PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Unhappy with MIDI sounds

Elvis,

(Really? You're using a pic of Elvis for an avatar?)

Maybe you should read the ENTIRE thread before posting. PG doesn't create MIDI sounds. They create commands. How it sounds on your end is up to you and your synth.

No what i'm suggesting is they could have built the Synth right into BIAB so the midi sounds would come out sounding right from the start. And I do understand that the price would have to be set higher and I'm sure there would be a market for that kind of unit don't you think ?

Regards,
Greg

I agree, MIDI controlled synthesizers (including GM and GM2) can run the gambit from sounding like a kazoo to indistinguishable from the 'real thing' depending on how much money you spend on the synth.

I've read in trade magazines and seen in the DVD extras that entire movie soundtracks have been produced with MIDI controlled synths. Many commercial recordings have MIDI controlled synths on them. Virtually every modern synth player is playing a MIDI controlled synth. So obviously there is nothing wrong with MIDI sounds.

However most of us only have enough money to buy a decent to very good MIDI synth. A very good synth will not sound quite as 'real' as an audio loop.

For sound, loops are slightly better than the average good MIDI synth.advantage audio loops

On the other hand MIDI data is infinitely editable by the end user. You can do millions of things to a MIDI track that you cannot do to an audio loop.

For edit-ablity, MIDI tracks are much better than audio loops.advantage MIDI

- - - - - -

So which is better? MIDI tracks or Real Tracks??? Neither one.

It depends on what you want to do with it and who is going to be listening to it.

For me it's MIDI for the reasons I don't need to repeat here. For others it's the RTs. Still others will want to mix the two. There is more than one way to make music.

But I will repeat this, the title of this thread is "Unhappy with MIDI sounds" and of course that means "Unhappy with the poster's MIDI synthesizer sounds."

MIDI synths can sound so like the real thing that even recording engineers have been fooled. It depends on how much cash you have to spend and how good the player is.

Each user has to balance the ability to edit the tracks with the ability of the audience to distinguish between the tone of the synth and the track. We musicians listen much more critically than the general public. If you play a recording of two tenor sax players, John Coltrane and Stan Getz to the average listener, they would think they are playing different instruments. If you play the same two to a musician he/she will tell you one has better tone than the other. If you play the same two to a good sax player, he/she will tell you reasons why the two tenor sax tones are different.

Considering my audience, most of them care more about expression, song specific licks, entire band kicks (figures), and other things that make a song less generic than they do about the finer points of the snare drum or other comp instrument sounds. I am going have vocals and two more instruments added to the backing track (sax, guitar, wind synthesizer, tactile MIDI controller and/or flute). MIDI tracks give me that capability where the loops do not. But that's for me. There is nothing wrong with others doing a song entirely made of RTs. We each have our own 'formula' and our own priorities.

When I play the standard introduction to songs like "Old Time Rock And Roll", "Satin Doll", "Superstition", "Time In A Bottle", "Take The A Train", "In The Mood", "At Last", "Your Momma Don't Dance and Your Daddy Don't Rock And Roll", Dancing Queen", "Black Magic Woman", "Don't Be Cruel", "Dreams", "Soul Man", "Hold On I'm Comin'", "Spanish Eyes", Pretty Woman", "Rockin Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu", "California Dreaming", "Margaritaville", "Crocodile Rock", "Brick House", "Sweet Caroline", "Twist And Shout", "Just The Way You Are", "Conga", "Hot Hot Hot", "Midnight Hour", "Moonglow", "Sea Cruise", "Smooth Operator", and scores of other songs, the audience immediately recognizes them and gets up to dance or stays on the dance floor. When the proper entire band kicks, horn lines, and other important parts are played by the entire band, they feel it. As you can tell I play for a baby boomer audience (good pay, short hours, appreciative audience), but it would work for any audience. Especially with many of the more contemporary songs that could not even exist without their song-specific parts.

But again, these are my needs. And for my needs, MIDI tracks are superior.

For yours, RTs might be better.

For others, combining the best of both.

Just don't tell me that MIDI sounds bad when MIDI has no sound or I'll get up on my soap-box again. I don't do this to criticize but to help. If you understand the limitations and capabilities of the various tools in your BiaB tool box, you can use them wisely and make better music. And isn't that what it is all about?

