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 smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

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