Musical Keyboards?

applemaster

I am thinking about buying a musical keyboard to hook up to my iMac. Does anyone have any reccomendations? It would just be for personal use, so it would be nothing too fancy.



I would like to use it with Finale 2000. (I have gotten quite used to Finale Notepad) How would that work? Do the music keyboards connect through USB? firewire?



Will Finale write the music out for me that I play? (because that would be really cool)



I'm kinda a newbie at this, so go easy :-)

nebagakid

well, i have a midi keyboard hooked up to my mac through a USB MIDI-Sport thang....but it does not do anything.... it has communicatoin, i am sure of it...but i do not have an application that will utilize it correctly



ahhhh!!@@

sizzle chest

You can get some "home" keyboards that have a USB computer interface for MIDI, or you can buy a regular MIDI keyboard and a cheap USB MIDI interface ($40 or so).

naplander

my best advice to you is to get a USB midi interface and get yourself a cheap synth.



buy second hand and you could get something good for around $250. try a korg n5 or yamaha cs1x. You will be gratefull for all the extras that come with a synth, rather than just a controller keyboard.



I am not familiar with finale, but I recommend you look at logic audio silver (which is pretty cheap and fully featured), but setting up MIDI should be easy with any MIDI aware app.



I would keep away from home keyboards, as most of the sounds are part of the General MIDI spec - which is found in quicktime.



OMS is what you will need to use aswell - to facilitate this communication - but that will come with any usb-midi interface you get.



I use Logic Audio with a emagic MT4 usb interface, not the cheapest - but it allows me to avoid using OMS.



check



<a href="http://www.emagic.de"; target="_blank">http://www.emagic.de</a>;

<a href="http://www.opcode.com"; target="_blank">http://www.opcode.com</a>;

<a href="http://www.motu.com"; target="_blank">http://www.motu.com</a>;

cdhostage

Finale 2002 is undoubtedly the besxt software ever written. I love using it for my Music Theory and Basic Composition classes.

applemaster

Thanks for all the help! I'll see what I can find.

composer

I know I'm late to join in the fray:



Inexpensive solutions include getting a cheap (even consumer synths have MIDI) synth with at least 60 keys, and a USB MIDI interface - I have a MIDIMAN Midisport. Works great.



Personally I find Sibelius incredibly easy to use. Much better than Finale in my opinion, and you don't have to pay for upgrades! In addition, if you just want to do some sequencing, try Pro Tools free.