Notes

Norton no need to get back up on the soap Box . Well exsplained lol :O) I can tell your heart is in music by the length of your response .


Regards,
Greg

Bob I sold my keboard a while back or I would have used that with BIAB. You said that there is Music Creator.I Really don't understand how that hooks up with the midi in BIAB .Does each midi have to be worked on or does it just take over all the midi sounds that are all ready in biab ? Im well aware of the sounds in Ketron products but not sure if the good sound of ketron is going to be present in the Music Creator software ,What is your opinion on that ? As far as good sound I like the yamaha arranger sounds ,Roland arranger sounds ,Ketron .If Music creator sound any less quality then any of those I probley would not be happy with it. Thanks for your support :O)

Regards,
Greg

Greg, you are really either missing the point here, or trying to fluster people. You keep saying the midi sounds in the software. Lets just get this back on track, midi has not sound it is information, that is sent to a synth (hardware or software) to make sounds. BiaB comes with the Coyote wavetable to make basic sounds from the midi data. You the user has the option then to upgrade to whatever synth will sound right for you. Some use the ketron hardware unit, others use the Roland TTS synth that comes bundled in Cakewalk music creator, others buy a different synth. You get to choose.

Music creator is a Recording studio software package similar to the RB or PT here at PG. PG chooses to sell it since it has the TTS synth in the package. If you want the good sounds of ketron in Music Creator, or RealBand, or BiaB, or Cubase you need to output the midi data to that hardware synth.

If you want top end synth sounds then buy ketron, or a Roland or Yamaha keyboards, or a rack mounted synth modules. I personally use Sampletank, a sample based software synth, along with TTS, and a couple more.

I use BIAB to rough out my songs then get it into Realband where the funwork begins.

Love and primarily use the Realtracks but these midi forums and the customizability of the midi "notes" have piqued my curiosity in this area.

I've ordered a Yamaha EZ 200 keyboard to experiment with midi.
Will be interested to see how it's synth compares to the Coyote Forte DXi I purchased from PG.

Am I correct in assuming that the Yamaha will show up as an option in the "Choose a synth" dialog in addition to my Coyote Forte DXi?

Also that each track can have a different synth if desired?

Any advice or links to a good basic midi tutorial will be greatly appreciated.

Carkins

Been reading this thread for a while now, & am amazed at how passionate some of the responses are.

IMHO Notes has it right on the head - YMMV - use the software your way for your kind of music.

I personally use MIDI the same way that Notes does, & have been using it since Powertrax 2.1 came out That was such a long time ago). Lots of changes to software & equipment since then. For my single with backing gigs I find that MIDI lets me customise all parts of the backing track using a PC, & played through a decent Yamaha keyboard synth, gives me the backing that I like, & that my audience (generally) likes.

Don't really care how others use BIAB, or what they use it for. I know how & why I use it. That is what is important. You don't like MIDI, use RT, don't like RT, use MIDI. YMMV, we are all different.

BTW - totally agree with all the different reactions to midi sounds, cos there are none. The same MIDI information will be processed differently by all synths. You don't like the sound, don't blame the information, look at the equipment.

Just my 0.02c worth

Simon
Canberra Australia

Dunno if the EZ 200 has it's own MIDI driver or not (which would determine if it shows up in driver list or not). It may require a USB-MIDI adapter in which case it would show up as that driver.. it would likely show up in an area near the Forte DXi (since t is software and the Yamaha is hardware) but should be intuitive enough to figure out.

Yes; each track in RB can have its own synth .. up to 16 software synths and however many hardware synths you can figure out how to route with available putput ports. MIDI OUT port restriction has never been an insurmountable issue here, so basicly each track can have its own synth for all practical purposes.

If you want multiple hardware synths you may need multiple physical ports or learn how to be creative with the existing ports, but RB is up to task in this regard as long as hardware allows it.

RB simply sends the MIDI out to any available MIDI port (per track), be it software or hardware.

