PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows real tracks vs midi tracks & styles

Let me add this to Mac's excellent post.

I think MIDI gets a bad reputation from amateur musicians for 3 reasons:

1. MIDI has the ability to recreate the nuances of a live performance using the continuous controllers, but most beginners do not know about the cc's nor do they know how to use them.
   
2. Cheezy MIDI synths on computer sound cards. Computer manufacturing is a cutthroat business. The major manufacturers go with very small profit margins per unit sold. So they save wherever they can. Since pro musicians are a very small group of computer users, one way to save a buck is to put a cheap MIDI synth on the computer's sound card. They will let the WAV sounds come in with good fidelity, because that is what most people use, but the MIDI sounds are a place to save a few bucks. And a few bucks times a few hundred thousand computers adds up.
   
3. Quantization and/or step-entering. Too many amateurs step enter or quantize the music into a MIDI sequencer because they are not experienced enough to be able to play the music into the sequencer in real time. The result is something robotic with no life in it.

But a good musician welcomes MIDI because he/she knows the extraordinary capabilities that are possible with that system.

Just about every synthesizer made since the DX7 days uses MIDI, either internally between the keys and the sound module or externally. You hear MIDI instrument (yes, even MIDI drums) every day on CD's, TV shows, Radio ads, and just about every medium where modern music is created. I've watched movies and in the extras the composer explained how the entire movie soundtrack was made with synthesizers (any pro can see he meant MIDI as he demonstrated the technique). Much of the music made with MIDI would be impossible to recreate with traditional acoustic or acoustic-electric instruments.

I'm not saying that MIDI is superior to acoustic and acoustic-electric instruments, but it definitely is not inferior either. They each have their strong and weak points.

Once again, I am not dissing PG Music and the RT's. I think PG has done a fantastic job with them and there is nothing wrong with anyone who prefers RTs. But for me, I like the flexibility of being able to transform a very good BiaB song into something much better, and I can only do that with MIDI.

Music is not only about tone, although tone is important. But good tone is subjective and personal.

Take saxophone tone (it's my first instrument). Is good sax tone Stan Getz? John Coltrane? Stanley Turrentine? Clarence Clemmons? Dexter Gordon? Junior Walker? Joe Henderson? King Curtis? There is quite a difference.

Play Getz and Coltrane to an uneducated ear and they probably wouldn't think those two people are even playing the same instrument. And your audience consists of uneducated ears.

On the other hand, the audience does understand expression, song specific licks, crescendos, diminuendos, accelerandos, ritardandos, holds, shots, kicks, and so many of the things that one cannot do with RTs (yet).

IMHO the audience is better served by compromising tone a bit to the musician (since each audience member probably has a different opinion as to what is great tone) and using the expressive devices available by exporting the file to MIDI and "doctoring" it up.

My backing tracks have been featured on MTV, CBS, ABC, NBC, commercial CDs, advertisements, on cruise ships, in 5 star hotels, and have helped Leilani and I to work steadily for the past 14 years at rates higher than most if not all of the other duos in the area. If you are interested in reading how I create and use my backing tracks, go to: http://www.nortonmusic.com/backing_tracks.html

So it always irks me when I hear people dis MIDI files or MIDI sounds, because they have either a lame MIDI sound card synth or don't know how to fully use the expressive capabilities of MIDI.

There is more than one "right way" to make music, and MIDI is definitely one of the right ways to do it.

So for all the people who prefer MIDI styles, I will continue to make them as long as you care to continue purchasing them. I won't abandon you unless you all abandon me.

For those who prefer RT's, enjoy the great job PG has done with them.

Notes