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#242891 03/06/14 11:05 AM
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Hi guys is anyone using disk nine of Norton styles and do you like it thanks Eric


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F.M.M. #242896 03/06/14 12:09 PM
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In all these years I've yet to hear a single complaint concerning Notes Norton's styles. There must be somebody somewhere, likely under a rock...

What you hear in the demos over there is what you get.


--Mac

F.M.M. #243003 03/07/14 10:33 AM
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Norton are very good quality.
I've bought them years ago before BIAB had real styles.
Many of the Norton styles I've never had in BIAB.

-Roy


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krbrook #243100 03/08/14 03:09 AM
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I have hundreds of Norton styles in BIAB so I have been a very good customer. I have found that I am very happy with the styles that attracted me to a Norton disc in the first place but when you have a lot of the styles they all have a very similar feel. I suppose this is inevitable since they come from a single mind. The BIAB styles on the other hand are very varied. When I am now searching for a new style for a new song I usually end up with a BIAB style rather than a Norton.

My advice is to just buy the single Norton style that sounds right for the song you are working on.

Tony

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hi tony disk 9 work out good for me great quality however single styles would be the way to go for the music I do biab has great styles many which I use thanks eric


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F.M.M. #243392 03/10/14 06:47 AM
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Thank you all for the kind words about my styles. My name is on them, so I make them to the best of my ability. It's good to hear that others get enjoyment from my work (it's like the applause when playing live).

As a lifelong gigging musician and multi-instrumentalist, I try to make styles that I would like to gig with and I try to stretch the limits of BiaB.

Due to the economics of running a small on-line business, single styles are more expensive per style than a "disk" (they used to be on physical disks). Each order means the authorization company, the merchant's account and a few other people need to be paid. In other words, the "silent partners" need to be paid.

So if you are looking for only one or two styles, buying by the style is a good option.

However if you find 6 styles that you need on one disk, you've hit the break-even point on cost and it's better to buy the disk. The disk can have up to 30 styles on it, so for the price of 6 you get a lot of 'free' styles.

Notes


Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
F.M.M. #243398 03/10/14 07:54 AM
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Hi Mr. Notes Norton,

Thank you for your very detailed explanation about your BIAB styles. I have visited your website and plan to buy some styles in the near future.

If I have any constructive comment, I would say that I wish the demo could sound better. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel that the sound fonts you use could be replaced by other sample libraries so that they sound great to the potential customers.

Regards,

F.M.M. #243428 03/10/14 10:34 AM
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Just wanted to add support for the quality of the styles produced by Notes. I've bought a few collections.

I also chatted with Bob (Notes) when I needed to get chords for a song I didn't know, so I could perform it at a wedding the next day, with no time to transcribe it. Bob was very helpful, and the cost to solve my problem was minimal.

ps Notes has been doing this a very long time. I first saw his yellow classified ad in an issue of Recording Magazine back in the early 90s. It said something like, "Put a better band in your box".



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F.M.M. #243515 03/11/14 06:16 AM
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For years I've put low-quality demos on my web site. Why? I figure a lot of the musicians shopping for my styles are going to use their computer's sound card or built in software synth to play them back.

If my demos sounded much better using a decent synth than the end user's sound card, he/she might think I was cheating.

Lately I've been re-evaluating that approach. I'm in the final process of making 4 new style disks, and I might use my SD-90 to make the demos and rip them at a higher bit rate.

Would that be cheating?

The SD-90 is a decent sound module, not top-of-the-line but definitely not the bottom either. On the other hand, I could use my entire array of sound modules and get the best sound, but using just one seems like a reasonable compromise between ultra-lo-fi and ultra-hi-fi.

What do you all think?

If you sampled a style demo done on a decent module, and then played it on your Windows or Mac built in soft-synth would you think I'm cheating?

This really concerns me as I would prefer the styles you purchase to sound better than the demo file and I definitely would not want the end purchaser to think I cheated on the demos.

Thanks,
Bob

Last edited by Notes Norton; 03/11/14 06:24 AM. Reason: typo (I even have Type-O blood <grin>)

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
F.M.M. #243518 03/11/14 06:27 AM
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Well, you might roll a demo file using one of each for your newer offerings, and use that to show potential customers what the differences in using MIDI synths is really all about.

A little extra worktime to do that, but may just help out better for all concerned in the long run, your sales bottom line inclusive.

Just state that neither of the two files is "tweaked" and that both were made in exactly the same steps, with the only difference being the MIDI synth used.

I don't have to tell Notes that the well-informed or better educated customer is good for bidness.


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Notes, no I do not think that would be cheating. As far as I am concerned you could even use the best sound source that you have. Every other MIDI style demo that I have heard uses the best sounds and techniques available, ie http://www.producerloops.com/

or http://www.midisamples.com/

or http://www.groovemonkee.com/en/ etc.

If you are worried about it you could include the fact that you are using the SD-20, or whatever you decide to use, for these styles.


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Doc-I know, I am!

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Bob,

I have reviewed your comments as objectively as I can.

Frankly speaking, the better the demo's sound, the more impressed potential customers are likely to be. I think all product promotions use that technique, why shouldn't you do the same?

