MIDI is very powerful because you can edit every note, sound, rhythm, patch, meter, etc. without any artifacts.

It looks like you are in good hands here Beep so I won't bother adding to anything here, I'd only be repeating the other threads.

But I will welcome you to the world of MIDI, something I've been doing for many, many years. MIDI is still my bread and butter, so to speak, as you have already heard :-)

@Dave... I guess I'm probably overstating my lack of knowledge. I've got a good handle of what it is and how it works... I'm just getting tripped up by some of the more advanced settings I guess. I'm going to have to do what I did last summer/fall with using audio in Sonar. Stop reading and actually put something together. Usually I come out the other end with a better foundation and the manuals start making more sense. Cheers.

@Jonesey... I actually usually record at 96khz/24bit but the sample projects had switched the default settings on me. Thanks for reminding me about the X1 TTS tut (I do have X1 Power). I had read through it at one point but forget it was there so I'll take another look. Cheers.

@synkro... Hiya. I'm gonna try to get something put together in the next couple weeks so you'll have to stop in the songs forum to critique it. I think I'm in love with the in channel arpeggiator. :-)

@Frostysnake... I went for about 17 years the same way. I avoided all theory because I didn't want to "taint" my style/creativity. I came up with some crazy stuff over that time. Then I started getting asked to play more traditional stuff professionally and a lot of it was picking stuff up live on the fly. I had a hard time keeping up as I had always learned stuff on my own before taking any material live. I had noticed a lot of scales I thought I had come up with on my own were very similar to scales in my various scale books. I had always seen a bit of a pattern in my stuff that kind of locked together on the fretboard so pulled out some chart paper and mapped out what I knew then extrapolated the patterns. Lo and behold when I cross referenced it with some theory books I had duplicated diatonic modal theory exactly. lol

From that point forward I dug in and applied it to all 12 keys, learned all the basic chords and hammered out a practice regimen. At first it did actually stifle my gonzo creativity a bit and my stuff started sounding rather generic but after I got more comfortable with it all I had a lot more power over my stuff and I was able to move back into my old style... it was just easier to play and sounded better. My improvisational skills went through the roof. 

After all that translating it to a piano keyboard was very simple. In terms of theory the guitar is much much harder IMO.

Anyway, the point is if you ever want some tips let me know. It's good practice for me and I've been neglecting that stuff because of all the studio cramming I'm doing. Cheers.

Yeah, after this thread and sleeping on it I think my only real problem is figuring out the routing like you've described. That and Drum Maps. I think I might have an easier time with the Drum Maps and it's something I'll probably need very soon. I'll keep poking at the routing stuff to see what clicks. As I said I can probably work around most of it for now but not knowing bothers me and considering I'd like to be at a pro level one day a massive knowledge gap on something so crucial in modern production is... well... not very professional. 

I'll get it though. I have to remind myself that before last spring MIDI might as well have been quantum physics to me. Now it seems I'm just getting tripped up on the finer points.

Cheers and thanks again, guys. You always get my brain moving in the right direction.

I did do a quick read through of that section a while back but again it was kind of messing me up so I moved on. That was back when I was tearing down my rig every night so I probably wasn't poking through it like I'm doing with things now. It is very nice having all my gear set up and ready to go. I also don't have people bugging me all the time anymore either. Getting far more learning done now. I just hope it all leads to a massive pile of music. I'd like to be able to put together at least a few albums a year once I get going.

Cheers.