Harry's Rant was: Guitar synths (Don's rant)

[Harry Bissell]

Hi Don (et al) comments inline...

Don Tillman wrote:

>    Date: Fri, 19 May 2000 09:02:17 -0400
>    From: Harry Bissell <harrybissell at prodigy.net>
>
>    You don't need to move the frets to get V/oct response... just an antilog
>    converter...  Guitars are already "expo" by nature...
>
> Harry, Harry, Harry...  It's I/x, not exponential.  *Imgine* what the
> fingerboard would look like if it were exponential!  :-)

(sound cue, calliope music)
"Harry, Harry, Harry.... step right up folks...."

If you *Imagine* what the fretboard would look like with only a single string,
at one fixed tension, and enough frets in a row to get the 2+ octave range of
the guitar... it would be exponential (but of course, inverse because the frets
get closer together instead of farther apart... I was not referring to the
string length vs resistance, but the relationship of pitch.
If you converted the period to voltage, and inverted (frequency is a 1/x
relationship) you could drive a standard V/Hz oscillator.  If you want V/oct at
this point you just need an antilog generator.

The "resistive string", "cut frets" etc... are all losers.

But (IMHO) I disagree with the "toy" designation.  First of all I INSISTED that
if it wasn't
a Guitar first, it didn't qualify as guitar synth.  And a LOT of people play
guitar who don't have the tons of technique to draw every sound from the
instrument. That of course doesn't make them masters... but they can be above
hacker range too. Keyboard synths are played by a lot of people who might not
have great expressive technique, but they make music within the limitations of
their command of the instrument.

No, most guitar synths do SUCK. That's not the manuufacturer's fault. Its
Physics. I demanded that it still be a Guitar, and working with that limitation,
they have done as best as they can.

If you have ever tried the Yamaha guitar controller, its really very expressive
and reasonable fast acting. Alas... its NOT a guitar. Nor is the Synth-axe,
Starr Guitar, etc.

"Playing a particular note not all that important?" Come on... :^)
Its of VITAL importance. You're right if you mean that it has become second
nature
and subconcious, allowing lots of time for other actions... (in my case its
usually thinking
about my tax refund check... and my vacation... and oh shit here comes the next
note....).

"How the note is played" might mean that the guitarist wants a flute doubling
his notes...
or an organ, or a string pad.  I DO !  What I DON'T WANT is to have that added
note
30mS late. So I think the thread is right on. I doubt anyone is going to
suddenly come up with some new magic bullet. But the problem is... pitch
detection is always going to be late.  Detecting the fret position does a lot to
help that. No you can't use finger vibrato
(but some of us are playing chords anyway...) or the vibrato bar (oops my guitar
is a "hardtail")... and bends ARE slow (again not a problem for rhythm
guitar...).

I got a Guitar Lesson (about 30 years ago). I was playing around a campfire,
with a guy who was just TERRIBLE !  He only knew three chords... and he'd play
any song anyone
wanted to hear with just those three chords. If the song required some other
chord... he
substitute one of the three he knew.  Drove me NUTS!  But (otoh) everyone at the
campfire LOVED him... because he could play ANY song they asked him to.  As a
music major, I knew he was wrong... but he wasn't even bluffing... he was
blissfully unaware that there was anything wrong... why should he be... the fans
loved him !!! Sh!t even my girlfriend was awed "Gee he knows SO MANY songs"
(I'll never forgive him THAT one...).

How does this apply to guitar synth?  Give me one.  You won't be able to play
it, because it won't respond properly to bends, or hammer ons, or harmonics, or
any other advanced
techniques. But I'll be able to play simple chords, etc... and the crowd will
love ME. You will KNOW I'm full of sh!t... (and no kidding I'll know too....)
But that won't make my guitar synth a "toy"

IMHO, the reason for having a Guitar Synthesizer is to use the fact that a
guitarist
KNOWS how to play a guitar and may NOT KNOW how to play a Keyboard
(Which you must admit is a terribly unresponsive interface also... but there are
some
keyboard players who negotiate its downfalls with amazing results...).

If any maunfacturer gets a guitar synth interface that tracks reasonable well,
and
has a delay of (oh pick a number) 3mS or less.... they will own the market. They
are not missing the point at all... If they can sell a guitar synth, they have a
market probably 100 times the size of the keyboard market. But they must sell
within the price expectations of the GUITAR market and that's dirt cheap. The
Siren call of the market lured ARP to its death on the rocks....

The "DIY" purpose is that we don't have to be limited to what a Roland thinks
they can sell... If we come up with some new technique... if anyone can break
the magic spell... we could have a lot of fun with this.

Ingo got me thinking... resistive strings.  How about the Gore "Elixir" strings
with the
polymer coating.... Why not a 'conductive coating'?  Someone else wants to put
separate frequencies superimposed on the string... How about NON conductive
frets, and the strings work like some kind of theremin antenna ???  Who knows.
Nothing wrong with some brainstorming (even if I doubt we will succeed...)
especially when the list has been slow anyway...

Remember... they said man would never fly....

H^)  harry


> ---------------
>
> I have a lot to say about the topic of guitar synths, many pages
> worth, and I'll probably post an article about it on my web site some
> time in the near future.  But for now... speaking as a guitarist,
> keyboard player, sythesist, electrical engineer, synth builder and
> music writer, I think this discussion is missing the point of a guitar
> synthesizer.  Just as I think all the current guitar synth
> manufacturers are missing the point.
>
> For a guitarist, playing a particular note is not all that important.
> All this work figuring out the note that's being fretted seems silly
> when the guitarist himself typically doesn't know what note he's
> playing.  What's important is how the note is played.
>
> A guitar is a remarkably expressive instrument.  I can play a note in
> a thousand different ways depending on pick position, pick angle, how
> tightly I hold the pick, pick thickness, tapping, pulling off,
> bending, reverse bending, use of harmonics, buzzes, palm muting, my
> own personal variation of palm muting, use of feedback, and so forth.
> Any guitar synth mechanism that can't go head-to-head with this sort
> of expressibility is going to be toy.
>
> What's needed is a way of transfering the guitarists natural modes of
> expression, or something reasonably close, to a synthesizer.
>
>   -- Don
>
> --
> Don Tillman
> Palo Alto, California, USA
> don at till.com
> http://www.till.com