Hi,
Regarding pitch and intonation: it can very well depend on the instrument source sounds, or in other words, the MIDI playback device that you use, as well. The GS Wavetable (the default device that is present on all Windows systems) is not the absolute best by anyone's definition. It will give you "quite close", but if you want a really spot-on pitch, you'll want to have a better instrument library (and watch out for soundfonts - I love 'em, but some need some tuning, which can be done with Viena from
www.synthfont.com).
That said, I can understand why the constant reference pitch would be helpful - it gives you a constant anchor. That's a great idea - maybe I'll start incorporating that into my fretless bass practice as well.
Thanks for the tip!
Sherry