Disklavier

Hi Scott,

I'm also new to this group and just started learning about the Mark
III.  I've got a DGC1B with a Mark III.

My current setup (as of last night) is:

Hardware:

Yamaha DGC1B (obviously)
MacBook Air 13
M-Audio Uno USB->MIDI interface  http://bit.ly/fT5z40
Audio Patch Cable - something like  http://bit.ly/e7PCr6
   This patch cable may not work with the DU1A -- check your manual to
see what kind of AUX inputs it has.

Software:

Home Concert Xtreme   http://bit.ly/gSFnGI
- This software is really amazing.  It will display the sheet music
and automatically turn the pages, as well as accompany you with
orchestral sounds produced by the Mac or even use the internal MIDI XG
sounds of the Mark III.  It even speeds up & slows down with you
automatically.  However, there's a limited amount of music included
with the software, and I haven't found a good source of other MIDI
music that is compatible (to be compatible the MIDI files need to
split the left and right hands of the Piano tracks.)  If you want to
use the Mark III's internal MIDI sounds, you'll have to set the MIDI
Input Delay to 0ms, otherwise your accompaniment will be 500ms behind
you. (I have sent a

Apple Logic Express 9     http://www.apple.com/logicexpress/
- With Logic, you can record MIDI from your piano, as well as playback
MIDI to your piano.  I just got this last night and have been playing
around with it.  It's got a ton of features and will take a while to
learn about them all.  In order to play back properly, you have to
keep the Disklavier's MIDI Input Delay set to the default of 500ms --
otherwise, MIDI files won't play very well at all.  The Disklavier
needs the 500ms buffer to make sure the keyboard action is prepared to
play soft notes, which require greater setup time.

Apple GarageBand '11
- With GarageBand, you can use the Mark III as a MIDI keyboard to lay
down tracks, but GarageBand cannot output MIDI -- this means you can't
play back to the Yamaha) -- limited usefulness.    GarageBand is not
like iTunes for your Yamaha Disklavier.

If you're looking for something like iTunes for your piano, you might
consider adding a DKC-850 ( http://bit.ly/eX2lsc ) so you can take
advantage of Yamaha Piano Radio --
http://services.music.yamaha.com/radio/  --  but I don't have any
experience with that.

I hope this helps.  I've just started on my Disklavier journey, so I'm
sure there's a lot more possibilities out there.

Cheers,
John