Originally Posted By: Notes Norton
Except in MIDI you can change a note without artifacts, do subtle changes of timing, add a little slide or a giant hammer on, and do thousands of other things to that a that you cannot do with audio loops.

You can also erase a measure and put in a song-specific lick without changing the sound of the instrument.

Want to change the vibrato pitch or speed? Put a fall at the end of a note or scoop up to pitch? Easy peasy with MIDI.

And if the instrument is polyphonic there are so many other things you can do with MIDI that you can't do with loops. Change the inversion of a chord, add even more notes to the chord with the same sounding instrument, detune note or two or stretch tune the chord, and so on.

How about change the instrument? If the lead guitar is a jazz box and you would rather have a edgy clean sound, click it's done. The sound of the instrument is changed. Want that acoustic piano to be a Rhodes? That guitar to be a clav? That acoustic bass to be a Fretless? Those brass parts to be played on saxes? That ride cymbal to be a cowbell? That snare to be brushed or a rimshot? And thousands of others click, or click and drag and it's done. Can't do any of this with audio loops.

And all the changes you do in MIDI are done without adding any artifacts to the tone.

There is a big difference in the way audio and MIDI can be edited today. Perhaps not tomorrow, but today you can do literally thousands of expressive things with MIDI that you cannot do with audio loops.

Not to dis the Real Tracks. The tone and musicianship is great, and there is true genius to what PG has done with them. If you just want to hear what others play, they are fine. But if you want to play with your BiaB toy more deeply, MIDI is the way to go. Thankfully PG gives us both so we all can be happy.

Insights and incites by Notes

Bob, even if both your interventions to some may sound as "blowing your own horn", I, for one, feel that were necessary to clarify what alternative styles in MIDI format are, and why they might even be preferable to Real Tracks in many cases.

Thank you for let us having a piece of your mind and your valuable insight on the matter.

If Real Band was written to work with MIDI styles the way Toontrack products work with their MIDI "styles", it'll become the leading program for composers, studio pros and/or aficionados looking to make their own backing tracks. The link I've shown earlier pointing to the Tracktion Waveform DAW program was to "inspire" PG Music to see if they could work into taking BIAB and specially RB into the next level, using a new paradigm that could embrace just as well both sides of making music, meaning taking Real Tracks AND MIDI Supertracks and present'em in a way they could be managed to create entire sequences of several parts using different tracks driving either VST instruments or hardware expanders in a way that'll be easier to the musician to use.

Yours very truly,

Last edited by LtKojak; 04/16/17 04:35 AM.
Pepe aka Lt. Kojak
Milano, Italy
https://soundcloud.com/theodore-kojak/tracks
Hy-Bro Test Sound Files