After my brief chat with Kremitmusic in my earlier post, I realized what a total noob I am at this stuff. So, I went to B&N and got the book, MIDI Power 2nd Ed. by Robert Guerin. Very interesting; I'm about 1/3 the way through it now. I am at total loss as to which interface, programs and synths I need at this point. Too many choices!
The idea shaping in my mind is this...I'd really like to get good at MIDI...with a little recording twist, of course. I can play the piano fairly decent, and my brother just moved and gave me his large Yamaha Digital Piano. (I was thinking to use this as the controller because the weighted action is very nice to play.)
Once I get the notes in, the goal would be to copy and paste, and generally massage portions of the tracks so I had an entire ensamble worth of music notes there. Then, I'd like to compile it "in my computer" i.e. purchase some kind of soft synth or modeling program that would let me build an orchestra or symphony right from my computer. Then I could do one of two things - send MIDI files to people like my Dad who has the Yamaha Disklavier, or record my own synths playing the song and master it to CD for "normal people" who just want to listen to an instrumental song.
What I'm wondering is...are laptops really powerful enough now to do this stuff w/out crashing or overheating?
Are the soft synths good enough at this point, or will I have to purchase external rack-mount synths to get the instrument sounds to be convincing? My thinking is scrap the laptop idea if I am going to have to purchase external hardware at some point anyway. But the idea of a small, take anywhere unit does have its appeal!
And lastly...anywhere else (linky?) that I can go ask these questions if I'm boring people here to death?
Thanks for any thoughts from current users / gear heads.
Jed
The idea shaping in my mind is this...I'd really like to get good at MIDI...with a little recording twist, of course. I can play the piano fairly decent, and my brother just moved and gave me his large Yamaha Digital Piano. (I was thinking to use this as the controller because the weighted action is very nice to play.)
Once I get the notes in, the goal would be to copy and paste, and generally massage portions of the tracks so I had an entire ensamble worth of music notes there. Then, I'd like to compile it "in my computer" i.e. purchase some kind of soft synth or modeling program that would let me build an orchestra or symphony right from my computer. Then I could do one of two things - send MIDI files to people like my Dad who has the Yamaha Disklavier, or record my own synths playing the song and master it to CD for "normal people" who just want to listen to an instrumental song.
What I'm wondering is...are laptops really powerful enough now to do this stuff w/out crashing or overheating?
Are the soft synths good enough at this point, or will I have to purchase external rack-mount synths to get the instrument sounds to be convincing? My thinking is scrap the laptop idea if I am going to have to purchase external hardware at some point anyway. But the idea of a small, take anywhere unit does have its appeal!
And lastly...anywhere else (linky?) that I can go ask these questions if I'm boring people here to death?
Thanks for any thoughts from current users / gear heads.
Jed
) with no real problems. At times I'd have to take the casing apart and remove the keyboard to expose the CPU to make sure it stayed cool, but that was because half the fans were knackered 
Only reason I bought it was because I was moving, so I sold my desktop and got it. That's long gone, though, and have been desktop for at least 3 years again.