I know I'm late to this discussion.... however....

Midi, sound modules and VST's have their place and in certain kinds of music, are indispensable.

However, if you are looking for something that sounds like it was all done by live players, you really need to buy the real tracks and do that as far up the available versions as you can afford.

as far as saying real tracks are not as easy to edit.... I find that to be a simple matter of how much time you're willing to put into a project. With a good DAW, you can easily edit one, or multiple tracks. For example, the guitar solo in THE BEST CHRISTMAS is a compilation of edits from 5 of the same guitar track in Real Band's Real Tracks. The cool thing is that none of those 5 tracks, although they are from the same basic RT, are identical. They are audio, as has been pointed out, but with the proper tools and experience, editing audio is as easy as editing midi.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding..... or in this case the songs created by those tracks. More than once, when using the real tracks, I have had other musicians hear a song I did and ask me "who is playing the steel?"... or the fiddle, or the piano....or "what studio in Nashville did you use?" I have never had that occur when I use midi. Never.

Have a listen to the song I mentioned and other songs I have created using the RT's in my studio.

The Best Christmas>>> http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11971116

You can find the other songs in my signature link below.

Yep... Buy the Real Tracks and start working with them. You won't regret it.

You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.

The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.