Monophonic Guitar to MIDI converter tryout

[BertAnt]

I've managed to made a simple monophonic Guitar to MIDI converter, feel free to test it and i'm looking for some comments about it

link : https://app.box.com/s/pgi6iitbhzb1rgwn6gucfz4h718qsqjj

here's a great demo of realtime sax to MIDI using FretKeys, by Tony Ostinato (many thanks for your kindness doing the wonderful demo, Tony ! )

http://soundcloud.com/tonyostinato/vfx- ... erter-demo



Important : if FretKeys MIDI port doesn't show up on DAW MIDI track / synth input, there's a workaround, use MIDI loopback / virtual cable (for example, MIDI yoke) and set the same port for both FretKeys MIDI Out dropdown list and MIDI track / synth input.

[RunBeerRun]

Pretty good, latency is just higher than where I can tolerate it, but still halfway decent. Takes 16% cpu on m dual core, that's real high.

I use the Sonuus g2m $99 audio to midi hardware though.

[BertAnt]

Thanks for comments ! That will be very useful for me to improve it. Yeah, i have Sonuus too, it's a pretty neat device

[tedzzzz]

Just dropped it into Reaper and it's very nifty! Not sure how to adjust the controls, though. Latency for me was just a tiny bit more than felt comfortable, but given that it's monophonic (cool for playing bass synth lines), not too big a deal.

;tedzzzz

--
http://www.soundcloud.com/tedyoung

[BertAnt]

Thanks ! Well, how the response is going to be is relied heavily on the two controls, so by changing them you might be able to tweak the response. With default setting i was able to get good enough response on low E. I'll make a mixed guitar and synth mp3 shortly.

[Ian B]

I don't know how this stacks up against other converters, but I do know this is the first one I've tried that had anything like usability A bit of tweaking brought the latency down, but not quite enough for me, tho' even if the cpu hit and latency are a tad high, this is still a damn fine effort imo

[BertAnt]

Thanks for your support I think i made a mistake, the default value for each knob should be "Norm" = 20 and "Rel" = 6. Please try using these settings, hopefully the latency will go down to a tolerable level.

[RunBeerRun]

It was already at those settings on default. The latency is just barely beyond the range where it wouldn't bother me.

[aleph_75]

The link has been removed?

[Musical Gym]

still there if it's called FretKeys

[BertAnt]

It was already at those settings on default. The latency is just barely beyond the range where it wouldn't bother me.

Ok, thanks anyway, i just thought maybe it loads on different setting than expected.

Well, i don't know how low the latency should be to be acceptable, since i'm comparing with my G2M and my plugin latency is pretty much the same, so for me it's fast enough

Anyway, here's an update :

http://www.box.net/shared/9uaftzh0dc

The zip contains the plugin and an mp3 i've recorded in realtime. The plugin should be lower on CPU now, and the mp3 is a mix from dry guitar signal and a wavetable synth with drum patch played with the plugin.

[BertAnt]

The link has been removed?

Should be ok now

[tedzzzz]

Hey, I just restarted my DAW and the latency is MUCH better. Not sure why it wasn't great before, but the latency is no longer an issue for me! Missed notes where I play the second note and I guess I'm not damping the first note enough, so it misses it. Is there something with the Norm/Rel settings I can change to help with this (what do the knobs do, anyway??).

;ted

[RunBeerRun]

Now its awesome. Playing with a bass right now, low latency all the way down to low E. Cpu usage at like 5-8% on my dual core.

I find you have to boost the guitar's volume a little before you go into it. Also, muting helps bring out every note, otherwise it just detects some.

Here's a clip of me playing Nirvana's Come as you are with a bass guitar along w/ a drumloop. This is involving the low notes of the E string, works great. http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/10/16 ... youare.mp3

[BertAnt]

Hey, I just restarted my DAW and the latency is MUCH better. Not sure why it wasn't great before, but the latency is no longer an issue for me! Missed notes where I play the second note and I guess I'm not damping the first note enough, so it misses it. Is there something with the Norm/Rel settings I can change to help with this (what do the knobs do, anyway??).

;ted

Thanks for the feedback, now i'm sure that it works the way it should be Yes, damping is necessary because the plugin only sends '1-shot' trigger, it will ignore new detected pitch when the current note is still active. I found this is the safest for guitar because guitar tends to fire spurious note ons if every detected pitch is converted to MIDI note. But this is also because i'm going to include pitchbend/pitch-wheel support, so it doesn't matter if the notes weren't damped, it will counts as pitch-wheel values

Basically Norm is responsible for amplifying the signal so it will stay at 0 db until it drops below the threshold, this is the key for getting a stable note on, too low setting can cause missed or too short notes, too high can produce unintended notes and too long notes, which also caused missed ones.

Rel (now 'Smooth') controls the balance of accuracy versus latency. Setting it low most likely decreases latency but sacrifices accuracy, and vice versa. But for low notes increasing the knob can improve both accuracy and response, so there's no general rule for setting it.

Now its awesome. Playing with a bass right now, low latency all the way down to low E. Cpu usage at like 5-8% on my dual core.

I find you have to boost the guitar's volume a little before you go into it. Also, muting helps bring out every note, otherwise it just detects some.

Here's a clip of me playing Nirvana's Come as you are with a bass guitar along w/ a drumloop. This is involving the low notes of the E string, works great. http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/10/16 ... youare.mp3

Wow, i haven't try the plugin with a bass yet, i'm surprised it does well.. Thank you very much for the testing, really appreciated

I'll post here if there's any update, hopefully the next one will have velocity, pitchbend, and control change generator, so it will be a complete MIDI events generator

Regards,
Bert