If a prospective customer didn't like the demo's because the instrument sounds let it down, they might just keep looking elsewhere for better sounds.

As long as your product - given the right equipment - can genuinely deliver what your demo's describe, then make your demo's the best sounding demo's possible. After all, you are only selling MIDI, not the instruments they connect to - that bit's up the the end user.

If your demos sounded anything like those Ketron SD2 demo's, I'd have the plastic out quicker than you could count in the next song.

My advice? Re-evaluate your approach. Make your demos the best possible.

My 2 cents

Regards

Trevor

PS: yes, I do have some disks of your very early styles, from the 90's (somewhere)


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F.M.M. #243528 03/11/14 08:10 AM
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I concur with the others: use good sounds. It's easier to hear the demo clearly, and far more inspiring. Mac's suggestion is more work but very educational; customers would quickly learn that MIDI has no sound on its own, and they have to do something if they expect to hear better than cartoon quality from most built-in soundcards.


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F.M.M. #243722 03/12/14 02:06 PM
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Thanks y'all.

Perhaps I'll do one demo in a conspicuous place with a comparison between a few sound sources and then start making some good demos.

I could duplicate the comparison on all the pages that have style demos.

What do you all think of that?

Of course, many will miss the comparison, but although I love Mac's suggestion, I really don't have that kind of time.

Between being a gigging musician (that's what makes my styles sound so professional), being the 'band salesman', running the day-to-day operations of the Norton Music biz, spending time with my wife, and 'gabbing' on the Internet, there isn't enough time in the day. I haven't even watched a single TV show since the mid 1980s - zilch - nada (that's not a complaint).

There are a lot of demos to replace on my site - so it won't be instant at all.

There just isn't enough time in the day to do all I want to do. But I guess that's 'job security' as I'll have something interesting to do tomorrow.

Notes


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hi bob I would use the best sound module you have it would not be cheating in my book I agree with the many comments here and thanks for the comparison on single styles thanks for your hard work eric


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F.M.M. #243823 03/13/14 07:04 AM
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I'm definitely leaning towards higher fidelity demos.

I'm thinking 128kb mp3s and toying with the idea of ripping them in mono for better fidelity at that bit rate with the trade off of losing stereo separation. Any thoughts on that?

I'm also going to use my SD-90 on the newer files, and I'm thinking of putting the term Hi-Fi before the demo to separate them from the hundreds of old demos that will take some time to convert.

I'm looking at a lot of work (although I don't like calling it work) that will consume a lot of time. But for me, doing something is better than being idle or watching TV (turned that off in the 1980s).

Right now it's the busy gigging season, I'm putting the finishing touches on 4 new style disks and working on 3 new fake disks, so it isn't going to happen overnight (job security).

And any more and all other suggestions are more than welcome.

Thanks,
Bob


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
F.M.M. #243825 03/13/14 07:22 AM
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Hi Bob. Working backwards, if you are going to call them HiFi, then I would do just that. I would make a stereo MP3 at 192 or 256, so no artifacts are heard. With today's download speeds and a short demo, this should not bother anyone.

I had an SD 80, which had the same MIDI engine as your SD 90. The files should sound great.


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Originally Posted By: Notes Norton

There are a lot of demos to replace on my site - so it won't be instant at all.

There just isn't enough time in the day to do all I want to do.


off the wall idea

you could outsource some the task

if you rewarded the person helping with some style\fakebook disks and they had
the appropriate biab version
quality MIDI sound sources


Last edited by pghboemike; 03/13/14 09:03 AM.

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F.M.M. #243981 03/14/14 06:21 AM
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Outsourcing isn't a bad idea. Food for thought anyway.

Other than style picking for my fake books, I've never outsourced anything. I don't know, my name is on it.

And even in the fake disks, Leilani often overrides the styles picked by the contractors and comes up with something grand. She has been called the "Band-in-a-Box goddess" by some of my customers.

Check out the demo on this page http://www.nortonmusic.com/fake32.html - look in the right hand column under the D heading for the link. Her work on this is amazing. Style changes throughout, changing the instruments of the styles so that they all sound like the same band, and doing other things to make this demo sound fantastic. It's in SGU format so you can even analyze how she did it.

Back to style demos. I'll think about outsourcing, I've had a couple of PM offers.

Right now it's the very busy gigging season for my duo. Between Halloween and Easter all the northerners are down here, tourists and winter residents, and the one-nighter bands make most of their money. Life is good!!! - So progress will be made after Easter.

Notes

Last edited by Notes Norton; 03/14/14 06:22 AM.

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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Bob,

While I agree with others in principle that you want to make the best sounding demos possible I also believe that customers want to be able to duplicate the sound you achieve in your demos.

Not every potential customer has access to outboard equipment like a sound module or arranger keyboard but, each potential customer does have access to the softsynths included with BIAB. For that reason alone I suggest you limit your demo sound sources to those that ship, or have shipped in the past, with BIAB.

I'd rather hear a demo that sounds great with all BIAB stuff under the belief that I might be able to achieve similiar results.


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