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The 'I gotta have midi' guys seem to be mostly the ones who want to make a backing track sound exactly like the original, program all the signature licks.

A rather contentious remark in my opinion, one could say that using Real Tracks etc stifles creativity, by the same logic.
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Roll your midi track for Chestnuts Roasting, and I'll roll a backing track with RealTracks. My work will take 15 minutes. And then we get them 'tested'. I think PG with RealTracks and John pushing buttons is going to blow the midi out of the water, especially if we say you have only 12 hours working time to produce it from the same starting point

If you want to do it that way great, do so, I see no problems with that BUT it is not the way I, for example, work. Hence my suggestion for this post.

There are many free vsti's that sound amazing. EMU Proteus, UVI workstation, Independence Free,HEAD Acoustic guitar, even Native Instruments have player versions of Kontakt, Kore and Reactor and all editable to some extent. Fruity loops has an amazing selection of sounds (I have bought the producer version but one can use it as a vsti without purchase). I too have used and discarded many expander boxes over the years and agree that the sounds are "cheesy".
The sounds of the Real Tracks ARE good, I cannot dispute that but I like to personalise my music which I cannot do with them but I can do with MIDI. Before BIAB I wrote/programed every part I couldn't play and still input "my signature licks" to this day.

An current example of how good Real Tracks can sound is IMHO "Oh me oh my" by Sundance.
And Hawgly DRiddle Noel96, George Nelson etc etc. In fact all the posted songs sound good but I couldn't have done the few songs I have posted, to MY satisfaction, with the Real stuff.
I am not saying the direction PG Music is going is wrong, I am just asking if I/we could have a "stripped down" MIDI version.

I will never stop using BIAB and may end up not upgrading and sticking to 2010, just as I did with Cubase SX1 as their "advancements" to SX5 did not improve MY way of writing and producing.

Alyn

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