Dear Klaus, In spite of space problems, I think you will be happier overall with a 49 to 61 key keyboard, so I encourage you in this pursuit, assuming you can manage to find the room. (Mine is an M-Audio 61, and I sometimes run out of bass notes and end up writing things an octave higher and transposing them with a metatool.) I have no experience with the Alesis, but it has been a while since the elimination of the need for drivers to make USB keyboards function, so I don't anticipate problems. It should be plug and play. (Also, I don't think there's all that much difference from one brand to another in the same general price range, but this is just a superficial judgment.)
Good luck, Chuck On Sep 25, 2011, at 4:12 PM, Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre wrote: > A few days ago I asked about the M-Audio Keystation Mini 32 and got good > replies. > > I used to be good at skimming manuals for the important stuff, but I lost > some of the necessary control of my eye movements while having cataract > problems. Not whining, only realising that I m less good a reading texts than > I used to be. So I wanted to be sure I could find out about making a keyboard > controller work with Finale before I invested ever so small a sum. > > Hence I dusted off my old controller which appeared to be an Oxygen8. Also > found an old online manual, which scared me, as the driver should be placed > in an OMS folder, which I remember about, but haven’t seen for years. > However I also found a newer driver in form of an installer application. > Which worked with current software and also found out about opening a port > into Finale. Hurrah! > > So why asking again? Even if the 25 keys of the Oxygen8 lead to better > productivity than the alphanumeric keyboard as an entry tool in Speedy, then > I had to realise Chuck being right that 25 keys are insufficient. I found the > alphanumeric keyboard less than intuitive. And so are the octave shifts > necessitated by the instruments not fitting into two octaves from C through > C. So I need more keys. > > Most brass instruments don’t use more than 3 octaves in the bulk of my work, > but it takes 4 octaves to fit just about all brasses into any octave > allocation without changing that allocation all the time. Now the question is > about the best cut of quality, of small demands on space, and of course of > price. I cannot do realtime entries, so sensing key velocities is not a main > consideration. > > I found an Alesis Q49 at a fairly attractive price. Any experiences with that > model? > > Klaus > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale Chuck Israels 1310 NW Naito Parkway #807 Portland, OR 97209-316 land line: (971) 255-1167 cell phone: (360) 201-3434 <www.chuckisraels.com> <www.chuckisraelsjazz.com> _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
