Cakewalk

I installed Cakewalk on my Vista partition last week. This evening I spent some time trying to make some music. Things went well after I found the manual that came with the software. Good thing I didn't throw that away! I wouldn't have been able to do anything without it. Searching for answers online can be helpful, but a well-crafted paper reference will trump it every time. I did go searching for one thing online though--how to play MIDI audio through regular computer output rather than through MIDI. I found that answer here at the techguy forums.

Plugging a computer in to a keyboard is something I always dreamed about as a kid, but actually making something that passes as music still takes some considerable time, and a composer I am not. Unfortunately, it seems that trying to do this stuff in Linux is a bridge too far. There are very few MIDI programs, and even fewer MIDI interfaces for Linux. That's another thing that I have to keep Windows around for. I'm not really much of a gamer, but I still like to play pinball from time to time.