VSTI world hate MIDI GUITAR?

[AdmiralQuality]

Tracking is another issue. I was replying there to selfconstruct and nikp2000 who were speculating that MIDI Mono mode creates so much controller data, that you literally clog the MIDI cable with too much data.

So a USB connection, that is MUCH faster than MIDI, would serve to nullify that issue.

Tracking speed is a whole other thing. And yes, it's a difficult problem... in order to detect the pitch of a note, that note has to play for a while so you can time the period of the waveforms. And the lower pitched the note, the longer that wait is going to be. Also, on guitar, the first cycle or so is often going to be non-pitched due to attack transient/pick noise... so that makes it take even longer for the pitch to stabilize.

Apparenly the Axon does some magic with analyzing harmonics through a neural net to speed up the tracking. But then, it has no USB connector so it's MIDI connection just MIGHT get clogged with too many controllers running at once.

[nix808]

Hey again, so.
I just talked to Roland, and their tech suggested that imperfect tracking is status quo, and that it's a lot better than it used to be. I would be interested to hear if anyone else uses a GR20 and GK3 pickup as a midi controller, and how it performs for them. Krraqk, does your Axon track perfectly, for intents and purposes? I'm thinking I'll try to get my money back on the GR and get an Axon. Is it 13 pin like Roland? Maybe I need a Terratec pickup too. I dearly hope to get adequate tracking out of something, for I now know that midi guitar is definetly my instrument of choice, at least for recording.
Happy music making, Nix

[AdmiralQuality]

I saw Adrian Belew play back in... oh would have been around '89 or '90 (Mr. Music Head tour). And during part of the show he played a Roland GR synth (talked about it too and demonstrated it for us)... and he was triggering drum samples off certain strings... notes and chords off other strings... a one man band all done with one guitar-synth.... and it was all played with impeccable timing.

And they say it's better than it used to be!?!? Well it's gotta be awesome now!

Could just be your setup... disappointing to hear that a Roland tech would say "shitty is the status quo". Cuz I KNOW you can do pretty well with guitar synth...

Anyway, can't speak from experience yet. But I'm keen to join you all A$AP.

[nix808]

It's really cool to be able to trigger different synths with different strings. I sussed out how to do it with Orion Plat. I wouldn't quite say shitty. It's close. The internal soundbank works fine, just the midi sometimes pitches a semitone out. Anyway, the nice guys at the music shop are willing to do a tradeback, so I'm going to try the GI-20, so. The tech there thought the dedicated midi unit was a little better at tracking, though the Roland tech said that they tracked the same. I hope a midi guitar unit finds it's way to you soon AdmiralQuality, they're lotsa fun.
Cheers, Nix

[AdmiralQuality]

If it's a semitone out, are you sure you have your pitchbend ranges set right on the synth you're controlling? And you're using Mono mode, right?

(Oh and sorry, I keep confusing GR-20 and GI-20. I was thinking you used a GI... I'd definitely give one of those a try, the GI is newer so it just may track better. And it's got USB so you can pump MIDI data faster without clogs. )

[nix808]

I've tried both poly and mono modes. The only one of my programs that I could find the pitchbend range parameter on is Reason. There setting it to either 0 or 24 made no difference. It's not a universal parameter I'm using, only the pitchbend range for individual synths. It's possible that this is the problem. My hosts are FL and Orion PLat, but do you usually make this setting on the VST itself? I'll have to have another look for this setting.
Thanks, Nix

[krraqk]

Hey again, so.
I just talked to Roland, and their tech suggested that imperfect tracking is status quo, and that it's a lot better than it used to be. I would be interested to hear if anyone else uses a GR20 and GK3 pickup as a midi controller, and how it performs for them. Krraqk, does your Axon track perfectly, for intents and purposes? I'm thinking I'll try to get my money back on the GR and get an Axon. Is it 13 pin like Roland? Maybe I need a Terratec pickup too. I dearly hope to get adequate tracking out of something, for I now know that midi guitar is definetly my instrument of choice, at least for recording.
Happy music making, Nix

Hi, let me resume the difference between GR,s and Axon according to my experience:
I have a GR30, it tracks wonderful with internal sounds, except the 6ª string (and partially de 5ª) where its a noticeable dealy. Every patch is preprogrammed (synth sounds AND guitar play parameters) and that is really GOOD, so you only need to think about to play.
The bad thing is when you get tired about the internal sounds and want more, want to play your vstis and synths. But the things turns worse with external sounds (connected via midi out), there it tracks slower. Don't know if the GR20 is better, probably a bit, but I think a small one (tried the GR33 and it seems equal to me).

