About

My name is Ruben, and I am a 32-year-old guy who absolutely loves music. I have been playing piano since I was 5. I graduated from CSU Bakersfield with a BA in Music Education with an emphasis in Vocal Performance (2015), I am married to my beautiful wife, Tori; I have a precious little 3-year-old named Julia, and I support myself fully by teaching music at my studio, playing in my band La Marcha Sound, and creating content on my YouTube channel, HIFIMIDI. My experience with sample libraries and MIDI programming started back in 2001 when my dad bought me my first synthesizer/workstation keyboard--the Yamaha Motif 8. I spent hours and hours every day going through its sounds and trying to replicate the sounds of songs I heard. One day I decided to record the musical "Evita." I showed the recording to my drama teacher, who could not believe that I had just made this music. After that, I was hooked on samples. I later went on to MIDI-orchestrate entire musicals such as You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Seussical, Les Miserables, Jekyll & Hyde, and many others. This experience playing other instruments parts and recording them led me to my two favorite hobbies: music composition and music sofware. I now have around 17,000 followers on YouTube and partnerships with many of my favorite software and hardware companies. I am excited about the future.

ABOUT HIFIMIDI

What is MIDI?

Although it's likely you are already familiar with what MIDI is since you are visiting this site, I will still describe it as best as I can.

MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a computer language that allows data from a MIDI device, such as a keyboard, to communicate with some type of music software on a computer. It was invented in 1983 and has since been used for countless musical applications including music notation, live performance, and recording sampled or synthesized instruments.

In the last few years, MIDI programming has been growing in popularity due to the ever increasing realism of virtual instruments.

What is a Sample Library?

As the name suggests, a sample libaries is a library of samples (audio recording) of a certain instrument.

In its most basic form, a sample libary of, let's say, a piano will contain a recording of each one of its 88 keys. These recordings are then organized into a file, which are then programmed to be triggered or activated by a certain command (usually a MIDI keyboard key or pad).

Today's sample libraries are controlled by sophisticated engines (host software) that help access the samples--which nowadays include many dynamics layers, articulations, and timbres--in an efficient and highly customizable manner.

ABOUT HIFIMIDI

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