Mistered 4111,
It seems you already have rather excellent
equipment. I would recommend you use
your 9000 to play midi files, and only if
that doesn't suite your needs as far as
sound and convenience, go to a laptop.
Whether you go with the 9000 or laptop, I would also suggest to transfer all your
Midi files to audio CD-Rs, and use a CD
player as your backup.(CD-RWs would be even better, if you can find a CD player that will play CD-RWs).

Another option for backup is the Nomad MP3 player/recorder which has an internal hard drive.

I have used midi files converted to
audio CD-Rs with Cakewalk using the Roland
VSC DXi plugin, and have had excellent
results.(My CD player unfortunately doesn't play CD-RWs).
I agree with the others, forget MD.
Hopefully,very soon the price of portable DVD players with display, will drop enough to replace CD players. Imagine all the backup .wav
or .mp3 files you could put on a DVD-R/RW.
I hope portable DVD manufacturers make something affordable and practical with the musician in mind(such as remote control, and
changing keys without changing speed, etc.).

To add another ingredient to the mix,I would like to add that I use my LT with MidiNotate where I store all of my midi's I use for vocals. Since I have to read some of the music and have not memorized all of the lyrics,I simply call up the tune from my LT and "VOILA", there is the sheet music arranged as a lead sheet with the lyrics. With the pages flipping as the music plays.
I have a choice of playing the file through the LT and into my Technics KN7000,or muting the line in and synching my MidiNotate to the same midi track saved on the SD of my KB. As mentioned,this always gives me better sound quality. I admit this takes a little pre-planning,but in my situation I can plan ahead what I will be playing.
I tried using the Yamaha XG Softsynth but it wants to conflict with my MidiNotate. As far as simply playing along with Midi's, the SD cards provide great storage as well as the ability to make any playlists I want and play them as a medley or single.

If anyone has any ideas about a superior softsynth that doesn't have to be exclusive, I would like to know about it.
Thanks
Bernie

Bernie...

How do you enter the lyrics? Is the process intuitive/user friendly? Similar to Band-In-A-Box/PowerTracks?

I don't use minidisc's myself - I'm a floppy disc shuffler on a PSR2000 - but I've worked with a number of cabaret artists who have their (orchestral / midifile) backing tracks on Minidisc. They use it as nothing more or less than a replacement for cassettes, with the advantage of better sound quality, random access and named tracks. I appreciate that the sound quality can only be considered equivalent to mp3, and under studio conditions you can discern differences, but in the places I play such differences are indiscernable, and nothing compared to the sometimes shocking variation in quality of the backing tracks used.

I would agree that minidisc's time has probably gone; it never really caught on the way Sony would have liked and the cheapness of CD burners and the availability of very portable and lightweight mp3 players means that for a lot of users there are now better / cheaper / smaller options available.

Glenn,

Just go to the tool bar and click on the "object button," select "add lyrics," click under the note you want to add the lyrics to and type it in. Hit tab to go to the next note. Really very simple to do.

Cass,

I'm not familiar with MD's and don't use CD's. I remix my midis on my laptop and transfer them to the harddrive on my computer using a floppy disk.

A laptop is fine for checking out how a midi sounds when remixing, but just doesn't sound good for any performance, not even if the music is on a cd. The only way, imho, is to load and play the music through the keyboard if you want a quality sound. Through the keyboard, you can use the quality keyboard instrument sounds which are far superior to the midi instruments. I believe the audience will judge me by the sound they hear, and they deserve the best quality sound I can give them.

Peter