The Axon tracks beautiful in ALL strings (if you play with a pick) NO delay in the 5ª and 6ª strings! That's GREAT because you can forget about adapting your playing to the delay, which increases GRADUALLY, in the 5, 6 string. It has a LOT of possibilities (and parameters to tweak, sometimes its TO MUCH) you can split at strings, fretboard and even at pickup level, in total you can have a LOT of splits simultaneously (and a very complex thing to control). You can also produce a midi cc. depending where you play the string, that's one of my preferred. The internal sounds are average at best.
These are great functions and enormous possibilities to your creativity. BUT its very complex to program. You will find that every sound you want to play needs tweaks in the Axon in order to play the best and that's a lot of hard work if you want to experiment, like me, with many sounds.

But midi guitar is not perfect. Double notes, unwanted notes (harmonics, strings resonating, etc.) can be produced EASILY.
First you need to be patient and tweak your midi pickup, your guitar and your GR/Axon settings. And most important, tweak your playing according to the synth sound you are playing, trust me, every sound needs to be played with care and depurate the technique according to how it respond. Choose a sound and keep with it sometime, at first you will have many glitches, double notes, etc. but keep with it and adapt your playing to it, learn how it responds to your bendings, legatos, tappings, etc etc. An hour after... I'm sure you will get much better results.

[kevink]

But midi guitar is not perfect. Double notes, unwanted notes (harmonics, strings resonating, etc.) can be produced EASILY.

Note that this isn't *always* a bad thing. Henry Kaiser used to do an amazing solo where he ran what looked like a Roland interface into a rackmounted electronic piano and played with lots of bends and slides - it glitched all over the place, but in doing so it sounded like Cecil Taylor!

[kevink]

And as long as we have a few Axon users on the thread, could any of them comment on the reliability of the Axon unit? I was giving it serious consideration when I ended up buying the GI-20, but shied away due to the issues of price and finger-picking tracking (which have already been discussed), but also because googling around turned up a number of complaints about units failing in the field and slow repair/replacement by the manufacturer in Germany.

[nix808]

Thanks very much for your help Krraqk,
If I can't get the tracking I'm looking for in a Roland, I'll have a look at the Axon. The response time is good with the GR-20, even in the low pitches. It's miss-pitching that is the problem. I have played the synth for a month now, trying to find my favourite tone. I soon wearied of the internal presets, however they certainly respond well. I think that I've tweaked all parameters available in the GR unit, the only thing left to do is find some VSTs with pitch bend parameters to set. Certainly there is a lot to be said for clean playing, although I don't think the problems I've been having are are a result of this. Hopefully the GI-20 unit, I'll pick it up this week, is what I'm looking for. I'm willing to adjust parameters for my individual sounds, maybe there is more scope for this with the Axon? I think the 13 pin connection is the same, is this so? So it sounds like the Axon doesn't miss-pitch?
I hope you find some workable solutions to your poly mono problem, and try out Karma FX modular synth for great sounds if you haven't already.
Cheers, Nix

[kevink]

Thanks very much for your help Krraqk,
If I can't get the tracking I'm looking for in a Roland, I'll have a look at the Axon. The response time is good with the GR-20, even in the low pitches. It's miss-pitching that is the problem.

If that's the case, I'd look at tweaking the pickup position/height for the low strings if I were you.

