You're listening to the wrong acts JCS and it's like Mac said, you can't judge midi from listening to some schlep playing a pos freebie downloaded midi file through a $50 synth.

I drove to Vegas last year on business and at night checked out a few places. A lot of the lounge acts on the Strip are using tracks and that was the reason for the big musicians union strike about 25 years ago. The big casinos started phasing out the pit orchestras in favor of a few players running the midi tracks. Needless to say the union lost and the reason was those tracks are absolutely first class, the orchestra was not part of the show they're in the pit so it might as well be recorded, and the audience could care less, they're watching the stage. The performers are basically singing to a music video. Nobody's actually playing anything live in a music video either.

I deliberatly wanted to get off the Strip and check out some other places so I went to a big beautiful Marriott hotel resort casino about 10 miles west. The really sad thing there was they had a single guitarist playing in the big open air bar that is sitting right in the middle of everything. This guy was terrible plus there was no stage, no lights and no sound system. It literally was exactly the same as countless little bars around here with a stumming guitarist setting up with a little PA doing a single. This guy was using some kind of simple midi file player and the midis were crap, the sound was crap and his voice was barely acceptable. Somebody there actually had to book this guy, what were they thinking? Years ago you had to submit a nice promo package to your agent, they might actually fly in to see you live and then you might get a gig in Vegas. I still can't get over the fact I would see something like that in a Vegas casino. Someone mentioned to me that once you get off the Strip Vegas truly sucks. From watching that guy for 5 minutes I can believe it.

Bob

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