Yes, my demo files are done on the mediocre plug-in soft synth that PG provided at the time. I could have put them on the best sounds of my array of modules, but then if someone bought them and played them on the Coyote or whatever, they might think I misrepresented the product. Plus they are recorded as mp3 files - some with a low bit rate of 32kbps because back then people used dial-ups.

I'm thinking about re-doing them with a Ketron and higher bitrate because things are better now, but it's finding the time. We are gigging doing 4-5 one-nighers per week in the season and 2-3 in the off season, and I'm also trying to make more MIDI styles and Fake Disks that can use either MIDI or RT styles. (I haven't watched a single TV show since the late 1980s)

And if MIDI sounds fake, than the majority of keyboard parts you hear on hit records and plenty of the other instruments sound fake to you as well.

But that wasn't my point.

My point is expression is 100 times more important than the sound. And MIDI allows you to customize the expression. MIDI allows you to change the expression to whatever you want it to be. It allows you to manipulate the music to say what you want it to say.

Yes, our promo video sounds MIDI-ish, and most of the songs definitely have BiaB in there somewhere. I've added some song specific licks and kicks in them to make them sound like the songs I'm representing, and not sound like someone using an arranger keyboard or BiaB live accompaniment. What I've done to them you couldn't do this with RealTracks.

Plus, we have been working steadily since 1985 and get more work and charge higher prices than those duos playing 'real instruments' with a drum machine.

The public doesn't give a @!#&% whether your sounds are MIDI or "real", they want to hear the music the way they want to hear it.



Now the RealTracks sound great, as a musician I appreciate good tone. But I am also a pro musician and know what the public wants. And what the audience wants is actually more important than what I want.

You can play for yourself, you can play for other musicians or you can play for the general public. If you are good enough, you'll get the audience you asked for.

If the RT fits the bill perfectly, I'll use them. Sometimes I'll use RT or some RT instruments on songs, especially jazz standards that are chord/melody based instead of riff based like a lot of modern pop music.

But most modern pop music is riff based and any auto-accompaniment style is generic by design. With MIDI I can modify the BiaB output and put the riffs and kicks in.

I repeat because it's important, the public doesn't care if the sound is MIDI. They want to hear and feel the music. Try doing James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)" with a real track and tell me how many people are going to dance to it. Or thousands of other songs that need something that identifies them.

You can't do this or thousands of other songs with RealTracks, but you can manipulate MIDI tracks to do this. We do this song and the crowd loves it.



Notes

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

100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks