Advice - Free Midi sequencing software

[Mark_h]

Went up in the loft today and rediscovered my old Yamaha keyboard. Back in the day I used to have it plugged into my Atari ST with some sequencing software (maybe Cu-base, can't remember).

Seems you can get USB-Midi interfaces for about £5 off ebay these days but having trouble sorting the wheat from the chaff for some free (or very cheap) sequencing software. Anyone got any recommendations?

Basic Midi in/out
Simple UI
Ideally all the tools to make bad playing sound slightly less bad
Ideally something to help me and the kids learn to play keyboard

Any pointers?

[tigersaw]

I bougtht a cheap usb midi interface and it was awful, there was a noticeable delay.
I ended up buying a midi card in the end.

[Spank86]

I'm pretty sure fallouts going to age some ideas. He's always mucking about with this stuff,

I've got a hooky copy of some software but its hideously complicated (which is why I downloaded it before shelling out).

[Mark_h]

My cheepie Chinese USB-Midi widget should turn up tomorrow. Any tips before I go and randomly download the first 20 year old midi sequencer package I can find?

[Spank86]

Last one I downloaded was "synthfont" but I didn't need to do a lot with it so can't say how complete it is.

(that one was free)

[muzikill]

Reaper.

[Fallout]

I'm pretty sure fallouts going to age some ideas. He's always mucking about with this stuff

Nope. All my music is software based. Never dabbled with midi. Midi = hardware = more and more and more hardware for cooler and cooler stuff = many thousands of pounds.

[Spank86]

It all looks badass though!

[Fallout]

Yep. I know a few people with crazy kit. All their music is crap though. The reason why I've stuck with my medieval setup is it just works and it's so simple. I don't spend 3 hours programming synths and rerouting sounds through stacks of hardware looking for that perfect sound. People seem to do that at the expense of experimenting with the actual composition. For every melody they've actually tried in that time I've probably tried 100 searching for the hook.

It's fine if you're a really passionate composer who spends all day in the studio and never gets bored. I have about an hour at a time to throw at music before I run out of steam. Spending that fiddling with stuff and not actually writing music would mean I'd never write anything.

[muzikill]

Ive only got 1 synth (yamaha sy85) & a old sampler (yamaha a3000) & a oxygen 8 keyboard controller but most of it's software now. I used to have a dx7II & MC303. Software does most of it now.

[NTECUK]

Anvil used to be ok.
still use my jv & 303.

[thedonal]

M audio midisport interfaces are good and inexpensive.

I also use Reaper. Its very good and well priced. Not free, but works out to around £50, and you get a lot for that.

[EssexDave]

Do any of you make house/dance music in reaper? Could you drop me a quick PM if you do?

[muzikill]

I use reason / cubase / vsti. Have just got a nice traktor & hercules controller setup for mixing.