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After reading the new features manual I do not understand this thread. There are a Many of the improvements that are features for midi people.
I guess it's time someone started a we need this for midi thing in the wish list forums.
I for one, might find it good reading. I have a Ketron and a JV1010 still.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Also a good point about hard drive crashes. That's why we use Carbonite even though I have a hard drive that I could use for backup. Carbonite is transparent so I don't even have to think about backing up.
Stan
What if their site crashes or gets infected? Do they back everything up? If so do they backup on off line drives or servers?
Also what if they jack their prices up to high? Or if you miss a payment do they automatically drop you?
I don’t know, just asking.
When you are at the checkout line and they ask if you found everything say "Why, are you hiding stuff?"
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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I understand about the cost thing. But for me, music is a priority.
Some people spend money on Cable TV (I don't have cable or even an antenna or converter), expensive cell phone plans (I use MetroPCS for 50/month unlimited talk/text/web), and other things that are important to them, but not important to me.
For what a friend of mine spends on his Cable TV subscription in 2 months, I could be a Ketron SD2. Before I had my mother-in-law switch to MetroPCS, she would have phone bills of up to 200 per month, mostly from incoming calls that she couldn't control.
My backup software is Norton Ghost. It makes a disk image on an external drive, and it has saved my 'you know what' a few times. It will even un-do a virus because the restore is a complete re-write of your hard disk from the image. Thankfully I've never had to use it for a virus, but I eliminated a few new programs that trashed my computer.
A good backup program is essential. There are only two kinds of computer users, those who have had a hard disk crash, and those who haven't had a hard disk crash YET.
Personally, I think a good MIDI sound module is an essential tool for musicians. But of course we all have different priorities, so of course YMMV.
For those of us who love MIDI and the creativity it allows, we hope that along with the RTs, PG Music will continue to improve the core MIDI part of BiaB like it had done for years. At least I think I can speak for us.
Notes
Bob "Notes" Norton  Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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Personally I love MIDI. I was amazed, when I returned to music, at what could be done today. There are many great hardware synths, & software synths are being improved daily, so I believe the "suck sounds" will eventually become history.
Real Tracks sound great, but eventually there will be a limit to what can be produced by the user without buying more RT. You get what you got.
MIDI is unlimited. (to my mind at least.) Virtually anything can be edited, moved, removed, added etc. Not sure if you can create your own styles with RT?
Besides...I play a Synthophone. (a midi sax) While I record using the audio from my synths, I can also record the midi.
Mick
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To be honest, I've never heard a convincing MIDI emulation of some instruments -let's say, a tenor sax-, with all its subtle nuances and multiple playing techniques. On the other hand, Realtracks sound simply great, and with the proper tools you can edit audio material nearly as easily as if it were MIDI data. Although I still use some MIDI tracks (this new feature of 2012 is really great) in combination with RT when I need specific patterns, to me there's just no comparison between RT Styles and MIDI styles. Just my two cents.
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I agree with Cerio ! Midi sax sounds like someone is killing a duck ,but didn't want it to scream without a melody line ! Real Sax sounds incredible compared to midi !
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Hi Mario. Personally, your questions about Carbonite are not shared by me. Not saying that your questions are not valid though. We started using Carbonite on the recommendation of Kim Komando. We have had it a couple of years and have not had a problem yet. I believe in backups as much as anyone, but my problem is that I forget and forget, and forget... Did I say that I forget? This is also why I upgrade BIAB every year with the hd option also as a little added insurance. I will say that it is a royal pita to re-install everything. I had to do it once when I got a trojan virus from not using a good anti-virus pgm and another time when I had to upgrade from XP to Win 7. For us, Carbonite is worth every penny. YMMV.
Stan
Cornet Curmudgeon
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Hi All,
Thanks N.N Bob for not taking offence to my comments, none were intended. I can certainly understand you pushing for improvements, that along the line would benefit all us midi users.
Although these days I do favour the use of the realtracks and drums especially I still love MIDI. I found it very daunting all those years ago and really quite complicated. Still don't really know all the in's and out's but I can usually get the job done with it.
I really think that surely MIDI must be waning these days though with so many more choices to create music with. New generations of budding musicians possablity have not heard of it or want to take the time to learn how to use it.
Also the fact that there are so few options of MIDI sound modules avalaible and those are expensive. The market usually tells the story on demand. I guess most synths still have GM included but a few I have looked have don't.
I can imagine an awful lot of biab users were introduced to midi years ago, as I was, and most would still be using it today for it's flexability and control like I do along side the realtracks & now Loops.
I can only guess but I think with time new users will be more inclined to go with the ease and quality of realtracks especially as the library expands and quality increases even more. Great to have both if you need it though.
