Quote:

<...>The midi bass and drums are a little too "sterile" for My Purposes. Later, Ray



Personally, I think that is style dependent. Too many styles are quantized and/or step entered, and for my tastes, they are also too sterile.

But a well written style, with the instruments played into a MIDI sequencer in real time, and NOT using the drum grid (but instead, "live drums") you can get a fantastic groove going with the MIDI instruments.

I never step enter when I make my styles but instead play the parts live into a sequencer and then extract parts to make styles. That gives the style a live feel. Ever since PG introduced "Live Drums" all my drum tracks are played the same way.

Plus with MIDI you can dump the BiaB output into a sequencer and have song specific figures, kicks, holds, accelerandos, ritardandos, and real held chords. Many of these effects take a bland non-arrangement (even in Jazz) and turn it into a real arrangement.

For the way I play, these and other effects are necessary and take us from sounding like bland arrangements to special arrangements.

Even jazz songs need these, a few off the top of my head that don't sound right without either kicks or song specific parts, "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" (Ellington), "Well You Needn't" (Monk), "Confirmation" (Parker), "Stolen Moments" (Nelson), "Autumn Leaves" (various), "So What" (Davis), and hundreds of others. Without the rhythmic and/or counter-melodic figures these songs sound bland even if played by high-caliber live musicians.

But we each have our own way of doing things, each system has their pros and cons, and there is more than one right way to do anything.

Insights and incites by Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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