As long as the tone is 'in the ballpark' you can emulate the instrument. After all, what is good tone? (We've been here before, but for the newbies). Is good guitar tone Hendrix, Stevie Ray, Jimmy Page, Joe Pass, Eric Gale, Slash, Jeff Beck, Vai, EVH, Kessell, Wes Montgomery, George Harrison, Brian Setzer? And on which guitar? Which amp? Which FX pedal?

The trick to making a MIDI file sound like the instrument you are emulating is to use the continuous controllers available to copy the nuances and articulations of the instrument in question. This requires:
  • Analytically listening to the instrument to hear how the particular instrument gets its expression - if you play a guitar patch like a piano you aren't going to fool anyone
  • Exploring the patch you are using to see which expressive nuances of the instrument you are emulating you it will reproduce (play these)
  • Exploring the patch to see which parameters of the patch will definitely not sound like the instrument you are emulating (avoid these)

It's a little like a comedian/impressionist emulating a famous person. When you hear the comedian 'doing' George W Bush, Obama, or any other famous person, you hear the famous person, not the comedian. Now the comedian does not have the same voice as the person he/she is 'doing' so why do you hear the President (or whoever else he/she is emulating)? Because the comedian has reproduced the nuances of the famous persons speech pattern, repeated the nuances he/she can reproduce and avoided ones he/she cannot.

In emulating an instrument, you can't just plug in the notes. Saxophones often 'scoop' up to notes in the beginning of the phrase and other stressed notes, vibrato on a sax is usually greater below zero pitch than above it, vibrato is often delayed and variable, longer notes are seldom held at the same volume for the duration of the notes, the dynamics of a phrase are never constant, phrases need to breathe, slight distortion can be added at times, etc., etc., etc., depending on the song and part you are playing.

Most guitarists use vibrato from pitch zero to higher and back, unless they are using the whammy bar, then for most guitars it's below zero pitch and back, guitarists use hammer-ons/pull-offs often, other expressive elements are slides, bends, etc., etc. Listen and copy.

There is an art and science to it. But if you want to play your own music instead of someone else's music, these are the things you should learn.

There are a couple of benefits to this
  • This will open your ears to music, you will listen to music in an entirely new way and get more pleasure out of music knowing how the instruments got their expression
  • It will make you a better musician on your own 'home' instrument.
I know that learning to emulate guitars, saxes, and other instruments have even helped me get more expression out of my 'pure synth' patches. I use tricks playing acoustic saxophone that I learned while trying to emulate a few things Jimmy Smith did on B-3 organ. When I learned to play lead guitar, I brought along things I learned on saxophone, like leaving room for breaths in my phrasing.

True I get a little defensive when people say that MIDI cannot sound like "the real thing". What you are really saying is that you cannot make MIDI sound like the real thing -- and with an attitude like that, you will never learn to make MIDI sound like the real thing. But remember, over half the MIDI sound modules on the market use digital samples of the instruments to make their sounds. The digital sample is as real as the sound on the audio loop. It is a recording of a real instrument. The reason why it doesn't sound right is because the player hasn't acquired the skills to make it sound right.

Music is a lifelong learning process. When I was in school, according to the Florida Bandmaster's Association I was the best saxophone player in the state each and every year that I went to state contest. I'm not saying that to brag. The point is this, I have learned new things about saxophone and/or music constantly since then. Sergei Rachmaninov said, “Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.” What I think he meant and what I agree with is that if you live to be 120 years old, there are still things you can learn about music.

Learning is growing, and when you quit growing, you are dead.

Those clips I made in my last post were done on a synth module that was made in the 90s. It doesn't even use sampled voices but relies on Physical Modeling synthesis. But yet I could fool dozens of guitarists on a guitar forum into thinking it was a real guitar.

And even if the sounds were inferior, that doesn't matter to the audience. After all, does Dr. John, Madonna, John Lennon, Stevie Nicks, Rod Stewart and dozens of other stars have great voices? No, but they have great expression for their targeted audience. Expression is much more important than tone.

So don't say that MIDI sounds are inferior and then expect me not to debate the point with you.

So repeat after me:
  • MIDI has no sound
  • Synthesizers have sounds and are played by MIDI messages
  • Some synths sound cheesy, some sound excellent, some use digital samples of 'real' instruments, others us different froms of synthesis
  • There are 128 continuous controllers available to make the articulation and expression of the synthesizer sound emulate the instrument you want to play
  • Movie soundtracks, blockbuster recordings, virtually modern synthesizer, bands from local venues to national exposure, and even symphony orchestras use MIDI and they wouldn't use it if it was in any way inferior
  • The audience doesn't care about the finer points of tone, they want to hear the song and they want to hear it expressed well
  • With MIDI you can play your own music, with audio loops you can only assemble what others have played
  • There is more than one right way to make music, and MIDI is not inferior to any other way.


Using MIDI I have played on Cruise Ships, 5 star hotels, Television (ABC, NBC, CBS, MTV and BBC), Yacht Clubs, Country Clubs, and in a dozen or so different countries. I make my living doing music and nothing but music, and MIDI is a major part of that. In other words, there isn't anything wrong with MIDI. It is one of the finest tools in our musical toolbox.

There, I've said it again.

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

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