Originally Posted by musocity
There are 2 modes prerecorded phrases and a sample/note mode, both NI and UJAM never had this feature...
By "prerecorded phrases", you mean prerecorded MIDI patterns.

That's something that BiaB has always had.

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.. until after I was suggesting this for PG to do "Playable RealTracks" in the forum, but they were slow to move and the other companies did it first...
This is apples and oranges.

UJAM works like a traditional ROMpler - the recorded samples are single notes. Altering a note requires selecting a different sample.

RealTracks are phrases. Altering a note in a phrase requires knowing the pitch and duration of a specific note in a phrase, and then pitch and time stretching in a way that doesn't disturb the rest of the phrase.

This can be done, but it's akin to using Melodyne. Plus, it only works with monophonic instruments, and pitch shifting only works about a minor third up or down, after which it starts to sound weird.

So what you can do is limited.

What most people are asking for when they want "playable RealTracks" is the ability to specify in MIDI notation the sound they want, and then have playback with all the nuance of an actual instrument.

That's not a trivial thing to accomplish. There are sample libraries that do exactly that, such as the ones sold by Straight Ahead Samples. However, these require far more extensive samples than are available in RealTracks.

But it's not just the notes that give RealTracks their realism, but the articulations and musical ideas. These come "for free" when using phrases. But when building these from scratch, these articulations (bends, slides, vibrato, staccato, etc.) all have to be specified. Without that, it's only a slight improvement over using MIDI with sampled instruments.

I'm not sure how feasible it is at this point in time.

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...and sure enough the Ketron Live Arranger was released with RealTracks and RealDrums.
The idea of using live phrases isn't novel. RealTracks are basically automated Acid loops. Acid loops were released back in 1998, and RealTracks in 2007.

I don't see how Keytron Live Audio tracks are that different from RealTracks. And you can't adjust the pitch of individual notes in Keytron Live Audio tracks, either.

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The bridge app is BBW4.exe that the Plugin controls in the background.
BiaB is much more complex that a typical VSTi such as those by UJAM.

-- David Cuny
My virtual singer development blog

Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?