When folks are asking about midi and synths, I tend to think they are producing instrumental music and generally with orchestral and synth style instruments involved.

Especially if that are asking that question in this website's forum.

Great point about the genre and style of the music. If you're doing country and rock, you might not find good quality synths for that. If you're doing rap, hip-hop, orchestral cues, movie trailers and such things, yes, midi synths tend to work really well.

Back to country, rock and jazz.... the best bet there for good quality tracks is to use Real Band and the Real Tracks after you compose the tune in Band in a Box. Those tracks sound like live studio quality musicians and are very, very, hard to beat. As was mentioned above, you can not get them to play a melody of your choosing note for note. However, that's usually not an issue.

Buy as far up the PG Music BB food chain as you can afford to buy. The further up you can go initially, the more tracks you can choose from. And more is always better.

If you can play an instrument, you can combine your live parts with the RT's and get some amazing results. Have a listen to some of the songs on my webpage in my signature and also to the folks on the Showcase. See what this program can do and then act accordingly.

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.