Originally Posted By: Guitarhacker
<...snip...> Midi that doesn't sound as good include the horns, reeds, stringed instruments, and other misc instruments. Try making a midi synth with samples sound like a guitar or a steel guitar or a sax with all the inflections a live player uses. <...>


Sample playback synths have their uses, and their drawbacks. For a good sax performance you need a physical modeling synth -- some "sample-modeling" synths can get close. But using a sample based synth to recreate an instrument with many nuances of sound is like building house with only a hammer.

MIDI has no sound. It all depends on the synth that you are using and the skill of the player. With a good synth and a good player the MIDI synth output will sound every bit as good as the real player, and in some circumstances, even better.

MIDI instruments have been on virtually every major recording from LA, Nashville, New York and other played on your radio or streaming service since the LP was the way to listen to music. If they sounded bad, they wouldn't use them.

"Real" guitars, drums, saxes, trumpets, pianos, etc. all sound bad if you have a lame instrument and/or don't know how to play it. MIDI is no exception.

Important: There is nothing wrong with RTs, and I do use them when they are the best tool for the job. But their lack of the ability to edit them makes me use MIDI more often.

Melodyne and a few others offer rudimentary editing capabilities of digital recordings, and some day they will definitely get better at it. Until then, I'll get more use out of MIDI.

Whatever tool it takes for me to do the best job I can is the one I'll choose. And if I make a poor judgement and choose the wrong tool, I'll go back and do it again.

MIDI can fool people on their own instruments.

Example: I posted a synth guitar solo that I played on a gig on both the Gibson and Epiphone forums. I used a Yamaha WX5 wind MIDI controller and a Yamaha VL70-m synth.

I didn't tell the guitar players that it was a synth, but asked them to evaluate my playing. I got scores of compliments, one even said it was Jeff-Beck-Like and not one guitarist asked if it was a real guitar or not.

Then I came clean and told them it was me playing a synth and I just wanted to see how I was doing at playing synth guitar. I got even more compliments and some told me they were astounded that I fooled them.

After coming clean, one poster said he though there was something odd about the whammy bar use, but couldn't put his finger on it. This is the kind of feedback I wanted so that I can improve my guitar emulation. I immediately worked on that aspect.

If MIDI is good enough to fool scores of guitarists, it's good enough to fool the public.

Another example: I was playing a pool party. The hostess was outside, and the host, a find guitarist was tending to the guests inside. And one point when I was playing synth guitar (again the wind controller) he came out to see who was sitting in on guitar.

One more: I was playing in the lounge of a country club. The diners in the adjacent dining room could hear us but not see us. A trumpet player came our to hear who was playing trumpet and found me playing the synth. He was so amazed he wanted to know all about what I was using, when I told him there was another controller for brass players, he wrote down model numbers, the URL of the wind controller forum, and said he wanted one for himself.

So please don't spread the falsehood that MIDI sounds bad. MIDI has no sound, but some synth modules have bad sounds, and some synth players don't know how to coax the right expression out of them. Even good players on other instruments. For example, if you play a sax like it was a piano, the best synth module in the world won't sound like a sax. Conversely if you play a piano patch like a sax, it won't sound like a piano. Not that either is bad if that is what you wanted to do.

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Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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