I personally think you are close to the 'truth' here.

Realtracks can operate without midi.

A Newbie has enough on their plate with music terminology when all they remember is a few licks from stairway. Learning terms, general music etc is ENOUGH. The company (pg), in my opinion, would be crazy to develop things expecting hobbyists with racks of old midi hardware making one phrase all day. Sure they do that in the movies. We/They want to make music.

I can spend 4 hours a day on the keys, some time on piano, and I don't give a hoot which it is, but 99 percent of the tracks are substituted with realtracks. I mute the piano and the melody, play the thing looped for about 10 minutes and move on.

Just thing this through. You own the joint. The new technology allows you to get very good sound, and have great guitars and drums etc. Or you throw midi at the newbie. Really.

The poor new guy comes in here with a Yamaha keyboard from Radio Shack and in 10 minutes some one tells him he has to hook it up and here we go again. And we need to explain ASIO. Not again.

The fact that the software can be used by someone who spends all day on the signature lick for Fever, and gets 2 bars done, great. I don't care how it sounded at first. I played it with drums only the 1st time through, the bass only then both. Use a cool organ sound. I can ad lib. No need for midi at all, except wait for it...my Korg uses midi inside.

Thus midi is insidious, and often hideous. That's a problem I've not had with Real Instruments, and it seems obvious that each release and beta things get better as the software that interprets those phrases matures.

The bottom line is if Joe shows up with his Yamaha and he can't play it through so he can duplicate Toccata and Fuge in Dm and see the score, so darn.

But in the end he's happy because without any interface, without knowing a cc from his backside, Joe Newbie made music with his new band and Liked It. Wow.

I know you all are waiting for the next midi hardware release, but I just bet it runs as packets on the internet, so that the lighting control market isn't left out. And I bet they call it something else, like a production data transport packet. Cool.

John Conley
Musica est vita