.

©2006 Bill Bernico for CYBERMIDI.com Downwind Publications