To what Videotrack said, a long time ago when RealTracks were new, PG Music hired a few people to do transcriptions so that there would be notation. I did many sax solos and guitar solos. I worked until my MIDI in the left channel matched the RealTrack in the right channel.

Getting the articulations right was a compromise at best. For example, MIDI doesn’t allow for a scooped note on sax. I was also instructed not to work on dynamics. Thus if you were to take one of the soloists I did and connect that MIDI to a great MIDI synth, you would hear the right notes, but with no nuance like dynamics, attack, decay, pitch bend, etc. In other words, it would sound sterile.

The notation is primarily for educational value. One exception of which I am aware, noted above, is that their keyboard tracks are recorded directly on a digital keyboard, so they can sound really good.


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