Notation/arranging Program?, What's good entry level? Options

[GeorgeMack]

I'm an amateur musician/arranger longer on theory than equipment, and so far I've been using an entry level music notation and scoring progam called MusicTime. I now have a Midi keyboard and want to connect up to the G4 so that I don't have to manually click in every friggin note and chord.

So far I haven't been able to get the Yamaha UX16 to connect with my program through the USB port (although OMS does see the translator box the keyboard is isolated from both send and receive) and the demo for Finale doesn't either.

does anyone know a good entry level program that is USB aware, for notation/arrangement/scoring? At my level, performance is a bit over my needs. (I usually export midi to Quicktime for playback once I have an arrangement.)

I appreciate any advice, and my price comfort level is probably US$ 300 or so.

Thanks George

[Synthetic]

I might suggest looking at Emagic Logic Audio Silver that is about $300. It will allow you to record performance or you can add note by note and it has lots of nice features for midi composing such as chord memory and groove quantizing. Actually the program is really in depth and loaded with features and may take you some time to get comfortable but it may be worth it in the long run. You can edit midi by either using grid or by actual score as well.

info found here Emagic Website

if you want a suggestion for purchase... try either Musicians Friend or Sweetwater as these are the online retailers I use most. Sweetwater has best customer support and M.F. has good prices.