Originally Posted By: jazzmammal
You don't get it. What's the stated purpose of the Real Tracks? It's to capture the performance of a live human playing what again? A REAL PIANO, not some stupid controller.


I see where Bob's coming from, but I don't totally agree with all that has been said.

I have a great fully weighted piano with MIDI output - a Roland RD-1000. I connect it to Synthogy Ivory VST (an 80 GB sampled set). The keyboard produces a massive amount of information. Synthogy Ivory reproduces every nuance of a Grand Piano, including Sustain Resonance, Sympathetic Resonance, even Pedal Noise.

I also own a Yamaha C5 Concert Grand. The 'C series' is the specially produced Conservatorium model, the Rolls-Royce of their Grand Piano range - Good, and definitely not cheap.

If you asked me which is the better instrument to play, it would usually be my RD-1000 coupled up to Synthogy Ivory. Both of these are much, much cheaper than my beautiful grand. The sound output is sensational. The nuances unbelievably real.

I'm not dismissing RealTracks for a second, or saying one is better than the other. The point I am making is that exceptional results can be obtained from MIDI in some circumstances. I've proven it.

However, use MIDI generated from playing a keyboard to produce a trumpet, flute, trombone or similar instrument and you probably won't get the same success story.

I don't like to think of my Roland RD-1000 as "some stupid controller" and I don't like to think of playing Synthogy Ivory with my Piano as "triggering a stupid synth".

Let's all take a step back here and look at how we can broaden our experiences eh? After all, we're all on the same team.

We're "talking MIDI here", so we can all offer some real-world experiences to the conversation. This is one of mine, and it needs mentioning.

No one has to agree. YMMV

Trevor

BIAB & RB2025 Win.(Audiophile), Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors, AKG K271 Studio H'phones