I seem to recall that back in the old Windows 98 days, user could customise the midi mapper & send different MIDI channels to different synths/outputs. This is one feature that seems to have been lost in Windows - real pity, it was quite a useful feature. Sounds like RB can do this - this would make it a useful upgrade for me.

Simon
Canberra, Australia

Thanks Robh and everyone else for the input .Something to look into in the future.

Regards,
Greg

Yes, I did have to order a USB/MIDI cable.
Excited to solve the mysteries of MIDI.
Thanks for the input.
Carkins

(1) Either you missed the point or you are flustering the people.

(2) Maybe you should read the ENTIRE thread before posting.

To answer the first question I would answer no I am not flustering the people but sometime miss the point.

To Further exsplain my self you all need to read this artical to fully understand me and why coming on this forum is a challenge for me as well as learning how to use a program like BIAB . I sometimes am feeling like I do not fit in to this forum and so to better understand me please read the artical below .I am not only doing this for me but for all those millions that go un herd and do not speak out. This may be your first time in understanding this so please read carefully . Thank you



Top 5 Emotional Difficulties of
People with Learning Disabilities



Click Home
________________________________________
1. Shame
People growing up with a learning disability often feel a sense of shame. For some, it is a great relief to receive the diagnosis while for others the label only serves to further stigmatize them. For many adults, especially older adults, an accurate diagnosis was unavailable. These individuals were frequently labeled as mentally retarded, written off as being unable to learn, and most passed through the school system without acquiring basic academic skills.
Sadly, these feelings of shame often cause the individual to hide their difficulties. Rather than risk being labeled as stupid or accused of being lazy, some adults deny their learning disability as a defense mechanism. Internalized negative labels of stupidity and incompetence usually result in a poor self concept and lack of confidence (Gerber, Ginsberg, & Reiff, 1992)
Some adults feel ashamed of the type of difficulties they are struggling to cope with such as basic literacy skills, slow processing, attention difficulties, chronic forgetfulness, organizational difficulties, etc.
The following myths about learning disabilities have perpetuated the general public’s negative perception about learning disabilities:
Myth #1
People with learning disabilities have below average intelligence and cannot learn.
Fact
People with learning disabilities have average to above average intelligence (Gerber. 1998). In fact, studies indicate that as many as 33% of students with LD are gifted (Baum, 1985; Brody & Mills, 1997; Jones, 1986). With proper recognition, intervention and lots of hard work, children and adults with learning disabilities can learn and succeed!
Myth #2
Learning disabilities are just an excuse for irresponsible, unmotivated or lazy people.
Fact
Learning disabilities are caused by neurological impairments not character flaws. In fact, the National Information Centre for Adults and Youth with Disabilities makes a point of saying that people with learning disabilities are not lazy or unmotivated (NICHCY , 2002).
Myth #3
Learning disabilities only affect children. Adults grow out of learning disabilities.
Fact
It is now known that LD continues throughout the individual’s lifespan and “may even intensify in adulthood as tasks and environmental demands change” (Michaels, 1994a). Sadly, many adults, especially older adults, have never been formally diagnosed with a learning disability. In fact, the majority of people with learning disabilities are not diagnosed until they reach adulthood (LDA, 1996)
Myth #4
Dyslexia and learning disability are the same thing.
Fact
Dyslexia is a type of learning disability. It is not a another term for learning disability. It is a specific language based disorder affecting a person’s ability to read, write and verbally express themselves. Unfortunately, careless use of the term has expanded it so that it has become, for some, an equivalent for "learning disability".
Myth #5
Learning disabilities are only academic in nature. They do not affect other areas of a person’s life.
Fact
Some people with learning disabilities have isolated difficulties in reading, writing or mathematics. However, most people with learning disabilities have more than one area of difficulty. Dr. Larry Silver asserts that "learning disabilities are life disabilities". He writes, “The same disabilities that interfere with reading, writing, and arithmetic also will interfere with sports and other activities, family life, and getting along with friends." (Silver, 1998)
Typically, students with LD have other major difficulties in one or more of the following areas:
• motor coordination
• time management
• attention
• organizational skills
• processing speed • Social skills needed to make friends and maintaining relationships
• emotional maturation
• verbal expression
• memory
Many adults with learning disabilities have difficulty in performing basic everyday living tasks such as shopping, budgeting, filling out a job application form or reading a recipe. They may also have difficulty with making friends and maintaining relationships. Vocational and job demands create additional challenges for young people with learning disabilities.
Myth #6
Adults with learning disabilities cannot succeed in higher education.
Fact
More and more adults with learning disabilities are going to college or university and succeeding (Gerber and Reiff 1994). With the proper accommodations and support, adults with learning disabilities can be successful at higher education.
