Shopping for Midi
Mike,
First you'll need to purchase a MIDI interface. I recommend ECE's
interface. It's inexpensive and well designed. Then, you'll need a
sequencer, so that you can record you music into your Amiga and manipulate
it through editing, effects processing, etc.
There are many sequencers available for the Amiga. Each one is
designed from a unique perspective, so you choice will greatly depend on
your musical backgraound, electronics background and general style of
composing.
I, of course, wholeheartedly recommend Bars&Pipes, not just because I
own the company that published, but because I truly beleive that it will
provide you with more power and flexibility than any other Amiga music
package. Bars&Pipes takes a unique graphical approach to composition,
allowing you to actually see and manipulate your music in real-time. Tools
and Accessories within the program allow you to do things such as
arpeggiate, modulate, quantize, harmonize, echo, split the keyboard and
invert chord changes simply by moving a slider. It also contains a simple,
but powerful interface which allows you to graphically alter your music on
a piano roll or grand staff.
In any event, I could go on forever. But here are some inportant
things to consider:
What is the publisher's tech support policy?
Is the company still around to support the product?
Is the company committed to improving the product?
I bring these up becuase there is a certain music software publisher
that truly is out of business, a sad situation for both the programmer that
worked so hard on the project and all the users our there who don't have a
prayer as far as getting any bug fixes and upgrades are concerned.
/exit Ooop!