In addition to spending literally thousands for pro level sound libraries you have to also be a pro level player.

When you listen to online demos of these products they were done by really good players. The kind of folks who would be very comfortable in a recording studio.

If you're not that good then who's going to play the midi instrument for you? A wind controller needs someone who's a good sax player already. A midi keyboard needs someone who is very skilled already.

The reason I say this is you can't take a prerecorded midi track for example that is close but not exactly what you want and simply edit it. If there was any decent feeling in the original track, editing it changes that dramatically. Now you're spending hours, days, years (?) trying to manipulate the CC's to try to get that feeling back. A good player simply plays the part. If he's using a good midi controller all that nuanced info is recorded and embedded into the midi file.

I watch a lot of vids about this stuff. DAW vids are especially good for this because a lot of DAW work is based on midi. The people doing the vids are almost always really good players and they make it sound soooo good. They'll say they don't like this version of a track so they'll play another version and it sounds great. Doesn't mean you can do that unless you're equally good. Here's a few examples:

Guitar playing Spectrasonics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGhqYsoIeBQ

Keyboard playing Trillian bass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1toLihZkDs

Wind controller playing a Yamaha Tyros:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH_w7AW7jPU

Garritan demo using four keyboards:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTee0M-CjHc

If you can play like these guys, you too can make midi sound great.

Bob

Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.