2. Fear
Another emotional difficulty for adults with learning disabilities is fear. This emotion is often masked by anger or anxiety. Tapping into the fear behind the anger and/or the anxiety response is often the key for adults to cope with the emotional fallout of learning disabilities.
Feelings of fear may be related one or more of the following issues:
• fear of being found out
• fear of failure
• fear of judgment or criticism
• fear of rejection
Fear of Being Found Out
Many adults with learning disabilities live with fear of being found out. They develop coping strategies to hide their disability. For example, an adult who can hardly read might pretend to read a newspaper. Other adults may develop gregarious personalities to hide their difficulties or focus on other abilities that do not present learning barriers. Unfortunately some adults will have developed negative strategies such as quitting their job rather than risking the humiliation of being terminated because their learning disability makes it difficult for them to keep up with work demands.
The fear of being found out is particularly troublesome for many older adults who have never been diagnosed with a learning disability or those who received inappropriate support. Such adults were frequently misdiagnosed with mental retardation, inappropriately placed in programs for the mentally disabled, and/or stigmatized by teachers and classmates. In later life, these adults often return to learning through adult literacy programs in order make up for lost educational opportunities. Seeking help is a difficult step forward for these adults because it requires them to stop hiding their disability. The simple act of entering a classroom can be an anxiety producing experience for adults who have been wrongly labeled and/or mistreated by the educational system. For these adults, returning to a learning environment is truly an act of courage!
Low literacy skills and academic difficulties are not the only type of learning disabilities adults try to hide. Adults with social skill difficulties may live in constant fear of revealing social inadequacies. For example, an adult who has trouble understanding humour, may pretend to laugh at a joke even through they don’t understand it. They may also hide their social difficulties by appearing to be shy and withdrawn. On the other hand, hyperactive adults may cover up their attention difficulties by using a gregarious personality to entertain people.
Fear of Failure
The National Adult Literacy Survey, 1992, found that 58% of adult with self-reported learning disabilities lacked the basic functional reading and writing skills needed to experience job and academic success (Kirsch, 1993). Most of these adults have not graduated high school due to the failure of the school system to recognize and/or accommodate their learning disability. Needless to say, adult literacy programs are a second chance to learn the basic academic skills missed out in public school. As mentioned above, going back into an educational environment is often a fearful experience for adults with learning disabilities. One of the main reasons for this is the fear of failure. Many adults reason that, if they have failed before, what is to stop them failing again and, if they do fail again, then this failure must mean they, themselves, are failures.. The tendency for adults with learning disabilities to personalize failure (i.e. failure makes ME a failure) is perhaps the biggest self-esteem buster for adult learners. Educators need to be aware of these fears to help learner’s understand that failure does not make them a failure and making mistakes is a part of the learning process.
For most people, anxiety about failing is what motivates them to succeed, but for people with learning disabilities this anxiety can be paralyzing. Fear of failure may prevent adults with learning disabilities from taking on new learning opportunities. It might prevent them from participating in social activities, taking on a new job opportunity or enrolling in an adult education course.
One positive characteristic that often helps adults overcome their fear of failure is their ability to come up with innovative strategies to learn and solve problems. These strategies are often attributed to the “learned creativity” that many adults with learning disabilities develop in order to cope with the vocational , social and educational demands in their everyday lives. (Gerber, Ginsberg,& Reiff, 1992).
Fear of Ridicule
Adults with learning disabilities frequently fear the ridicule of others. Sadly, these fears often develop after the individual has been routinely ridiculed by teachers, classmates or even family members. The most crushing of these criticisms usually relates to a perceived lack of intelligence or unfair judgments about the person’s degree of motivation or ability to succeed. For example, comments such as “you’ll never amount to anything”, “you could do it if you only tried harder”, or the taunting of classmates about being “in the mental retard class” have enormous emotional effects on individuals with learning disabilities. For many of these adults, especially those with unidentified learning disabilities, these and other negative criticisms, continue to affect their emotional well-being into their adult years. It is not uncommon for adults to internalize the negative criticisms and view themselves as dumb, stupid, lazy, and/or incompetent. Such negative criticisms often fuel the fear adults with learning disabilities have about being found out.
Fear of Rejection
