Speed Of Inputting Music, If you can't play a real-time keyboard, how's the fastest way Options

[Ricky Buchanan]

I am experienced with both computers and music, but not so much with the mix of both. Because of my disability I can't use a regular music keyboard to compose, and putting the notes in one-by-one with the mouse is a bit like pulling teeth! I do have a small keyboard - eKeys 37 - which I use to do note pitches and then use a programmed XKeys Desktop device to specifiy the note length, but it's awkward and slow.

I think what frustrates me most is that music entered like this with a mouse or the XKeys/eKeys combination has no extra "live" midi stuff like note velocity/etc. (I'm not sure of the terminology - sorry). So playing it back is a bit like listening to a robot, and very frustrating.

Is there any decent way of getting this information in so the computer can play it back and have it closer to the way it sounds in my head???

At the moment I'm using Sibelius mostly and Garage Band a bit (haven't really mastered that). I started off clasically trained so I'm used to notes and staves and such, not the MIDI type stuff, but I am willing to learn!

Best Regards,
Ricky
ATMac - http://atmac.org/ - Assistive Technology for Mac OS X Users

[jimdubpram]

One specific problem with GB is I want to enter a percussion sequence in software instruments then just have that repeat until I specify it to change... but there doesn't seem to be any way to turn software instrument sequences into loops except by exporting them as AIFF and going through all that crap. Did I miss something?



Record your percussion sequence. Then simply drag the created sequence out of the track and drop it onto your loop browser. GB will then create a loop of it and add it to your loop library.

One of the most useful "secrets' that I use is the keystroke ctrl/alt/g (then click your window), this will change loops that cannot be edited for pitch into ones that can.