My little studio

Hi you guys, wanted to tell you I've been doing some upgrading, I finally invested in a MIDI/USB cable and adapter, so I could connect my keyboards to a computer and make use of the possibilities that gives.

I decided to get the learning pack of Synthesia, so now I can play MIDI songs and the program stops until I press the right keys. It simply isn't enough for me to play from sheets or PDF-files on the screen. I have to take advantage of the digital world, like those MIDI-files which you can always play in a MIDI-player or a notation program to know how the music is supposed to sound.

The programmer of Synthesia put this funny video on YouTube, when he was testing a lighted keyboard. An unexpected guest wanted to take part in the experiment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoAl0r5Xgkc

Beautiful cat and hilarious video

I've been wondering about a midi cable, but I can record off the headphone outlet (I have a splitter on it), and my PC isn't very close to my keyboard, so It's a little hard to see the screen when I'm at the piano. A little annoying at times, when I just want to play a few bars off a sheet I see, but am too cheep to print it out just to test, then I have to run back and forth, see a few notes, play them and so forth. But without having the screen right next to the piano (which isn't feasible in my office), there really aren't all that many options. One of these days I'll have to hook up one of my extra monitors to this PC as a double, and put that next to the piano I guess.

Yeah it can sometimes be hard to find the right solution for all our equipment. The main reason I don't use paper sheets so much is that I tend to lose them, besides I don't want to gather a lot of paper. Regarding printing costs, it can be a considerable sum of money if you are printing a lot. Might be a better idea to buy note books in some cases.

I just have my keyboards on normal desks and put the computer behind. It's a bad setup, but I'm trying to think of a better way. It would have to be a double or triple adjustable stand, with a small adjustable shelf for a laptop, which I could lower or bring higher.

I have been thinking (but been too busy to actually do it) about putting an extra monitor right behind and above my piano. I just had a fatal crash on my main computer, so am working off an old dog with only one out on the card, but most computers nowadays have 2 outs, in which case you just need to "drag" the sheet (or program) to the monitor on your keyboard when you want to watch it there. In case you have only 1 out, there are switch boxes for monitor cables as well.
Anyway, one of these days..........