I think it's almost there, "almost" being the operative word here.. But the thing is that a lot of music today is created not so much by playing but rather by editing. And that used to stop me from trying, I preferred to play my arranger coming up with songs. It didn't feel right to work with music without actually playing it. But I see that today's composers, who actually make their living by writing music, mostly work with VSTi. I know that you can actually play the VSTi; what I mean, it's still more work with MIDI data, adding and fixing automations, etc. Since SX900 didn't solve all my problems and is actually away right now, I abandon all my believes and follow the principle "do what you can where you are with what you have" :-)

Since you have your VSTi up and running, I want to ask, what do you spend more time playing: your BK9 or your software instruments?

My software instruments are simply sounds I play from my BK9. I treat them as functionally identical. I make a distinction between VSTi’s that are primarily sound sources, and groovebox software, which is primarily a way of triggering loops and beats and sounds. It’s not a compositional workflow I enjoy. If it didn’t come from my fingers, I don’t consider that I wrote it!

I freely match sounds that come from the BK with VSTi’s, but sometimes in the early stages of working on something I’ll use the BK to flesh out the rough, then gradually change them over to better VSTi sounds.

I’m not really into any music that demands the groovebox approach. I like to play!

Well, by editing midi data I don't mean working with fragments created by a 3d party. I illustrated what I mean in the video I posted earlier. It is when a music keyboard is used to come up with a melody, to try out sounds and to record some phrases, but then all the notes are edited, other notes are drawn with a mouse, some automations are added, drum loops can be also created from scratch. Even vocals in modern music can be tuned and quantized. I'm not saying that it is better, in fact I think it can be a reason why we have so many meaningless songs nowadays; with all this developed processing it's easier to hide the lack of idea in the first place, and software synths and libraries sound so good that it is easier to impress a casual listener. But it's hard to fight progress.

I see that you sort of expand your keyboard with a computer, which helps it to stay relevant. I had an impression that you also got another keyboards, was I wrong? SX900?

No, still gigging with the BK-9, but back at the house still making do with older gear other than the VSTi’s. Kurzweil K2500S (still a very amazing sounding keyboard despite its age!), Korg Triton (again, bit of a classic!),

Only thing bought recently (the cancer treatment pretty much chewing up most of my discretionary spending!) has been the SWAM software horns and strings.

But this works for me, as I’m pretty old school in my tastes. Not really interested in sounding contemporary, I’m a bit too old to go chasing trends! The goal with my sounds is not to impress, but to have them be indistinguishable from the real thing, to the point it’s not even noticeable. There aren’t a lot of acoustic sounds in most arrangers that can do that, IMHO

And I definitely don’t use the ‘blocks’ approach, the music of my era is too complex (mostly!) to be able to do with repeated chunks of anything! I am pretty dismayed with how relentlessly diatonic and simplified most pop has become. Even the Beatles start to sound like Tchaikovsky compared to today’s four chord kiddy songs!

Bottom line, I’m not writing much, always been more of a session player for other people’s music. And there is where getting your sounds nailed is mostly appreciated. Nothing worse than having a great part pushed back a bit in the mix because by the time it’s brought to the forefront, you can hear it’s fake!

Keep on being you… just try to get the tools that achieve it best. Nothing stifles creativity more than having to slow down your flow to accommodate older gear!