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Probably both.  I'll forward your message and leave shadows in those forums, Brain.  Sorry, but I'm not musically inclined.

Hey...

Here's my recommendations and also some questions!

I use the following music software in my life as a music teacher, conductor, arranger, performer:

Recording: MOTU 828 firewire with Digital Performer (OS 9 still for now)
Arranging: Finale 2003 (Classic until I get Sibelius 2 for X!)
Music Scanning: Smartscore 2 (OS 9 only) w/ UMAX FW scanner
MIDI: USB Midisport 2x2 to Kurzweil pc88mx

As you can tell, I do all my music stuff in OS 9, which is the ONLY time I do OS 9!  I have otherwise fully gone to Jaguar, and that's where I'd prefer to be full time! Once I get Sibelius, I'll dump finale, and Sibelius comes with a corrolary program to Smartscore, also DP is out for X now, it's just a question of $$. 

My question is about MIDI setup in X - I'm befuddled.  I mean, I really, really do have a good handle on the OS except for being UNIX-challenged.  I'm all about the GUI, cause I have to get stuff done.  I've figured out how to have X recognize my Midisport and Kurzweil, and I've got the "cables" hooked up right, but can't get Quicktime 6 to recognize it as a playback option!  Anyone know about this?

Hope this is helpful stuff... Be happy to answer any other questions.

KF

BTW - Band in a Box is a great program for laying tracks quickly with very little learning curve: put in your chord progression (jazz fakebook style), write a melody, choose a style (many, many, many to choose from - more than a cheap K-Mart keyboard!) and click go!

...is if it's possible to have the sound come out of the computer's speakers, or if you have to send the signal back to the keyboard and then out from there?

Well, yes and no.  You can use Quicktime as your MIDI instrument and that will allow you to play thru your computer's speakers.  However, you will only hear the sounds Quicktime is capable of creating, which are pretty primitive compared to most decent general-midi devices of recent make.  Otherwise, you need to set your keyboard to receive the general midi signal and use the output from that. 

KF

Thanks, Kirk!

This is all what I wanted to read about, but like what would be my main program? Is Reason 2.0 something I would do MIDI recording in, or do I have to learn one of the monsters like MOTU or the others? I don't want to go the DigiDesign route.

MA magazine always has stuff about musicians and Macs. I thought maybe a music topic would be a good idea.

Heya, Brain. I use a Roland HP-2900g, a MOTU Fastlane USB, Finale 2000, and Cakewalk Metro SE, all in Mac OS 9. Unfortunately, I've yet to find a decent consumer solution to MIDI and basic audio recording, such as a Cakewalk-esque type program. I have otherwise switched to Jaguar save for Unreal Tournament (which I still get my tail kicked by the boys at MA2 no matter what OS I use) and Myth II (which is getting Carbonized in three days!).

All I want is a simple sequencer, one that has some basic visual representation of the data, along with the actual code. I find it easier oftentimes to just go straight to the code when adding in different controllers like reverb, panning, volume and such.

If anyone knows of a cheap, sub-$100 solution for this, I'm all ears. Too bad Coda is dragging their tailskies with a Carbonized Finale. I'd switch to Sibelius, but no one else in my organization uses it.

This is all what I wanted to read about, but like what would be my main program? Is Reason 2.0 something I would do MIDI recording in, or do I have to learn one of the monsters like MOTU or the others? I don't want to go the DigiDesign route.

Reason gives you the poor mans route to quality software (Reason just keeps getting better each update) seeing its a soft sampler, sequencer, synth, DSPs all in one. With reason all you need is a Midi Controller, preferable a 49 key or better keyboard, so you can skip out on the thousands you can break just to get a quality sound bank, mixer, controller, timepiece, sequencer app etc. Its a nice introductory piece of software so you can learn the basics of music before breaking two months rent on hardware with all the headaches of learning midi. Also Reason's Rewire means you can always link to Cubase, and CUbase can link to other soft synths, sound banks, recorded audio etc.  Reason tho' isn't so hot for mastering vocals etc because loading in each vocal into a sampler is cumbersome and you'll have to still do your recording and editing in another app. Reason also sorta gears its self towards the cheap techno crowd, which is also a down point. The new synth in Reason 2 is worthless to me. But really I've been able to push Reason to its limits, even creating a quick punk song using all live instrumentation (even more amazing since I can't play the guitar worth a damn)

Really for any beginner, Reason is 2nd to none. Digital Performer is daunghting to learn thanks mediorce design (although its incredibly powerful) and the over all evilness Midi pocesses. I started by learning Digital Performer in classes but just went straight to Reason. Only thing is Reason sounds slightly "thin" and over all its synth capabilities are only so-so and same for its DSPs (Although next update will fix some gripes about DSPs). The softsampler tho is excellent since I can pull sounds off AKAI CDs and just make my own patches so I'm not limited to just Reason's sound bank. Man I wish I could afford Absynth, so I could connect to Cubase and connect Reason by rewire.

Digital Music is an expensive hobby but Reason helps

Sorry for letting this thread drift. Nice work, Rob. The piano sounds great. I come from the jazz world, so I'm mostly interested in simulating a piano, and then move on to synth sounds.

So a Roland with a bunch a keys, a USB MIDI controller, and maybe Reason2, would be a good way to get started? Did I leave anything out?