[nix808]

Hey kevink,
I've got my pickup as close to the bridge as I could get it, and less than 1mm from the strings. Are you happy with the GI, and what pickup have you got? If you don't mind me asking.
Cheers, Nix

[Sascha Franck]

Um, I read Sascha Franck's suggestions originally and didn't even bother to comment on them as they're so far off -- i.e. Why use just one filter? As synth filters are typically per-voice, then there isn't any extra hit from using filters on each instance of 6 mono synths (how many synths let you disable the filter ANYWAY?), vs. playing a 6 note chord on the same synth with a polyphonic patch. Either way you still have 6 filters.

I'm not so sure whether most filters are working on a per-voice base. In Kontakt for instance they aren't, from what I can tell.
Further, a LOT of synths allow for the filter to be switched off (all samplers do, all Logic ones do, most, if not all NI ones do, all U-He ones do, etc...), so I'm not sure why someone like you (who usually has something useful to say) is coming up with an assumption that this is a rarely to be found feature. I'd even say it's an extremely common feature.
In addition, on some synths it seems, when you set the cutoff and resonance controls accordingly (on a LP filter: cutoff all the way opened, resonance all the way down), the filter will be de-activated automatically, thus consuming no further resources.

Besides, even (or especially) *if* filters would always operate on a per-voice base, it'd be quite clever to replace those with one, in case you don't need per-voice performance (which, especially for MIDI guitar patches, might be the case).

[kevink]

Hey kevink,
I've got my pickup as close to the bridge as I could get it, and less than 1mm from the strings. Are you happy with the GI, and what pickup have you got? If you don't mind me asking.
Cheers, Nix

I've got an old GK-2 on a Stratocaster, and the strat bridge/vibrato assembly means that even putting the Roland pickup flush with the edge of the pick guard, I've got a fair amount of space between the GK-2 and the bridge saddles. It still works pretty well, the best I've tried (though what I've tried consists mostly of older Roland technology).

I wasn't necessarily thinking in terms of your having the pickup too far or too close in absolute terms, only that if you're having pitch recognition problems, it might relate to some unfortunate harmonic relationship between your guitar and the pickup, such that moving it forward/back or up/down by a little bit might actually make a difference. With my GI-20, I do experience a greater lag on lower notes, which is to be expected in any classical pitch conversion scheme, but I have not noticed any loss of accuracy there.

[AdmiralQuality]

Um, I read Sascha Franck's suggestions originally and didn't even bother to comment on them as they're so far off -- i.e. Why use just one filter? As synth filters are typically per-voice, then there isn't any extra hit from using filters on each instance of 6 mono synths (how many synths let you disable the filter ANYWAY?), vs. playing a 6 note chord on the same synth with a polyphonic patch. Either way you still have 6 filters.

I'm not so sure whether most filters are working on a per-voice base. In Kontakt for instance they aren't, from what I can tell.

They absolutely are. This is how it works on 99% of synths and samplers.

Further, a LOT of synths allow for the filter to be switched off (all samplers do, all Logic ones do, most, if not all NI ones do, all U-He ones do, etc...), so I'm not sure why someone like you (who usually has something useful to say) is coming up with an assumption that this is a rarely to be found feature. I'd even say it's an extremely common feature.

Maybe on some samplers you can bypasss the filter. But on synths the filter is so integral that it's virtually never left out.

In addition, on some synths it seems, when you set the cutoff and resonance controls accordingly (on a LP filter: cutoff all the way opened, resonance all the way down), the filter will be de-activated automatically, thus consuming no further resources.

I haven't seen any that do this. Even mine doesn't as 1. it's very rare to have an analog synth sound with wide open filter, and 2. the filter cutoff is almost always under some additional modulation, from the envelope, keyboard or LFO.

Besides, even (or especially) *if* filters would always operate on a per-voice base, it'd be quite clever to replace those with one, in case you don't need per-voice performance (which, especially for MIDI guitar patches, might be the case).

You're really confused here Sascha. Filters are ALMOST ALWAYS a per voice feature. I can't think of a VSTi where they're not. To use one filter across many voices... well first of all most VSTis wont support this... and secondly, it would give all the voices the same dynamics... (Korg Poly-800 style! Yick!)

I mean, just think about it, if all voices are sharing the same filter, then which voice's envelope is going to control the filter's cutoff modulation?