Some of best deals can be found in flea markets, on eBay and other auction sites. Not only can you find pieces for your own collection, but these will be eventual avenues for you to resell them at a later date. The highlight of auction arena is that you can set a starting price and watch bids increase your income potential – sometimes to a figure much higher than you would have imagined. Setting a reserve price helps, too, so that you won’t lose a piece when someone comes in way under piece’s value.

Picking up models at local department stores, such as Wal-Mart, or through TV shopping forums such as QVC is usually a mistake. While these may have reasonable quality, they’re usually not as well constructed as what you can find elsewhere, and tend to flood market with certain pieces which they sell in high volume in an effort to gain a higher sales standing. Stick to mainstream collection sites and you’ll do much better.

Remember that you may not break bank when you resell a piece, but with a good sense of timing and strong negotiation skills, you’ll be able to realize some type of profit and, with a bit of experience, will increase your overall profit potential.

******* (c) 2005 Dale Stewart - All Rights Reserved

Dale Stewart is a freelance author and diecast enthusiast.

Now that everything is up and running, you can start making music! When building a song, it’s usually easiest to lay down each instrument at a time. Start with a pre-recorded drum track and add a bass line to it. You can loop music so that only a section of it plays. For now, loop an 4-bar introduction and add a bass line to drums. You do this by selecting a bass sound on MIDI keyboard and playing some notes. Everything you play will be recorded into computer and you can continue to loop and add new notes.

Follow same procedure for each instrument until you have a nice sound. You can change instruments at any time and use any of presets that are available on your MIDI keyboard.

Everything that is recorded into MIDI software can be edited and manipulated in many ways. It is easy to fix wrong notes and drag notes to a new position. They can be made softer or louder, notes can be deleted or drawn in by hand, and individual notes or groups of notes can be played by any instrument. You are well on your way to polishing off your first MIDI song!