Adults with learning disabilities frequently fear rejection if they are not seen to be as capable as others. If they come from a middle to upper class family where academic achievement is a basic expectation for its members, fear of rejection may be a very real concern. They may also fear that their social skill deficits will preclude them from building meaningful relationships with others and may lead to social rejection. Prior experiences of rejection will likely intensify this sense of fear.
3. Environmental and Emotional Sensitivity
Environmental Sensitivities
Adults are often overwhelmed by too much environmental stimuli (e.g. background noise, more than one person talking at a time, side conversations, reading and listening at the same time). Many people with LD and ADD have specific sensitivities to their environment such as certain fabrics they cannot wear, foods they cannot tolerate, etc.
Emotional Sensitivity
Many adults with learning disabilities see themselves as more emotionally sensitive than other people In its most extreme form, high levels of emotional sensitivity are both a blessing and a weakness. The positive features of this trait helps adults with learning disabilities build meaningful relationships with others. For example, they are often very intuitive and in-tune with both their own and other people's emotions. Sometimes they are actually able to perceive other's thoughts and feelings. However, this strength also serves as weakness due to its propensity to overwhelm the individuals. Emotional difficulties occur when they are unable to cope with the onslaught of emotions they are feeling. Highly sensitive adults with LD may be moved to tears more easily or feel their own and other people’s pain more deeply. For example, Thomas West, writer of "The Minds Eye", not only gives a thorough explanation of Winston Churchill's learning disability, but also describes his sensitive nature. West details Churchill's tendency to break into tears quite easily" (West, 1997) even out in the public eye. He notes one incident in which Churchill was moved to tears after witnessing the devastating effects of a bomb.
This description of Churchill also serves to highlight the strong sense of justice that many adults with learning disabilities possess. Unfortunately, this sense of justice often serves as a double edged sword. On one hand, it is refreshing to behold the passion of many of these individuals in their fight to overcome injustice. While on the other hand, this very passion, when it crosses the line into aggression, can cause social rejection and/or emotional overload. Often the individual may be unaware that their behavior has turned aggressive. They only wish make their point known and have others understand it. This type of over reaction is not a purposeful attempt to hurt anybody. It is more likely to be caused by a difficulty with monitoring their emotions and consequent behavior.
4. Emotional Regulation
Difficulties with regulating emotions are common for highly sensitive adults with learning disabilities. Dr. Kay Walker, describes the connection between learning disabilities and self-regulation problems in her paper “Self Regulation and Sensory Processing for Learning, Attention and Attachment”. She asserts that self-regulation problems frequently occur in those with learning disabilities (Walker, 2000) In its most extreme form, individual may easily shift from one emotion to the next. Others may experience difficulty regulating impulsive thoughts or actions.
Fortunately, most adults have learned to handle their emotional sensitivity to avoid becoming overwhelmed or engaging in negative social interactions. Nevertheless, some adults may be so deeply affected that they become depressed or suffer from anxiety. A lack of school, job and/or social success will likely add to this emotional burden. Some adults with LD, especially those who have been ridiculed by their family members, teachers and/or peers, may be more apt to take criticism to heart because of their experiences and/or their ultra-sensitive nature. Emotional wounds from childhood and youth may cause heightened emotional responses to rejection. In turn, social anxiety and social phobia may result
5. Difficulty Adjusting to Change
Change is scary for everyone, but for people with learning disabilities and other neurological disabilities, change may be particularly difficult. Children with learning disabilities may prefer procedures to stay the same and have a hard time moving from one activity to another. Usually this difficulty becomes less of an issue as the child matures. However, adults with learning disabilities may still experience difficulty adjusting to change in more subtle ways . For example, some adults will have trouble moving from one work task to another without completely finishing the first task before moving on to the next one. Adults with learning disabilities are frequently described as inflexible when it comes to considering another person’s view point or a different way of doing something.
Adjustment to change is difficult for adults with LD because change brings the unexpected. In general, people with learning disabilities are less prepared for the unexpected. The unexpected may bring new learning hurdles, new job demands or new social challenges. Since all these areas can be affected by learning disabilities, it is no wonder why change can produce so much anxiety for adults with learning disabilities.
To avoid the tendency to blame the person for their lack of flexibility, it is important to understand the neurological basis for this difficulty with adjusting to change. With this said, through social skills practice, adults with learning disabilities can improve their ability to tolerate change. In addition, parents, instructors, and other professionals can help adults with learning disabilities by making transition processes easier through understanding and accommodating the adults’ needs

