Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!helios!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!mips!samsung!think.com!mintaka!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!uge
From: uge@athena.mit.edu (Eugene A Beidl)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Computer
Keywords: computer midi
Message-ID: <1991Apr17.215648.24836@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 17 Apr 91 21:56:48 GMT
References: <1593@babcock.cerc.wvu.wvnet.edu>
Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 33

In article <1593@babcock.cerc.wvu.wvnet.edu>, abmg@cathedral.cerc.wvu.wvnet.edu (Aliasghar Babadi) writes:
|> Hi,
|> 
|> 	I would like to know what is the best available computer and software 
|> for composing and editing music. I like to connect my keyboard to a computer
|> and play something and save the music and later look at the written form of
|> the music on the screen and edit some part and replay the whole or part of it.
|> record the voice of more than one instrument on top of each other. Thank you
|> for your help.


The proverbial "What's best?" question should really be "What's best for me?"
since budget contraints, space constraints and even time constraints limit
your choices.  In my opinion, the Mac series computers have the best software
support for musical applications and are readily adaptable for hardware stuff
also.  The graphical interface is superb.  The cost of the computer is enormous
since Apple has no like competition.  Performer is probably the best (again,
in my opinion) software sequencer for this machine.

The IBM world is good, but musical notation (i.e. little black dots) is
horribly lacking.  This will probably change within the next year since that
market is growing and the 386 machines are everywhere and quite fast.  Cakewalk
and Sequencer Plus Gold are the current best sequencers for this type, although
neither has notation yet.  

I've heard the Amiga is good but know little about it.

I have a friend with an Atari and, although you can't use it for much else,
it is well suited for music.  Notator is the best for this and I like it as the
BEST sequencer for ANY computer even if it is only available for the Atari.

--Eugene A. Beidl
--uge@athena.mit.edu