Quote:

...but I don't spend hours on the demo trying all 74 million styles in varying combinations of instrument substitutions when 15 seconds of conversation will do the same job. I mean, at some point, musicians need to actually play instruments, right?



Absolutely correct Eddie if you have access to plenty of players. I live in LA, however many good players there are in your area, multiply that times about a thousand here. I've got a book of enough studio pros for 5 bands. And when I say pro, I mean the drummer who just came off tour with Barry Manilow or the bass player who does 4 or 5 week shows at Cesaers in Vegas several times a year backing up big names for about five grand a week. You can get the best players in the world here from the Musicians Contact Service or Local 47. Everybody's second cousins brother in law is a university trained killer player around here. That's why nobody can make any money without hitting the road. The building contractor who put in new windows for me is a monster alto player in one of the best big bands in the area. When these guys are in town they're available for a $100 gig if it's not too far.

The thing is there's people on this forum who don't have a blues guitar player or a bebop reed man within a hundred miles of them or any other style of player. There's some who are true shut in's because of health, finances, location, whatever. They want to play along with good backing tracks to classic songs and they want those songs to sound as close to the record as possible. Basic backing tracks to let somebody get a feel for what you want so you can put it together at a rehearsal is not what they're looking for. Different strokes and all that. For me, I'll spend a few hours a week messing around with one tune just to see what I can get the program to do. Do I need it? Of course not, it's just fun to see what I can do with my computer and keep up with the technology. I can call the same tune at my next gig and just tell the guys how I want it like you said. We mess around all the time at gigs. I posted a hip hop version of Well You Need'nt that I recorded live a few years ago and last week we did Body and Soul as an up tempo samba funk. We may never do it like that again, who knows.

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.