VSTI world hate MIDI GUITAR?

[guitarzan]

FS's "synths" are NOT bloody "control voltage" guitarzan. I spent an hour proving that last night.

THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "MIDI" and "CV" (at least not in the digital realm). What do you think a VSTi gets from the host to tell it what note of the keyboard you're playing?

MIDI WAS INVENTED TO REPLACE CV and GATE signals that analog synths used to use -- because it was getting unweildy to have 16 signals required to hook an 8 voice synth up... and manufacturers were starting to make their OWN proprietary digital interfaces... Roland's was called DCB, was on the Jupiter 8... a big fuckin Centronix connector like a SCSI cable... in 1983 the manufacturers got together and made MIDI to standardize an interface.

Gah!

It's virtual CV, it's how SythEdit synths work internally. MIDI is used to control the virtual CV in SynthEdit in most cases, but not in the way FS synths track, and it's NOT the same as MIDI. It is a waveform rather than a bunch of commands.

[AdmiralQuality]

MIDI is "virtual CV". Sure, this is how SE works internally. This is how MY synth works internally... but you know what? It's not a voltage... it's a NUMBER that, in both cases, comes from MIDI input (or in FS's case, it's an effect with no MIDI input... though it does allow you to switch to MIDI control as well.)

AH! You just said "It is a waveform rather than a bunch of commands." A CV is NOT a waveform!!! A CV is a STEADY STATE VOLTAGE. The analog equivalent of a......... single........ number. You could think of it as a waveform over a whole performance... a big staircase shape describing which note you're playing. But a CV does not wiggle up and down with the pitch it's indicating. "1 volt per octave", sound familiar? If I want to play some note, the CV is steady at 1 volt. If I want a note an octave above that, the CV goes to 2 volts. That's what a CONTROL VOLTAGE does. It's a PERFECT analog for MIDI, and in the digital realm there is no reason to differentiate the two because it's of course all just numbers.

You're confused. Read up.

[guitarzan]

Whatever, pitch to MIDI always sucks - pitch to CV worked great and so does the Fretted Synth Audio Triggered synths. I have an GK 2 and an AXON NGC-77, not bad but not guitar-like. I had en ez-eg, worse than pitch to MIDI in my opinion (less guitar-like). I've used VST's that do it with pitch to MIDI, they also suck. I've used others VST's that do use pitch shift/distortion and they track great but they sound nothing like a real synth, but the FS ones do. There is something different about the FS guitar synths in that they work while no others do. FrettedSynth says it's because he uses virtual control voltage and avoids pitch to MIDI like the plague - I think he's onto something, since he has come out with the best tracking guitar synths in VST ever (and better than any pitch to MIDI schemes I've tried period).

[AdmiralQuality]

Sigh, there's no conceptual difference between a pitch driven "virtual control voltage" and "pitch to MIDI".

You've got to stop reading hype as if it was a spec sheet.

And that guitar synth page you keep pointing to: http://www.helpwantedproductions.com/guitsyn.htm is full of errors. You gonna take to heart the words of someone who says "Europeon" and calls a Stratocaster a Telecaster?

(This is the name of my next band!!! "The Euro-Peons"!!!)

[guitarzan]

If you actually read the words I wrote, I'm saying that whatever FS is doing, it IS different, because it works . I'm calling it what he called it. Whatever it is, it works better than what everyone else is doing, so we should have more of that.

[AdmiralQuality]

Gotcha, more effects, less guitar synth. Why are you still in this guitar synth topic thread then?

[guitarzan]

Try String Sculptor v2.0 and then explain to us how that is done with pitch shift and distortion with a straight face.

As far as me highjacking this thread - this is krraqk's thread, and krraqk is very happy with the FS Audio Triggered Synths and thinks there should be more develpment in that area - so who here is really OT?

[AdmiralQuality]

Try String Sculptor v2.0 and then explain to us how that is done with pitch shift and distortion with a straight face.

As far as me highjacking this thread - this is krraqk's thread, and krraqk is very happy with the FS Audio Triggered Synths and thinks there should be more develpment in that area - so who here is really OT?

<-- note

1. First you distort the incoming wave. Like you add an INCREDIBLE amount of gain, and clip the tops off. This give you a square wave from any signal with a strong fundamental frequency (as per the playing instructions)

2. You then waveshape this square wave to get other waveshapes

3. If there's an interval specified, you use a pitch shifter algo to make it from this waveform

4. You use an envelope follower (really a gate triggered envelope generator) to make envelopes

5. You run some filters on this stuff, modulated by one of your generated envelopes

6. Voila! Viola!

[guitarzan]

You haven't tried it - there are some very clean tones in String Sculptor v2.0. I've tried everyone's guitar synths - none of the octave distortion/envelope ones sound anything like that.

[AdmiralQuality]

I don't need to try it. The relevant parameters are the same as Tripp Lead.

If I make one of these as a product how much would you pay for it? (And mine would sustain after the guitar stops playing, btw... kind of silly having a "release" stage of an envelope
without this ability But they're gating the incoming source, so its release stage is just fading out your guitar note extra early. )

[guitarzan]

I don't need to try it. The relevant parameters are the same as Tripp Lead.

If I make one of these as a product how much would you pay for it? (And mine would sustain after the guitar stops playing, btw... kind of silly having a "release" stage of an envelope
without this ability But they're gating the incoming source, so its release stage is just fading out your guitar note extra early. )

I would pay to help Fretted Synth develop his line, his free stuff is great and he listens to all input from everybody, and he deserves some payback. I don't want anything from you, now, even for free.

[AdmiralQuality]

[antti]

Whatever, pitch to MIDI always sucks - pitch to CV worked great

Actually pitch to midi is much easier to do accurately than pitch to CV. However, midi cannot separate the pitch info and trigger the way CV allows, so you get higher latency. Ear is not that sensitive to pitch for the attack transient, so getting only somewhere in the ballpark for that and then refining is usually good enough. And not easy to do with standard midi.

[AdmiralQuality]

Whatever, pitch to MIDI always sucks - pitch to CV worked great

Actually pitch to midi is much easier to do accurately than pitch to CV. However, midi cannot separate the pitch info and trigger the way CV allows, so you get higher latency. Ear is not that sensitive to pitch for the attack transient, so getting only somewhere in the ballpark for that and then refining is usually good enough. And not easy to do with standard midi.

Unless you correct the note value sent in the initial note-on with subsequent pitch bend messages. Which seems to be what Roland are doing in their latest MIDI-guitar controllers, and why they recommend using a wide range for the pitch bend (otherwise you risk retriggering required to start a new note at the correct pitch.)

Yes, you'll hear a little bend at the beginning of notes, but you could envelope this out if you wished.

[guitarzan]

Well, see, that's the difference - to you accuracy is having the synth tracking assign the notes "correctly" as MIDI values - to me accuracy is the opposite. I want the synth to reflect exactly how my guitar is tuned and every slight micro bend, trem, whatever - NOT assign notes or bend values as commands. It's the lack of a ridgid MIDI structure that makes some rare guitar synths play like a guitar, which is what many guitar players really want in a guitar synth: synth sound but guitar playability.