Korg Forums

[xtx]

Please, I would appreciate anyone's advice who's willing to read my story. I've got a 1.8GHz Intel Mac Mini and M-Audio's Midisport "Uno" USB MIDI interface, and am just now trying to learn how the microKORG synth functions (I bought it a couple of years ago after only having experience about 15 or 20 years ago playing piano and writing a few songs with a Yamaha PSR-90 with a built in Ram-tape multitrack recorder, just using preprogrammed or sometimes programming rhythms and almost exclusively using the "Strings" orchestra voice, including when I got together one time and wrote some songs nearly 20 years ago with a friend who played acoustic guitar, with him coming up with some strumming techniques, but with me mainly telling him what chords to play, plus writing lyrics and singing- making a laughable, nowhere near professional attempt at recording it all live into a boom box with a built-in mic for a tape recorder, with us playing and singing a couple of feet in front of it. So a couple of years ago in deciding I wanted to get back into writing/recording music, I bought the microKORG on the heels of its great reviews and inexpensive price, being a complete beginner to playing a real synth, and having no experience in software music making/recording, or even any experience making music at all in nearly 20 years. I played around a bit with the microKORG, and tried to get through some of its manual- without much success- but nevertheless I had also bought iLife '06 and the M-Audio Midisport "Uno" MIDI controller (which I eventually figured I could hook up to my old Yamaha to use it as a keyboard software controller through MIDI) and bought the proper outs to go iinto my mic input to record my microKORG. However I have lost this cable, but figure I can use my iMic, which goes from RCA inputs to USB (and even has a switch to change it from a line to a mic interface- so I imagine I could even record low-quality vocals with it, correct)? I never did much of anything with my GarageBand 3.0 ('06) and quickly lost heart in trying to write on the microKORG not just because of its programming complexity, though that was a factor, but also because I couldn't even remember any decent chord progressions, save for one simple one, which got old real fast. I never tried the Yamaha as a GarageBand MIDI controller, but DID get the Korg working that way, till I found out I needed a cable to go from the "audio out" of the Korg to my Mac's "mic in" to record it- rather than simply act as a controller for the software- but never really learning to use GarageBand (I DID buy a DVD from Amazon made by Digital Music Doctor called "GarageBand 3: Know it All!" but never even got around to watching it), I could never hear any sound from the computer when trying to record the Korg (I've since researched it on bulletin boards and finally on Apple's support site and figured I may have neglected to turn the monitor on for the track while recording it, but at the time that simple inability to record and layer tracks audibly using the incredible sounds I heard from the microKORG as my source, which made the GarageBand instruments pale in comparison, just stopped me dead in my tracks and I gave up till now. Still, I've now made the decision to try it all again, but this time wanting at least to learn to play piano well enough to put some decent chord progressions/melodies together first through inexpensive instructional software I just ordered on DVD from newegg.com called "Alfred's Teach Yourself to Play Piano" by Alfred Publishing, and thinking if I could get through a fair amount of that, I might augment it with eMedia's "Beginner Piano and Keyboard Lessons"; plus I am still running OS X 10.4.11 "Tiger" and plan to upgrade at some point after "Snow Leopard" is released in September, which, in addition to OS X 10.5 "Leopard", will include copies of iWork and iLife '09: which includes the latest version of GarageBand, which has "Learn to Play" programs that now interface with it that I could also learn from. Any ideas on CD- or DVD-ROMS that could help me learn the microzkorg functions, including using the software librarian/editor for Mac OS X? I haven't a clue where to even begin with the hardware OR the software beyond the difficult for me to fully grasp manual, which I need further support to understand, perhaps by example on a media disc. With the software librarian/editor, I assume I must first hook the Korg up to my Mac using my M-Audio Midisport "Uno" MIDI to USB cable... but then what are the exact steps I take next?