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...I fully agree, but 90% of the time a person is PLAYING those keyboards, and the midi is triggering the sounds that the musician is inputting in real time...



I can easily Record to MIDI data the live performance and have a permanent record of that which will play back *identical* to the live performance.

Is the problem then one of whether or not there is a human being present and playing in realtime?

If that performance were to be played over the radio or as an underscore for a motion picture, would you really be able to tell?


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And when it is being used to generate a backing track is a FULL band setting there are enough live musicians to cover it. By default the live musicians make the midi "breath" some, due to the human element that is playing over top of the midi. It is not the same in a solo or duo setting IMHO.



Pianos, Clavinets, Rhodes pianos, Wurlitzer Electric Pianos, Vibes, Marimbas, Xylophones, Harpsichords, Organs, in other words using keyboard to emulate existing keyboards or mallet instruments, which is done ALL the time in commercial recordings and has been done for quite some time, there are virtually no differences that can be heard provided the player of same knows how to play them.

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My comment was about using midi backing tracks to perform over, just letting them play while folks strum or sing over the top of them. In that situation midi is not something that will make me want to sit thru 4 hours of a show.



I don't view that as a fault of MIDI itself. That's just a poor performer in poor performance in my view.

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Your demo of Peg for the SD2 is one of the RARE exceptions to the stiff sounding Midi that folks are use to, but truth be told I have never heard a solo-duo OMB that had that level of quality all night...and even with the great sounds of the SD2, it still sound's "synthetic"....but WAY more bearable than most out there.



Thanks. I strive to get that in ALL of my MIDI stuff. So do many other MIDIOTS. From that one example you surely can see that realism, give or take, the excitement of music, dynamics, phrasing, timing, etc. is not a fault of the medium itself. The real reason people are prejudiced against MIDI is because they likely only have the reference of free downloaded MIDI files made by people of all stripes. Those people are not working in Hollywood, they are not selling underscores or jingles or industrial musics or commercials or hit songs, where MIDI is used quite a bit and for good reason. And, in the right hands, it sounds what you designate as "real".

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At the end of the day it boils down to how you want to spend your money, listening to an artist/duo + midi, listening to an artist/duo + Real Tracks, or listening to an artist/duo + studio musicians from their release playing in the background....we will take the last 2 any day. Of course there is also the choice of listening to an artist/duo raw with NO backing tracks at all, which is totally acceptable!



I look for Strong Performance. The tools don't matter. If they can turn in Strong Performance beating on trashcans, fine with me.

But another performance might be rather poor using those same trashcans.

I don't blame the trashcans for that.

Your problem is not with MIDI itself. Your problem has to do with poor performance on MIDI stuff.

I hear plenty of poor performances with the ubiquitous flattop acoustic guitar.

I don't blame the guitars for that.


--Mac

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