________________________________________

I use Master Tracks Pro as my MIDI sequencer of choice, but I cannot recommend it because when GVox bought it from the originators (Passport) they introduced bugs that they have not fixed in over 7 years. We're still waiting. I still use it because for me it's the easiest MIDI sequencer to use and I've learned how to get around most of the bugs. Like most modern synths, MTPro allows up to 960ppq and up to 16 different synthesizers without having to buy a MIDI Patch Bay.

I have a half dozen external synths and a couple of hardware samplers. One synth might have the best bass patch for a particular song, another might have the best Rear Pickup Tele sound for the clean guitar, another might have the best organ sound, and another the best sax sound. I can mix and match to my hearts content.

Some of the voices on my synths sound so real that it would take golden ears to tell them from a recording of the real thing. Others sound different, but that can be good as well. I have a brass patch that sounds much reedier than a real brass section, but in the right song it works better than a more traditional sounding brass section. I have a patch on my VL synth that is supposed to sound like an alto sax that was made out of glass -- I love that sound. I have a patch on my pre-GM Roland MT32 that is called "Doctor Solo" that sounds much like an analog synth lead patch, and I find that works for sequencing the background singers' parts in a song (I don't want real human voices because it will shout KARAOKE to the audience).

The ability to choose from thousands of virtual instruments gives me a huge sonic palette. This adds a lot of variety to my music so all the songs don't start sounding the same. I just worked up Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" for a Friday 13 party I'm doing this week. I used a patch called "Attack Clav" for the famous clav figure and then added another not so aggressive clav to run guitar-like lines to complement the "attack clav" and I'm really happy with the results. We tried it out at a party last Saturday and as soon as the introduction with that famous figure started, a half dozen ladies enthusiastically hit the dance floor.

When I'm all done sequencing my MIDI parts I'll put the output of the mixer into the input of PG Music's Power Tracks Pro Audio. For the money this is the best audio recording value I've ever seen. I'll record everything on PTRro and then make a WAV File, turn the WAV file into a high bit-rate, high quality mp3 file and take that to work.

I used to drag around all my synth modules to the gig, but I started thinking about what would happen if one failed on the gig. It's impractical to bring a duplicate road 10 space road rack filled with duplicate modules just in case one of them dies, but a spare computer with the mp3 files duplicated on it is no problem at all. That way if one computer dies, I switch to the spare (always up and running) by moving the USB->Audio interface to the backup computer and the audience doesn't know there was a problem. I've had to do this twice since I went computer in 2002.

If you are interested, I have a web page that explains how I make my backing tracks and how I use them on stage http://www.nortonmusic.com/backing_tracks.html - it's the sum total of the experience I've had doing a duo track gig since 1985 and the easiest method I've found to date.

I started using MIDI back in the 1980s, and it's amazing how the tools have grown. The 128 continuous controllers allow for a huge amount of expressiveness http://www.nortonmusic.com/midi_cc.html -- and they aren't even all used yet. Plus there are controllers dedicated so that individual synth manufacturers can use them for custom controls.

When audio loops came around, I bought some loop software but it was frustrating. It was like a person who is skilled at creating oil paintings being forced to go back to 'paint by number' sets. The honeymoon of those great loops was over very quickly when I realized just how many things I couldn't do with the loops. Things that I've been doing for years that help me make my music both personal and more expressive.

