[QUOTE]Originally posted by jedi:
[B]Hi Guy`s,

Scott , thanks for the link , I`ll check it out !!

Gary , Donny , Dennis & Diki , Thank you for your input.
The lap top ( note book ) idea is something to think about. At some point I will be getting a Mac-Book or MB Pro , but not to use as just an electronic music book , although it is a great idea , but how do or would you turn the page so to speak , if you had to.

Please keep in mind , that the music stand that comes with the KB is probably what I will end up using , it just would have been neat to make up your own music finder or song book of the songs you actually play !
And on the right KB maybe free up some ram in the process.

I really appreciate all the help I have been receiving and want to thank you again for ALL the help and advice you have given me. Without a decent music store around , you guy`s have sure helped a ton !!

It seems , at least at the rate I`m going , that the Tyros 4 will be on the market before I make my mind up

But that`s cool , like Donny said in another post , "it`s the person who buy`s for home use that takes the biggest hit " ( or to that effect ) meaning that by not giging there really is no why to recoup the cost , so that is why I`m just getting as much info as possible and trying to cover all my bases and options.

So once again , you guy`s have helped BIG time , many thanks !!

Take care,
Gary 

Hi Guy`s,

Scott , thanks for the link , I`ll check it out !!

Gary , Donny , Dennis & Diki , Thank you for your input.
The lap top ( note book ) idea is something to think about. At some point I will be getting a Mac-Book or MB Pro , but not to use as just an electronic music book , although it is a great idea , but how do or would you turn the page so to speak , if you had to.

Please keep in mind , that the music stand that comes with the KB is probably what I will end up using , it just would have been neat to make up your own music finder or song book of the songs you actually play !
And on the right KB maybe free up some ram in the process.

I really appreciate all the help I have been receiving and want to thank you again for ALL the help and advice you have given me. Without a decent music store around , you guy`s have sure helped a ton !!

It seems , at least at the rate I`m going , that the Tyros 4 will be on the market before I make my mind up

But that`s cool , like Donny said in another post , "it`s the person who buy`s for home use that takes the biggest hit " ( or to that effect ) meaning that by not giging there really is no why to recoup the cost , so that is why I`m just getting as much info as possible and trying to cover all my bases and options.

So once again , you guy`s have helped BIG time , many thanks !!

Take care,
Gary 

Hi Guy`s,

Scott , thanks for the link , I`ll check it out !!

Gary , Donny , Dennis & Diki , Thank you for your input.
The lap top ( note book ) idea is something to think about. At some point I will be getting a Mac-Book or MB Pro , but not to use as just an electronic music book , although it is a great idea , but how do or would you turn the page so to speak , if you had to.

Please keep in mind , that the music stand that comes with the KB is probably what I will end up using , it just would have been neat to make up your own music finder or song book of the songs you actually play !
And on the right KB maybe free up some ram in the process.

I really appreciate all the help I have been receiving and want to thank you again for ALL the help and advice you have given me. Without a decent music store around , you guy`s have sure helped a ton !!

It seems , at least at the rate I`m going , that the Tyros 4 will be on the market before I make my mind up

But that`s cool , like Donny said in another post , "it`s the person who buy`s for home use that takes the biggest hit " ( or to that effect ) meaning that by not giging there really is no why to recoup the cost , so that is why I`m just getting as much info as possible and trying to cover all my bases and options.

So once again , you guy`s have helped BIG time , many thanks !!

Take care,
Gary 

Yeah, I agree with you Diki, It seems the tool is already there, and BMP's give very good resolution as they are uncompressed. Its certainly a method I would investigate further before buying either a laptop or an MPP. I bought the MPP simply because the G70 can't and neither can the PA2x.
Dennis

Sorry, just to add the above post..The only drawback MIGHT be the screen size available on the E80, although from what I have seen it is bigger than most.

jedi

I just scanned your posts. The thing that caught my eye was about using a laptop on it's side vs mpp etc.

If you look at the virtmus info there are footswitches for turning pages forward and backward. I don't think the MPP has that feature.

As far as using virtmus and turning a laptop on it's side using a good music stand, what's the dif between that and having a MMP on a stand? Outside of being a few inches wider. As far as playing mp3's, I have seed posts where it doesn't work the way it's supposed to and the company admits there is no fix for it.

