MIDI Recording
You can record SonicMood's MIDI
instrument sounds in a MIDI-format file.
In the "MIDI Recording" window, click the "record file" or "append file" button to select a file for the recording. You can append SonicMood sounds to another MIDI file created by SonicMood, but it's not recommended that you append to a MIDI file created by another program.
Once you've selected a file, its name will be displayed in the "Record File Name" area and the "record" (or "append") button will be enabled. Click the button to start recording.
Upon clicking the "record" (or "append") button, a "recording" message will flash and the button caption will change to "pause". Clicking the button again will pause the recording and the caption will change to "resume". You can also toggle between pause and resume by pressing ⌘R. If you pause SonicMood (by pressing the spacebar, for example) the recording will also pause unless you have unchecked "Pause MIDI recording if SonicMood is paused" on the "General" page of the Preferences window.
Below the "recording" message is the elapsed time of the recording in "hh:mm:ss" format. You can change to a different Mood if you like, and the recording will continue with that Mood.
You can specify a recording length by setting values in the "Record length" fields (you can do this anytime). When the indicated elapsed time reaches the record length value, the recording will end (not pause). The "Record length" is remembered thru the current SonicMood session. A "Record length" of 00:00:00 implies continuous recording; the recording will only end when you press "stop recording".
If you close the "MIDI Recording" window, the recording will continue. You must press the "stop recording" button to save and end the recording. If you quit SonicMood the recording WILL be saved.
MIDI files are generally quite compact compared to, say, MP3 files. An average MIDI recording consumes approximately 1,000 bytes per minute of recording. An MP3 file, recording at 128 kbps, uses around 1,000 times as much space or roughly 1 MB per minute.
The MIDI (.mid) file that's created can be played using the Quicktime Player.app that's in the Applications folder. You can also drag & drop the file onto iTunes and iTunes will play it. To convert the file to MP3 format (to play on an iPod, for example), you can use iTunes (works with v7.0.2 and probably later versions as well). Assuming the MIDI file is already in the iTunes playlist, select it and click "Convert Selection to MP3" from the "Advanced" menu.