I have a Korg X50 which is quite large, great keyboard/synth, and is pretty good for GM MIDI sounds but now I have down sized my home studio equipment to the PC I would really like to get a small neat SOUND canvas. I would like to make use of a much smaller Keyboard controller that I have which is an ideal size for my setup and for what I need regarding MIDI as I am not that great on piano/keyboards and don't need the octives of keys.
I wonder if it would be worth looking out on ebay for an older model of Gm sound canvas's or if anyone could suggest one that gives quality sounding midi instruments At least until I can afford the latest Roland one.
LONG LIVE MIDI & realtracks
Regards Jeff
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where are the examples of editing
midi guitar
pedal steel
sax
etc to get closer to the real instruments
is ther a course one should take
Lenovo YOGA 900 Window s 10 Home 64bit 16GB RAM\2018 13” MacBook Air casio wk7500 presonus audiobox i2 usb interface
casio wk-7500
biab & realband 2023 everything pk both with Current builds
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Quote:
Hi Mario. Personally, your questions about Carbonite are not shared by me. Not saying that your questions are not valid though. We started using Carbonite on the recommendation of Kim Komando. We have had it a couple of years and have not had a problem yet. I believe in backups as much as anyone, but my problem is that I forget and forget, and forget... Did I say that I forget? This is also why I upgrade BIAB every year with the hd option also as a little added insurance. I will say that it is a royal pita to re-install everything. I had to do it once when I got a trojan virus from not using a good anti-virus pgm and another time when I had to upgrade from XP to Win 7. For us, Carbonite is worth every penny. YMMV.
Stan
Stan, thanx for responding in a positve way. I was not trying to be a PITA, I just have a problem with not having my backups within arms reach; I’m probably just to paranoid! I use Acronis for making HD images and it has come in handy on my wife’s computer. I reloaded everything back onto her HD in about 2 hours.
If I could ask one more question. What happens if a virus wipes out your OS or if your H D crashes. Do you have to reinstall windows to get your internet working? I am curious about Carbonite.
Thanx.
When you are at the checkout line and they ask if you found everything say "Why, are you hiding stuff?"
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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Stan
Stan, thanx for responding in a positve way. I was not trying to be a PITA, I just have a problem with not having my backups within arms reach; I’m probably just to paranoid! I use Acronis for making HD images and it has come in handy on my wife’s computer. I reloaded everything back onto her HD in about 2 hours.
If I could ask one more question. What happens if a virus wipes out your OS or if your H D crashes. Do you have to reinstall windows to get your internet working? I am curious about Carbonite.
Thanx.
Carbonite uses the Cloud concept, but was using it before that term became popular. You can think of Carbonite as sort of an external hard drive. It's primary purpose is to backup your "data" files although you can tell it to specifically backup other types of files. It doesn't do mirror backups such as Acronis. I've used Acronis and it's a good program. If you have the big crash, you will still have to reinstall everything, but you won't lose your data files. Carbonite keeps your deleted files for 30 deys. I can understand why they don't do it for longer though. Before I started using it, I would do an Acronis backup and put the drive in our safe deposit box. I probably should still do a couple of times a year, but I've just gotten too lazy. Hoping I won't have to pay the piper again though.
Stan
Cornet Curmudgeon
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I agree with Cerio ! Midi sax sounds like someone is killing a duck ,but didn't want it to scream without a melody line ! Real Sax sounds incredible compared to midi !
Give a listen to the latest Tyros'(4) Super Articulated voices on YouTube. In the right hands, the Saxes sound like the real deal and they are midi. It is a VERY $$$ keyboard, but the midi patches sound fantastic. Their guitar parts are also life-like.
Trax
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Stan, since this thread has long since been hijacked, let me just comment that Mario has a point. I used a competitor cloud service, FileDen, from 2008 until last year. All of a sudden, my files were gone. Their explanation? "We're sorry, the server that has accounts that were started in the spring of 2008 has failed, and the contents are unrecoverable."
They gave me a refund of two month's fees. I gave them a cancellation.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Since we're talking about it, I installed Carbonite for my wife, but I still go take an Acronis image and do a separate data backup on a regular basis, so even if she lost a disk, it wouldn't ever be more than a day or so out of date (at least for what's important). I've also got a couple of spare disks, so I can easily restore the latest Acronis image (even if a disk died completely) and have her back up and running in a matter of hours.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA BB2025/UMC404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/MixBus/Notion/Finale/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com
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Quote:
I agree with Cerio ! Midi sax sounds like someone is killing a duck ,but didn't want it to scream without a melody line ! Real Sax sounds incredible compared to midi !
Quote:
Give a listen to the latest Tyros'(4) Super Articulated voices on YouTube. In the right hands, the Saxes sound like the real deal and they are midi. It is a VERY $$$ keyboard, but the midi patches sound fantastic. Their guitar parts are also life-like.
