Diki, I am very impressed with your reply. You have definitely more experience than I have, I definitely never used an Atari although it has always intrigued me. All you said about your techniques , i.e. editing the fills and bassline, are real pro ideas, and I will do that too. To be truthful, I am only now starting to compose full pieces. For years I have been very dissatisfied with my music because I had no knowledge of harmony, etc etc, but since then I have learned a lot and I now feel I have learned enough to be able to write good some good music.

I totally respect what you said, however for me the final sound would definitely come from the sample libraries I have bought. I certainly want the best sounds possible in my arranger, but to me the arranger is more like my musical notepad. That's how I have used it until now, lots of ideas but not yet full songs written (which I can now easily compose out of these ideas).

So, basically, I have recorded very few complete tracks, and I did it with Cubase. Basically, all my talk about the arranger as a composing device, is almost theoretical, therefore you may well be right about all the editing, and personalizing the basslines,etc.
Frankly, it's a great idea and definitely something that I too will do.

But I will use the arranger at least as my tool to write the complete song, then make all the final touches on a computer, probably. I don't know yet. I have tried to learn to like Cubase, etc, for years, but never succeeded. The manuals are crap. Many times I wanted to know how to do a certain thing, and I could never find it on the manual, even basic ,common things like punching-in or out. I feel that many VST's really sound boring, except the best sample libraries, etc.

Well, I am talking about what was available a few years ago....I have not kept in touch with the latest VST stuff, beside buying my sample libraries.

I just feel that all the zillions options in a DAW are not really necessary. For example, yes you can drag lines and velocities for the snare, etc, but you can also record it on a track on your arranger keyboard at a slower tempo, in real time. It's more difficult, but more natural than drawing lines and all that crap. I really can't get to like this stuff anymore. If I am not able to play a part well, I want to practice it more and then directly , and simply,recording again.

All this drawing velocities curves with a virtual pencil, feels alien to me.

I am at least going to give the arranger a good try at how well it works to compose and write everything. So far, I must say I am impressed, although it's true about what you said about having to personalize certain things more, like basslines etc (especially when you use bass inversions and thus the arranger only plays the bass note that you specify while you play the chord, without passing notes, as it instead might happen when you set the arranger for 'root chords only' ).


I am definitely not abandoning the computer (impossible, even if I'd like to), but I guess I want to learn to be more of a 'better player who can play and record things played well straight off the bat',rather than doing a lot of editing.

Doing a lot of editing is definitely what I want to avoid doing, but yes, if one has to, then it's much faster with a computer.

As for distractions, well that's another problem. In the past I used to have an internet partition and a partition only for my music programs, without internet. But now it's been about a year than I have not succeeded to make the music partition, to work. So I have ended up using Cubase on the internet partition, and I get distracted much more easily with email etc, also considering that I am a trader and sell on ebay.

All these things.....the difficult learning curve (I have found it impossible, even by reading the stupid Cubase manuals), the feeling of doing all these edits unnaturally by drawing lines, the constant problems (something always fails to work), the email, and all that crap, only got in the way of music, really.

That's why it feels great to turn everything off, switch the keyboard on and just even forget that I have a computer.

As for the Korg, well it's not that I am buying it for the sequencer alone, the sounds to me seems pretty good. As it happens with these instruments, some will seem to be a pleasure to use and are very inspiring, some others don't, even if on paper the specs looks great.

I remember when I did buy a Korg Trinity years ago. After 2 days, I could not stand it anymore. I hated the sounds even though I found the interface and the keybed, really great.

I resold it to buy an used Kurzweil K2000, the K2000 had a stupidly small and dim screen, compared to the Trinity's,as well as a more difficult to use sequencer, and the keys felt cheaper, but I have been in love with the instrument. I guess you are right, if you don't like the sounds, then it really doesn't matter how great is the sequencer....

I am very impressed with your experience, though....I have always wanted to try an Atari, eh eh