I use both MIDI and Real Styles, but I would guess I'm over 90% MIDI.

With good sound modules you can get MIDI to sound almost as good as the real thing. Definitely close enough for the listening audience.

But MIDI is thousands of times more editable than the RTs. Simple things like perhaps you would like that guitar to sound more like a Telecaster, or a Strat, or a Jazz Box? Easy, two clicks. ... Got a note in the comp clashing with the melody? Move it down an octave, change it, or remove it. ... Want a signature kick in the song? More work involved by impossible in RTs. ... Want to change that ride cymbal to a cowbell? click and drag ... thousands more examples can be listed but you get the idea.

We musicians care about tone, and we should, but the public is not so picky. After all they listen on low bit rate mp3s, before than those awful cassettes, worse than that 8 track machines and before that 45RPM records. There have always been higher fidelity recordings available at about the same price.

And what is good tone anyway? The two top rated jazz tenor saxophonists of the 20th century were John Coltrane and Stan Getz. They played the same model saxophone, Selmer Mark VI. Play their recordings back to back and most non-musician casual listeners will think they are not even playing the same instrument, much less make and model.

And since there are a lot of guitar players here, who has/had the best guitar tone? Hendrix? Kath? Slash? Page? Santana? Benson? Hall? Pass? Beck? Les Paul? Iommi? Gale? Clapton? Burrell? Lukather? Ritenour? Dimebag? Abercrombie? Barre? Skunk? Klugh? Gannon? Ellis? Blackmore? Paisley? BB, Albert or Freddie King? Wylde? Orianthi? Remler? Muddy? Caiola? Django? Setzer? Scofield? Pizzarelli? McLaughlin? Metheny? and so on.

They have very different tone and are so famous we know most of them by one name. And on which guitar are we talking about. Jimmy Page played better on his el-cheapo Danelectro than I can on my Parker.

And voice? Dr. John? Stevie Nicks? John Lennon? Blossom Dearie? There are plenty of singers with bad to mediocre voices that sell zillions of recordings. Why? They have great expression, and the expression connects with the audience, not the tone.

So tone is important, but not the holy grail. Expression trumps tone hands down, and you can manipulate MIDI to get more different types of expression than you can an audio recording.

Some day we may be able to manipulate audio like we can MIDI, and as the tools for editing audio improve, I'll use audio more, but right now it's mostly MIDI.

Insights and incites by Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

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