Trax
Unless people are blowing sunshine up my butt, there have been a number of comments about my "sax playing" on my songs. I haven't played sax in 33 years! The sax patches that I have used in recordings are all physical modelling synth patches produced by a Yamaha VL70m with Patchman's Turbo chip & played on the Synthophone. The Sample Modeling softsynths are quite nice too. Still...they lack some of the nuances that I used to have in my playing. (We call it "home-instrument bias") However, I believe over time, more & more will be added & many limitations will be overcome.
Mick
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I have to congratulate PG Music though for implementing the midi feature where now you can select a midi track from a different style to the current song, a feature that was on the wishlist. Thanks very much PGMusic you are one of the best companies out there who take heed of what your customers want  musiclover
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Quote:
I have to congratulate PG Music though for implementing the midi feature where now you can select a midi track from a different style to the current song, a feature that was on the wishlist.
Thanks very much PGMusic you are one of the best companies out there who take heed of what your customers want
musiclover
+1
PGMusic... although your product will always change, I hope you never change your style of doing business. You're doing so many things right that it would be absurd to abandon your long term vision in order to pursue the impossible task of pleasing everybody.
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Quote:
To be honest, I've never heard a convincing MIDI emulation of some instruments -let's say, a tenor sax-<...>
http://www.nortonmusic.com/mp3/_sunshinesax.mp3
http://www.nortonmusic.com/mp3/_capecodsax.mp3
They were recorded live on the gig with a pre-iPod era Archos Juke Box. The bit rate is low (56k), so the tone isn't as rich as it is live, but I have a very slow Internet connection and I didn't want to take hours to upload (I'm too far away from the end of the fiber optics cable to get high speed DSL). You can definitely hear the sax nuances though. And this is pure synth, not a sampled or ROMpler voice.
And I played those parts myself. They were played on a Yamaha VL70m synth module with aftermarket patches. Every note was my choice, not the expression of a different player. With MIDI, I don't have to just listen to someone else's sax solo, but I get to play one myself. The same goes for trumpet, trombone, clarinet, oboe, violin, cello, and hundreds of other instruments. It's like the difference between playing music and doing karaoke to me.
While I admit the RTs sound a little better than most MIDI voices, I also maintain the the ability to edit the MIDI voices far outweighs any lack of tone they have.
And since we are speaking of tone, what is perfect tenor sax tone anyway? John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Clarence Clemmons, Stanley Turrentine, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Jimmy "Night Train" Forrest, Sam "The Man" Taylor, Michael Brecker, Joe Lovano, Tom Scott, etc.???
If you played a John Coltrane and Stan Getz recording back to back to 90% of the non-musicians in the USA and Canada (and probably even more world-wide), they would think the two performers are playing different instruments.
So if the MIDI tone is 'off' a little bit, only another musician will actually care. But if the expression can be improved by manipulating the MIDI data, almost everybody will know the difference.
And all musicians can be fooled too.
Example 1: I was playing in a country club lounge using my Yamaha WX5 Wind MIDI controller and the Yamaha VL70m synth module. The people in the dining room couldn't see us, but could hear us. A retired professional trumpet player came into the lounge to see who was sitting in on the trumpet. It was MIDI.
Example 2: Before I started bringing my guitar to the gig, I was playing at a party. The hostess was outside with us and the host, a guitarist, was inside. I started playing some Santana-like leads on the wind synth, and the guitar playing host came out to see who was sitting in on the guitar.
There are other examples and I've had other musicians complement me on the find job I did emulating their own instruments.
MIDI is not inferior by any stretch of the imagination. Every tool has it's pros and cons. It's up to the musician to (as the song goes) accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. Do what the tool does best, and avoid it's shortcomings.
Bob "Notes" Norton Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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Quote:
MIDI is not inferior by any stretch of the imagination. Every tool has it's pros and cons. It's up to the musician to (as the song goes) accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. Do what the tool does best, and avoid its shortcomings.
"It's a poor craftsman who blames his tools." -Old Saying
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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I don't know guys. I've been involved with midi for over 30 years...I still enjoy it and I'm still learning...maybe that's teh crux of the matter right there. Nonetheless, some of the new VSTi's are quite amazing from the more simple like Garritan to the more advanced like the East West series. For my money, I am always impressed with Kontakt...the player is free. Take a listen to Alicia's Keys...you can hear it on UTube ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w04qwgcqB8g ). Where else could you get the sound of a $100,000 C3 Neo Grand for $99.00?
Win11, Intel i7 7700K 4.2Ghz, 32Gb RAM, 2x1Tb HD, 500Gb NVMe, BIAB/RB 2025, MOTU 828MK3 audio, MOTU Midi Express, Yamaha Montage 7, DX7II, TX802, Motif XS Rack, Roland Fantom XR Rack, Oberheim Matrix 1000, VoiceLive3 Extreme, Kontakt 6, SampleTank 4.3
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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Bonjour à tous,
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Le téléchargement se fait à partir du site PG Music
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