Greg,
Let's do the 'Beginners' thing, okay?

First, Yes, Music Creator 5 *IS* a sequencer, and it is also an audio recorder. It's what we call a DAW, or Digital Audio Workstation.

Quote:

I have some songs that I've written on paper, and I want to get a tune into MIDI form.



What I assume you mean by that is that you would like a synthesizer of some sort or another, in this case, most likely your TTS-1, to be able to play certain parts of your song for you, and you would like to be able to add a melody via the Keyrig that you have.

The questions, and the subsequent answers for it, will help you get there. However, there are many questions. I'll ask the first, and give you an answer to that, and where we go from there is up to you.

1. Is the music you have on paper a 'finished product' or is it more like a sketch? When I say that, what I mean is do you have a score already written for specific instruments, or just a chord progression and a melody idea?

Answer 1. Band In A Box is your ultimate sketch tool, because if you know the chords you want, you can easily type them in, select an appropriate backing track, and press Play. In a second or two, you will have a complete backing track for your song. At that point, that backing track can be saved and exported to Music Creator 5. From there, you can record each track as an audio track, and then mix them down to your final product.

On the other hand, if you've written your sheet music for a very specific set of notes, then it would be easier to put it directly into Music Creator 5. You will need to play in, or mouse in, the exact notes at the exact time location you want.

Example of each. If I am doing a generic jazz waltz version of Henry Mancini's "Charade", I could use Band In A Box to lay down the backing tracks I wanted, automatically creating the drums, bass, piano, guitar and strings part for me, and then move it to MC5 where I would lay down my melody tracks, then record all to audio, edit, and mix. However, if I were to want to do Mancini's 'Peter Gunn", that has a VERY specific bass line that Band In A Box will not 'natively' reproduce (although you could write a style for Peter Gunn.) Hence, to get the bass line for Peter Gunn, I would need to manually enter the bass line, or I could play it from the keyboard. However, I may be able to use a jazz drum pattern from BIAB, so I could do both, import directly from BIAB, and write my own bass line.

If I am writing symphonic music, I would most likely have to use MC5 to put in everything in, from the drums, the basses, strings, pianos, etc., since BIAB wouldn't do that too well, especially for classical music.

So, first question is, what kind of stuff do you have written down?

Gary

I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!