Does this sound midi to you:

[lesmac]

Others have made good points. I think the bass is very predictable and boring, all downbeat. It needs some upbeat optimism to match the rest of the composition.
My two cents on first listen/impressions.

[nicotina]

This is an interesting case: live playing but they think it sounds fake? I think I would try some remixes and include some different reverbs to liven it up and make the instruments blend a bit . I think it sounds too clean and polite for party music. Calling something "midi" is kind of a cop out, when they really should be more specific. My last few tunes got called "midi" too. Nice playing though. I can certainly tell that's real flute.

best,

Vince

[mikemichnya]

Damn, John. That was a great track. I guess your musician's were a bit too good! get 'em a little liquored up first next time so they play a little sloppier. Or record the track on an actual beach... I'd pitch it again. Maybe you'll have better luck next time.

[JohnForster]

These are all great points, and offer the perspective and inspiration I needed to remixing the cue. Many thanks. (What a great resource this forum is.)

[VanderBoegh]

Hey John, cool track. If I wouldn't have known these were live instruments though, I would have assumed there was a large amount of MIDI stuff happening too. The reason, I think, is that there's not a lot of natural room sound in here. Without that room sound, I started to question the "live-ness" of the playing. Did you by chance record the parts in an isolated environment, like a vocal booth or something? Seems to me, if these parts were recorded in a studio with a great live space, we'd hear it in the track. But as it is, the instruments sound dry, and that's what I think is lending to the MIDI comments.

Could be that a couple sets of stereo room mics on the next recording would do the trick. Or a better live recording environment. If you already did those things with this track, I'd blend in more of the reverberant room sound.

Very tight playing though. Great musicians on this one!!

Also, like someone else mentioned, ditch the whistles!

~~Matt

[andygabrys]

Pretty tight. Nice having the BST horn section drop by too.

I think its fine. Some more room sound might help, but it might not.

You didn't paste in the listing into your post and we can't A/B against the refs but I don't hear anything wrong.

Like Matt and several mentioned above though.... these days most orchestral and band stuff is assumed to be MIDI / programmed - usually because the plugins are so good these days that it can sound very convincing, and most people don't have the friends or the $$$ to pour into real recordings. Sad but this issue comes up again and again.

In this case I would be looking for how close you came to the reference tunes - usually the too MIDI thing is a way for a screener to rule a piece out where sometimes the vibe isn't quite right for what they want. Like the whistles - its indicative of a certain vibe and time period but might not be what they wanted.

If you are game, paste in the rest of the listing so we can all hear what they were looking for.

[SubRivers]

Agree with much that has been said so far.

Just adding another reason the screener may have reached for the MIDI word - the density of the arrangement.
It is a well used tactic to hide midi sounding instruments.

So - featuring instruments, perhaps in sparser sections of the arrangement.

It would establish the realness and carry over into the denser parts

[JohnForster]

Here is the original listing:
D190217CC
CARIBBEAN INSTRUMENTAL CUES are needed by a hot European Music Library that’s been scooping up a lot of TAXI members' music as part of a big expansion! They’re eager to find Mid-to-Up-Tempo Instrumental Cues in the general stylistic ballpark of the following references:

Caribbean Music #1 - Bahamas

Caribbean Steel Drum Calypso

Please send rhythmically and melodically engaging Instrumental Cues that are full of Caribbean flavor, with instrumentation that’s typical of the region. Adding and subtracting layers of instrumentation as your Instrumentals progress will help keep them interesting and forward-moving. Build it up, break it down, build it back up… you get the idea! If you can imagine your submissions sitting nicely behind scenes where the host of a travel show is visiting Caribbean restaurants, resorts, and beaches, then you’re probably on the right track!

Andy, I'm just curious. The tpt and bone are actually Lew Soloff (the late great!) and Dave Bargeron, two thirds of the BST horns. Did you recognize the sound or was it an educated guess?

On this track I was repurposing parts of a track from an earlier project. adding a flute mel and scrambling around the sections, but otherwise not changing it a lot. But these peer suggestions have opened my eyes to this "is it real or is it midi" issue, and I'll do some remixes with that in mind.

Obviously, this is a special situation and most of the time it has to be mostly midi horns. But the Sample Modeling stuff really is amazing.

[JohnForster]

Here are the links to the refs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTW0ifgY9zc&t=
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlHz5ehw-Ys

My cue is not really a smells-alike for any of the refs, but it's in "the same stylistic ballpark", per the listing.

[ComposerLDG]

Really nice track. It's odd when that happens. I had the same thing happen to me on a solo piano track, yet the whole track was played in real time and not quantized. As others have pointed out, I think a lot of it has to do with the mix and production. Curiously though, we seem to be entering an era where if someone plays with really good timing, it's assumed that it's midi.