That's the deal. MIDI gets a bad name because there are a zillion people who just enter notes. It's easier to enter notes in MIDI than to play 4 chords on a flat top guitar, or pick up a pair of drum sticks.

I hear a lot of "frammers" in this town that sound worse than circus music. You can put a "First Act" guitar in the hands of a good musician and it will sound better than a "Martin" in the hands of the majority of players. Jimmy Page sounded better on the el-cheapo Danelectro than I could sound with a Gibson Johnny A model. It's not the sound, but the player.

And with the big guys, it's not the expensive toys, but the skill. Learning to play a musical instrument takes practice and talent, and that includes MIDI instruments. Just like the guitar or the sax, if you learn how to use the tool, you can get great results. The "Wacky Dust" cut I mentioned used archaic 70s era synths. I know your entry-level Sound Canvas has better sounds. But they captured the nuances of the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Not with the tools, but with technique.

To me Real Tracks and MIDI are like the difference between a collage and oil painting. With a collage you are limited to the things that other people have done, clip them out with a pair of scissors and paste them to the board. Easy-peasy. But you won't create the "Mona Lisa", "Birth Of Venus", or "Silent Scream" with a pair of scissors. With a canvas, brush, and oil paints you can create anything you want are aren't limited to what you can snip out of a magazine.

With the RTs, you are limited to the snippets PG Provides (and some of them are indeed excellent) but with MIDI you can edit to your hearts content and create anything you want, from Rock and Roll to Rachmaninoff.

Not that there is anything wrong with either a collage or Real Tracks. It's a different thing. If you are totally happy with the RTs, use them, that's what they are there for.

If there is an appropriate RT for the song I'm doing, I'll use it, or perhaps only use one or two of the tracks and fill in the rest with MIDI. On other songs, the RTs are totally inappropriate and if I want to play the song, I'll need to do it in MIDI 100%.

Two different tools, for two different applications.

With the advice of some people on the forum, I gave Celemony Melodyne a 30 day trial. I found it worked well with one-note parts like bass lines, but balked with polyphony. Manipulating the controls either gave too few notes or a lot of "ghost notes" in most occasions where the chords where thick. I had fun playing with it, but getting the part ready for editing was more time consuming than it was worth. At the end of the 30 day trial period, I took it off the hard drive. Perhaps some day the technology will get better - it usually does.

So if it needs editing, I go to MIDI. If it's fine just as it is, I'll use either MIDI or a RT, depending on which is more appropriate.

Of course, YMMV

And I challenge anyone to recreate the chord progression demo on my fake disk #32 with Real Tracks and make it sound as close to the original. If you can, I'll give you the fake disk, free.

Insights and incites by Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton smile 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