NAMM 2020 might be the last normal NAMM we have for awhile.

If you had an eagle eye or a bat ear you might have caught MIDISamples in stealth mode as Ian Bell made beats on the fly using loops from some of our first libraries.

The beauty of MIDISamples is that somebody played them. Truly. A real drummer sat behind an acoustic kit with MIDI mics or a set of Roland V Drums and played.

Almost as important, some geek didn’t then suck the life out of them by making everything pretty and ‘perfectly’ in time. They’re in time, make no mistake, but they’re in time like a great drummer is in time. There are pushes and pulls, elasticity, groove and feel.

The keyboard library is just plain scary.

Any fool can plonk a few fingers on a keyboard and play a chord or maybe even a little three-note part. But any fool can’t play like this.

This takes years and years of scales and practice. Plus having a brain that can make sense of modes and voicing and fingering and all the other things that real keyboard players wrestle with.

But you don’t have to! All you have to do is make your selection, sit back, and wonder how the hell did someone play that? But hey presto, here’s your hook, here’s your flash of color or moment of madness that makes your beat come alive.

And that’s what’s important today: standing out from the pack, making a statement.

The problem with a lot of beat making apps and plugins his that you’re using someone else’s engine and collection of loops. And the danger of that is everyone can end up sounding the same.

With MIDISamples you just have raw ingredients. Put them directly into Logic or FL Studio or Ableton, voice them as your mood strikes, play them at a tempo you’re in the mood for, mix them with other MIDI Samples or just sprinkle them into a beat you’ve already started.

Given all these variables, the chances of you spending like someone else is like giving 10 food ingredients to 10 chefs and expecting all the dishes to taste the same. Not going to happen.

MIDISamples are computer-controllable human performances, but they’re not AI.

They don’t tie into some neural network or giant data set. They’re not AI, they’re MI Musical Intelligence. But, unlike a real musician in your band, uncomplainingly under your control.