The depth of what you can do with MIDI is incredible. But like any musical instrument, it isn't instant gratification. It takes time and practice to get good at it. But since the controls can be done in computer time rather than real time it's a lot easier than learning saxophone, piano or guitar. And it's fun to get over another hurdle, listen to the playback, and think to yourself, "I did that!"

Plus playing with MIDI has taught me a lot about musical arranging. I took music courses in school, but without an orchestra at my disposal, arranging was just theory - facts in my head. I couldn't afford to hire an orchestra to see how an idea of mine worked out. Now with MIDI I can try things out and listen to them in the privacy of my own home. I can even get daring and break the rules just to see what it sounds like, and if it sounds terrible, I'm the only one who knows.

MIDI gives me the creativity that I crave. I love listening to other people's music, but I love creating music even more.

The tools have grown phenomenally since I started using MIDI on my Atari/ST computer way back in the 80s. When I started using Band-in-a-Box it was on the Atari, when I started writing styles Peter Gannon generously offered to help me my convert the styles to the PC format so I could sell them to a broader market (thanks Peter). Then I got my first PC, running BiaB as a DOS program, before it went Windows and I bought a Mac Classic ][ running OS6 on Motorola chips. Back then BiaB was limited to 3 instruments, drums, bass and piano, and had virtually no features other than auto-accompaniment (it didn't even have any endings). In fact, the entire program fit on a floppy disk.

Now look at it. The good folks at PG Music have expanded the program so it is virtually the "Swiss army knife" of musical apps. There are plenty of features that I have absolutely no use for -- these are for other people to enjoy. And there are plenty of features that make my life easier and my music creations more expressive while it makes the process of making music easier.

As Zone1958 indicated, I'm passionate about my music. It's my life, it's my love and it's just not what I do for a living, being a musician is what I am.

I hope PG never abandons the core MIDI aspect of this great app, and I also hope they continue to develop the core MIDI functions so that people like myself who like to have ultimate control over the music we create can continue to have improved tools to do just that.

And as for those features that I don't use -- I'm glad they are there for others to enjoy.

Insights and incites by Notes

This is a most remarkable thread!

Quote:

---

I'm passionate about my music. It's my life, it's my love and it's just not what I do for a living, being a musician is what I am.

I hope PG never abandons the core MIDI aspect of this great app, and I also hope they continue to develop the core MIDI functions so that people like myself who like to have ultimate control over the music we create can continue to have improved tools to do just that.

And as for those features that I don't use -- I'm glad they are there for others to enjoy.

Insights and incites by Notes

---

This is me, also.

These are my thoughts, also.


Your quote is from a killer post (yet another killer post by you) in an amazing thread.


I clicked on the "How I make my backing tracks and how I use them on stage" link in your thread.

This is not my gig; it won't be my gig. But I not only bookmarked that, I saved it, in case you take it down. Anybody that asks me about that gig gets your link, along with "This guy's really successful. Here's his method. It would be a great starting point for you."

I was astonished at your generosity in posting that on the internet. Among other things, I realized that any / all of your competitors could read and apply that knowledge.

What specificity!


I laughed when I read, "If someone comes up and puts a hug sum of money on the keyboard and asks for a special request we know, I can slip that in as soon as it is appropriate to do so."

I wondered what a "huge" amount of money was! Then I read it a second time and saw the typo.

I laughed again. Cause it is a "hug" if you think about it.

It's a "hug" to the song and that couples' life experience with the song.

It's a "hug" to each other, by that couple.

It's a "hug" to the "Sophisticats" for the good time that couple is already having.

Yet another "insight" by Notes, the touch-typist!


My wife and I live over 1000 miles from your locale. I found myself wishing that we could attend one of your gigs.

I'm positive we would have fun!

Myzone,

Don't wonder if you fit in here... you fit in just fine. I've noticed that in every group, there is a "getting used to each other" stage, and it's no different here. We've all had to work at fitting in, and I dare say many of us have wondered if we fit in at some point. But this isn't about anything but music... and if you use PGMusic products to enjoy your music then you fit in here, period. There's no other qualification!

Welcome to the forum