[sdiy] req : midi guitar info

[mveneziale at LandAm.com]

if only i could afford it Mo... it certainly would be interesting to try!  too bad we're not neighbors.

-----Original Message-----
From: Moho Disco [mailto:moho at mohodisco.com]
Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2002 11:51 PM
To: harry; music.maker at gte.net
Cc: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
Subject: Re: [sdiy] req : midi guitar info


I have an Axon AX-100, and it basically tracked in real-time for me.

But in the end, playing my synths with my guitar just didn't feel
quite right.

So my Axon is for sale if anyone is interested.

Lava

At 23:14 3/10/2002 -0500, harry wrote:
>Hi Scott (et al)
>
>I have had the same results as Scott. The octave switch of the two low
>strings is a really good (if not original) solution. Several commercial
>units did the same...  there was a "high strung" version of the Photon
>Midi Interface... and a Yamaha "guitar controller" that used all high
>E strings tuned to unison.
>
>Scott's solution is probably the most practical and closest to a "real
>guitar".
>
>I used to use the Roland GM-70 system... you could count on about a 30ms
>delay. I used a digital delay on the guitar output to "time align" the synth
>and
>guitar attack. This works... but you cannot listen to yourself without
>confusion...
>and the drummer would watch me for the beat (a good idea.. he's eliminating
>another delay as my sound reaches his ears..) but my actions were 30ms in 
>front
>
>of the sound... and he KNEW it....
>
>I've just finished (and I use the term as Eduardo "elmacacoX" does... finished
>until tomorrow when I modify it again ;^)  a hex guitar project. I use direct
>waveshaping on the guitar strings themselves... then process with VCF, VCA
>etc. Its a fully polyphonic approach that has the advantage of no delay. Of
>course
>it cannot sustain forever... but it does for a long time....
>
>Trying to approximate the pitch for the first quarter cycle is probably 
>not too
>reliable..
>the attack transient of the guitar is going to spoil that.  You might be able
>to play
>a quarter cycle of any midi note (within an octave  ;^)  for a short time
>before your
>brain can process it. Sounds with slow attack will mask the uncertainty 
>anyway.
>
>The Axon measures the time it takes for the pick transient to reflect off the
>fret position... this can be faster as its really not measuring the
>vibration... but the speed
>of sound in steel. It is said to be pick sensitive as well.
>
>I use the method of the "Gold" patent (New England Digital - Synthclavier) for
>pitch
>extraction... I saw the ads featuring Pat Metheny with the system. If its good
>enough for Pat its good enough for me. Two caveats...
>
>1)  My techinque (while good - teehee) is NOT in a class with Mr. Metheny...
>
>~and~
>
>2) I've been informed that while he posed for pictures as a Synthclavier
>endorsee...
>that his solos were actually recorded with the GR-30 (an all analog system
>which uses the guitar strings as a sync source as well... minimizing delay and
>error)
>
>Midi guitar is still the Holy Grail as far as I'm concerned...
>
>(now Midi Theremin... that we can do  ;^)
>
>H^) harry
>
>Scott Gravenhorst wrote:
>
> > I'd be interested in the comments of others...
> >
> > The system I use does not produce analogue outs...  It's
> > a MIDI guitar system.  (and the question was about MIDI
> > guitar)
> >
> > First, a whole lot of this has to do with how you play
> > it.  I've heard other people do stuff with my equipment
> > that I can't seem to do.  So I won't claim to be a good
> > guitar player or a good MIDI guitar player.  My problem
> > is having a ham fist, heavy hand.
> >
> > What I can relate is what I've read about the system I
> > use and some things I've done to optimize it for me.
> >
> > First the system I use is a GR-50 synth with a GK-2 pickup
> > system.
> >
> > It is designed to approximate the pitch of a picked string
> > by measuring dv/dt for the first quarter cycle.  The GR50
> > synth will then start the attack portion of the sound with
> > that rough pitch measurment.  As time goes by, more precise
> > measurment is made by cycle counting and the rest of the
> > sound time is pitch corrected.  The MIDI messages associated
> > with this are a burst of MIDI pitch wheel messages (if MIDI
> > is enabled).  I wrote some software to analyse this data and
> > found that picking strategy is important.
> >
> > I have never found using this instrument very useful for
> > recording MIDI messages.  There's just too much dirt.  For
> > me and my ham fisted wanker technique though, it is useful
> > (for me) to do pad chords.
> >
> > As far as optmimizing it, I did this: (and I got the idea
> > from a guy's posting on some newsgroup)
> >
> > I replaced the lowest 2 strings with ones that are 1/2 the
> > diameter (hence tuned up an octave).  This speeds up the
> > (ordinarily) late response of those strings, although it does
> > require that you change the pitch programming of the sounds you
> > use to compensate for the octave shift.  I also discovered that
> > this almost "nashville" tuning is something I like...  But that's
> > something else.
> >
> > Make the string height to pickup adjustments as close as
> > you can.
> >
> > I hope that wasn't too off topic....
> >
> > "criss m" <moog at sick.cl> wrote:
> > >This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
> > >
> > >------=_NextPart_000_0042_01C1C207.BA862E40
> > >Content-Type: text/plain;
> > >       charset="iso-8859-1"
> > >Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
> > >
> > >hi guys=20
> > >
> > >im back after some nice vacation :) and i was wondering if somene can =
> > >provide me some links or info about midi guitars (i dont know much about =
> > >it)=20
> > >but=20
> > >i dont know if there are units that translate a analogic signal from the =
> > >guitar (electric) and translate into midi mensages??????
> > >
> > >or if there other sort of midi gitars with switchs or sensors in the =
> > >bridge?
> > >
> > >i just build a  midi keyboard and noticed that ima keyboard fool.... its =
> > >hard for me , i think i'll buy piano for dummies....
> > >
> > >please help
> >
> > =========================================================
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> >
> > -- Scott Gravenhorst | LegoManiac / Lego Trains / RIS 1.5
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>
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