Quote:

MMy point is that BIAB can and I believe will improve its midi capabilities. Midi will never be perfect but it can get better. With more powerful computers many of the factors discussed above will be built into software to emulate random articulations. The idea is not to ever replace live musicians but simply make it as good as possible. I am betting that PG Music will surprize us over the next few years with things we thought were impossible.



Again, never say never but...that would mean PG dropping the General Midi Standard. That in turn would cause no end of grief for the average user who just wants to put in some chords and hit play. I may be wrong but I don't think you understand what GM means and what it does. GM is first a standard set of 128 instrument patches that call up the same instrument on any synth be it hardware or software that has a GM soundbank in it. That means you could send a midi file to anybody anywhere in the world and as long as they have some kind of GM synth at least the instruments match. The sound quality can still vary quite a bit but the instruments are same ones you hear. So, if you have the bass highlighted in Biab's instrument track and it's a fretless, you hear fretless bass not a kazoo or something else. It doesn't mean it's the exact same sample, just the same patch number that is a fretless.
If you're using either a synth without a GM bank or you don't want to use the GM bank because it sucks, now you're using a variety of tools to map the GM patch numbers to your synth and that can be relatively painless or a total pia depending.
As I mentioned earlier the GM standard also only has a few midi controllers available and they are no where near enough to do what we're talking about here. Drop the GM standard and replace it with what exactly? Whatever it is, everybody has to have the exact same setup or chaos will ensue and by everybody I mean whoever you may want to send that file to or maybe post on the internet. If it's an audio MP3 of your work fine, but if it's a Biab file or a midi file or a Real Band seq file, no way will all this work if it's not GM unless the person who opens it has the same synth with the same controllers as you put in that file. All the work you put into creating the nuances you want with the bass is lost and it not only won't have those, it will probably sound like crap on another setup because who knows what all those controllers will do to a different synth.
The GM standard is over 25 years old now and badly needs updating but good luck getting all the manufacturers together to agree on that. There doesn't appear to be any interest in that because all the different companies have spent tons of cash on developing their own systems so you will buy their stuff. PG could of course do that too but it would mean developing their own synth's and controller specification. So far they've been happy to be a software supplier and you're on your own for sound sources but as you said, who knows what they may do in the future.

Bob

Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.