Doing all this in the screen of your keyboard would be great, but I think it won't happen, and if it does what happens later if you want to change over to another brand that doesn't have it.

With virtmus you can do all the stuff MPP can do pretty much and you can always switch to MPP later because you'll be saving the files as jpeg or png or whatever and MPP will take those.


I personally find it hard to want to spend $900+ on MPP being that it's non-standard, what if they go the way of betamax videos?

A good laptop is able to do so many more functions such as supposing you want to start using VST's like truepianos, or any of the other software sounds that sound absolutely life like now as compared to the hardware arrangers which are pretty good, but when it comes to some of the most important sounds, it's no cigar.

Just a few ideas for thought.


t

First , how did I post the same thing 4 times

Anyway thanks for the tips !!

Later ,
Gary 

Scott,
yes the MPP has a footswitch, plus you can physically annotate scores with whatever instructions you want to place on the page,with a stylus or a finger.. you can have look ahead, which shows the start of the next page, you can have a section highlighted, just like using a highlighter pen on real paper, you can place additional notes/ markers/symbols on the staves, you can automatically return to a previous section instead of going forward, in the case of repeats/da capos etc for example. To turn a page is a simple tap on the right side of the screen with a finger anywhere, and the left for going back or use a footpedal. All of score editing tools are post scanning and allow pretty much the same freedoms you have when using a printed sheet..you can transpose a score (as long as its ins the FH format. The MPP is TOTALLY different from laptop in that you can place it on an existing music stand just like a single sheet of music.This is something a laptop cannot do.
I am not extolling the MPP over a laptop or vice-versa, I have used both so I reckon I can give a balanced view of both..They are both excellent tools doing similar things in different ways. As I mentioned in an earlier post, he already has the capability on his E80 to view notation info and turn pages etc etc. If the screen size on the E80 is an issue then there are other alternatives.

Dennis

The MPP turns pages either with a tap on the screen or a footpedal.
Bernie

Dennis,

Any laptop with a scrolling wheel mouse has the ability to slowly scroll down the page and nearly any speed you select. And, as for playing the keyboard with both hands, most of us use all the other items at our disposal on the keyboard such as the pitch bend, registration buttons, variations, fills, intros, endings, breaks, all of which require that you take a hand off the keyboard to operate. Yes, you can set up a foot pedal to do all those things, something with 10 switches that are so close together that you need wingtips to hit the right switch, and you have to constantly be looking at where your foot is positioned and not your audience.

Those of that use a laptop on a daily basis DO NOT have a problem with switching between lyrics displays, midi files, MP3s or any other feature on the fly while playing the keyboard. And, for the first two years I used a laptop in my performances I had a 5-year-old, used laptop that performed flawlessly nearly every day of the week. And, it was a relatively slow machine, small hard drive, and not much memory, but for the $300 it cost at the Computer Show at the Maryland State Fairgrounds, I think it was a bargain. My Dell cost me a whopping $499 including freight and it has all the bells and whistles. My widescreen Compaq that has a bit lower profile and more features than my desktop was $699, but then I got a $100 rebate, which brought the bottom line down to $599.

The secret to making the laptop work for you is the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen, which allows you to quickly move from one folder to another, thereby allowing you to keep the Lyrics/SheetMusic folder open along with a MIDI player and MP3 Player, yet still not adversely effect the computer's speed.

As for the touch screen V/S the mouse, if I had to reach across the keyboard to touch the screen in order to make things work it would really be noticed by my audiences. And, it would likely produce significant dead time between songs, which is something I try very hard to eliminate. With the combination of the laptop, registrations and MFD you can be ready to play the next song as soon as the first is finished.

This system works well for me and a significant number of forum members. It's by no means a panacea, but it is far more effecient than using books filled to capacity with sheet music, then having to leaf through those pages to find the right one. With the laptop, the lyrics/sheet music are in a single folder, all listed alphabetically, and it takes less than 2 seconds to select and open the pages for the next song.

Finally, using the same laptop, I just typed this message while listening to a third-party style file using a program downloaded free from Michael Bedesem. I don't think you can do that with the MPP.

Cheers,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy