So I need a music program to create my own music. I have a lovely Roland touch-sensitive electric keyboard, which I haven’t played for around 3 years since my dad gave me his mum’s upright piano, which plays beautifully. So I have something to connect to my laptop, assuming the music program has a midi interface. Although dad taught me to read music in Kindergarten, I’ve only done 1 year of formal music theory (in 1976), so my knowledge is a little casual.

Hunting around, I’ve found this list of Garageband alternatives:

Mixcraft
M-Audio’s Session
Sony’s Acid Music Studio – they also have Acid Pro for Pros, or Super Duper Music Looper for kids.
FL Studio – formerly known as Fruity Loops
Steinberg’s Sequel
Magix Samplitude
Magix Music Maker 14
Reaper
Reason

They all seem to have a version at around the $US40-50 price point.
And all seem to have free downloads.

Each one seems to have it’s supporters online. And the more I research, the more I find it hard to decide.

The main selling points for me are the availability of sample loops to drag and drop.
And the ability to connect to my piano keyboard.

I was leaning towards the Sony products, but the Mixcraft description says that it is compatible with the Sony loop library. They all look really good. But I think Mixcraft is the go.

Happy to hear opinions before I buy the full version.

So we did a few performances at the Autumn Ball last month. We did the opening number, to a certain Right Said Fred song, with Serina and I being the rah-rah girls to Les’ central figure. Here’s our I’m Too Sexy number from YouTube.

And then Les and I did a more traditional waltz. The other thing that I found hard was dancing in high heels without falling over. At 5 foot 11, I’ve never really been a high heels kind of girl, and more of a tomboy/bookworm, so it took all my concentration not to fall over, especially during the turns.

Next time we’re going to do something Latin, and I’m going to learn how to walk and turn properly in high shoes.

All the performances from the ball are now on YouTube from the StepUpDanceStudio. I recommend P02 and P18 for some really impressive dancing, and P19 if you want some stunning costumes. And of course Les and Serina doing the Jitterbug for a really fun dance.

 I was tempted to use my son’s old speakers connected to my iPod, on top of the freezer, but I didn’t like the idea of missing out on radio. Sometimes you need to hear the new stuff. And they were 20 year old speakers.

I went to Myer and asked if there were any speakers that catered for radio and iPod. No, can’t be done, said the confident young guy. Too much interference.

 I went to the Apple store and asked for their advice. Get yourself a good sound system, and use the iTrip to connect the iPod.

Well we’d tried tuning my son’s iPod to the car stereo using an iTrip a few years back but gave up out of frustration. It wasn’t the greatest car trip. But I bought an iTrip anyway. And still haven’t spent the time in the car to find a clear frequency.

But casually walking through David Jones the other day, I saw a very affordable radio/iPod speaker set by Cygnet that also charges your iPod. I thought about it, did some research online, and decided that this was probably the solution I was looking for. I went back to DJs and bought it, and it works wonderfully.

Of course there are other solutions, like Creative’s Zen Vision MP3/Video/Radio player, but I was hooked on the iPod thing, now that I’ve got one.

The magazine’s top nomination was for the cloning of a dog. Woof.

At Time.com, there is a list of the top inventions as voted by online readers, with the Fukuda Automatic Door coming first, followed by the stunning Lifestraw, a personal water purification straw. You can check it out at lifestraw.com.

The ones with the most practical use for me were:
- Roomba – a robot vacuum cleaner
- Sony’s Ebook Reader

The roomba is apparently available already in Australia, that can sense stairs and basically do all your vacuuming for you. And apparently it happily copes with dog hair, which is the bane of my existence. My beautiful gold labrador just has to walk through the room for it to be absolutely covered with dog hairs. It doesn’t look so bad on the cream carpet (apart from the footmarks and the red dye from where he peed on the red leather pouf), but on the kitchen floor, it constantly looks hairy. Not good, Jan. So I’m definitely saving up for a Roomba this year. Along with everything else.

Sony’s Reader was apparently a hit, because the screen is made from an electronic paper that makes it look almost as clear as paper. Not being backlit, it reduces glare, which can strain the eyes. It’s about the size of a paperback, and shows one page at a time.

Personally, I’d almost kill for an electronic music display device. Currently when I play the piano, my old much-loved music books are propped open with a diary on each side, to stop the pages from flipping open as I play. And then when I try to change pages I have to quickly rebalance the diaries, usually dropping them, and half the time the whole book falls on the floor.

As I write this, I did a search on Google for electronic sheet music display, and found the Music Pad Pro Plus.

It sounds like heaven. An electronic touch screen (or you can use foot pedals) to turn pages that can store 1000s of pieces of sheet music.

The only downsides I can see are price ($1200US), weight (around 4 lbs), and my preference to have two pages open at a time. Although it says you can use landscape mode to have two sheets displayed, I wonder how easy they would be to read.

Oh well. Maybe one day I’ll win the lottery, and have every gadget I could ever want.

And a new kitchen.

cheers.