Disklavier

Gene
As discussed earlier I also have a Mark III. I have thousands of Midi files  
and Yamaha files and I found it overwhelming to organize that many floppy 
disks.  I bought a used laptop that I keep connected to the piano with a midi to  
usb cable.
The laptop is connected to my wireless home network so my piano then has  
complete access to the Internet. If I find a midi file anywhere on the Internet  
I can play it immediately on the piano. If I like how it sounds I save it to 
my  harddrive.
I use both VanBassco player and Yamplayer to build play lists with my  
favorite songs from either Yamaha disks or my collection of midis. So if I don't  
like a song on a disk I don't have to listen to it. I can also select random  
play. The big advantage to these players with regard to your problem of the  
piano being too load is that they have a volume control that lets you reduce the  
volume lower than the Mark III volume control.
If I have a party I can load enough songs to last the evening and I can set  
the volume to a low enough level that you can have a conversation.
Also if you have karaoke midi files the lyrics are displayed on the screen.  
Great for Christmas parties or children songs.
 
I also have some older PG. Music that has their own midi players that I can  
play the piano directly from the PC.
I also have PG music Power tracks and Cakewalk on this laptop and can mix  my 
own MP3 or Wav files with midi files.
So for about $400 I have a lot of the features that a Mark IV has and  
several that are not available on the Mark IV.
 
So after reading about all the issues described in the emails over the last  
few days it seems like this is a very inexpensive solution. Glad now that I 
did  not pay the extra $10,000 for the Mark IV.
However if someone can tell me how to play my library of PianoSoft Smart  
disks and matching CD's from my laptop I would be a very happy camper.
 
 
Alan
 



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