Hi tconnelly,

As you will find out by using Sampletank (ST) sounds is that the more money you put into MIDI sound sources the better the sounds will be out of the box. The ST that comes with BiaB was the free one that IK put out as a sampler: that is if you liked the sounds you would upgrade, but they are a sample of the identical sounds used in the more ST expensive programs at that time. Having said that you will find that the ST sounds are much better than the GM sound source that comes with BiaB and Forte. Note that some people based their entire bias on BiaB's free MIDI sounds, well actually they were a Microsoft GM set, and thus said MIDI sucks. Not true. I use mostly all MIDI so you may want to listen to some of my songs in the User Showcase forum and in fact some users have commented on how some sound like RTs.

Thus out of the box your MIDI mixes will sound a lot better using ST. But they still may sound stagnate. However you can make MIDI sounds come alive and/or more emulate acoustic instruments by using MIDI CC commands, effects, subtle timing and velocity changes etc. Think of using MIDI as an instrument in that it takes practice and time to get a handle on it.

Even though ST will sound better you can get better sounds out of more expensive sound sources like Kontakt, which I have, SampleTank 3 (note that ST3 is 64 bit only), and other sources. In fact the Kontakt Player is a free version of the full-blown Kontakt and is much like the ST sampler that comes with BiaB, however the sounds are much better.

Your thoughts are right on: 1-pick some sounds from ST and listen to them then 2- experiment with some of the suggestions I made above.

Ps - I have found the BiaB and good MIDI sound sources are excellent companions. You can do a lot with MIDI with a little work.

I should note that using better MIDI sound sources like ST also means that you are not using GM sound source in most cases. That is it is not as simple just loading a file and listening. You have to set up each channel so the bass goes to a bass sound, piano to a piano etc. The best GM sound set that I have heard is Cakewalk's TTS-1, however I don't believe they sell that separately.

Also if you need any help there are a number of us here that know about MIDI.

My wife had her driving test today.
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64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware