yrg thread

[bigcraigie_1]

Well as they aren't shipping to the UK directly (which they told me they would many months ago), I've had to buy mine from the UK distributer who are selling them for £199.

So after filling out the pre-order form many months back to get it at the price of $179, I'm actually now paying $305.26. (maybe I should be blaming Gordon Brown for that one though)

Even adding on typical shipping charges and import tax etc, I still wouldn't be anywhere near 200 Great British Quid. Very annoying.

Anyway, like the sucker I am, I do still believe in this product and believe that it will be a much better solution than the Roland style and offer better playability than the Ztars although not with all the flexability that the Ztars offer.

So I'm still patiently waiting for the first shipments in May ......... which may be delayed until Xmas ...... could even be next year before I see it. Who knows??

[annode]

Even adding on typical shipping charges and import tax etc, I still wouldn't be anywhere near 200 Great British Quid. Very annoying.

Yeah..it should be 116.3 quid without tax and shipping costs.(@ the $179 USD price)
How do you account for the big increase?

[MisterAcoustic]

I just got a Yamaha G10 which blows it away! I wish you guys luck and hope yrg is good. Smile

I believe that the G 10 is still pitch to midi, and no matter what the speed of sensing (optical, or whatever), there is no physical way to infer the pitch of a note without waiting for enough cycles to figure it out. So the odds are extremely good that both the yamaha ez-ag, and the You Rock Guitar will beat the daylights out of the G 10 with regard to tracking.

Many moons ago I played a G 10, and was not at all impressed with the delay.

Good luck with your new axe though - hope you didn't pay too much for it.

[Maruuk]

Not exactly. The G10 uses a unique ultrasonic sensor to get pitch, something about measuring the string length but that won't get you pitch alone. But it's super fast and tracks like a dream. It also uses a mag pickup for velocity and an optical tracker for string bends. All in all, one impressive if not overblown system! Great example below--dig the expression this guy is able to get out of it:

#!

[annode]

The bit I was able to find about it said, like Maruuk mentions, it's not sensing pitch to midi. All 6 strings are guitar G strings,(of some diameter), and each pitched to G or A.
The latency is said to be < 10ms.
Hell! It's discontinued, and I never even knew about them! "What up with that?What up with that?"

[Maruuk]

That is one serious beefy rack mount! Tons of electronics in there. I just want this light, little simple YRG to output midi fast, no lag. As long as there's no funny business as with the Yamaha EG/AGs (outputting on different channels--spurious hammer-on/off notes--all kinds of junk you have to carefully filter out) I'll be thrilled. The one thing I'm amazed at is that the YRG has no good piano/keys sounds onboard. My fave thing with my Yamaha EG is to play the acoustic piano through an amp on some funky slow blues tune. When you play the internal sounds, it sounds pretty cool. It's the midi output on the EG that sucks.

[wrs]

The bit I was able to find about it said, like Maruuk mentions, it's not sensing pitch to midi. All 6 strings are guitar G strings,(of some diameter), and each pitched to G or A.
The latency is said to be < 10ms.
Hell! It's discontinued, and I never even knew about them! "What up with that?What up with that?"

I don't want to hijack your thread on the yrg but to answer your question; I played one 22 years ago when they were $2500. They do track way better than any other midi solution out there especially the Roland GK. ANd they are not pitch to midi. Now Yamaha had this great technology 20 years ago but now make the EG/AG stuff which is regressive. It's ashame that the technology exists but apparently they must not have sold too well back then. AND the Synthaxe which was comparable and sold for $10,000 is extinct also

Now we have to look at these plastic wannabees for video games and hope it does something close to what was made so long ago. I think the makers of yrg made the photon years ago, that was good, but who knows what happened. Seems like they came back in town to make money off the video game craze and musicians have to stand in line with their hopes once again.

I do hope the yrg turns out to be a good alternative but I haven't seen a decent video of it in action. And I've seen all the videos.

[Maruuk]

I have never understood why somebody can't make a half-decent midi guitar today that simply outputs midi (NOT 13-PIN!) with no lag using piezo and sensors in the neck, whatever, no fancy 1-channel per string, screw all that nerd shyte, just a playable, quality unit, no sounds onboard, no mag pickups, just midi coming out of it and the whole thing shouldn't cost more than $300! Why is this not possible in 2010???

[annode]

I have never understood why somebody can't make a half-decent midi guitar today that simply outputs midi (NOT 13-PIN!) with no lag using piezo and sensors in the neck, whatever, no fancy 1-channel per string, screw all that nerd shyte, just a playable, quality unit, no sounds onboard, no mag pickups, just midi coming out of it and the whole thing shouldn't cost more than $300! Why is this not possible in 2010???

There are quite a few things to consider. Developing a prototype of course...but after that, you have to hire small industrial manufacturers to produce the parts for you.
Making a midi guitar, even without the extras, which in the case of the YRG and the Yamaha EG/AG ,expands their market reach and helps to sell more of the product.
(The Yam developed it mainly for education and YRG for gaming. That's how they expand their demand.)
Someone makes and etches the circuit board, someone "stuffs" the board with electronic components...someone extrudes and injection molds the plastic body and parts, and so on.
You can't just make a few hundred in some cases, depending on the price of your product and what your market will bare. You'll need to make more in order to bring your production costs down.
Then you now have an "inventory" and that costs you overhead...so you have to get rid of them in order to keep your capital fluid.
It's involved. This could be why you may not ever see "just" a simple plastic midi guitar. The market for it has not shown in the past, to be large enough to justify the cost of production vs profits. This may have changed in our new technological market.
The YRG company is hoping this is the case.

[Maruuk]

Yes, we're getting (theoretically getting if it ever comes out) a $200 midi guitar because the R&D and manufacturing costs are justified by potential big gaming purchases that have nothing to do with the midi capabilities.

I have a Suzuki XG-1M midi guitar that cost me $300 in 1987. It has no lag and plays beautifully except for one thing: it has no manual note-offs. It has global sustain control like an electric piano. You can palm mute by laying your hand on a panel but it's very awkward.

But if they could implement that far in '87 for small bucks, it seems ludicrous that the same tech couldn't have been evolved a touch further with proper muting/note-offs. It has an active keyboard and six nice wound roughly D-gauge strings.

Perhaps the YRG will be what low-end midi guitar should have been in the 80's. Players have been waiting a long time to get away from these Dickensian Roland rigs with these expensive converter boxes and all, after which you still have to deal with significant lag, especially on the lower strings. Lag is the enemy of music, the two are not compatible. You can't play with proper expression if half your notes are hitting late.

[bigcraigie_1]

Any of you guys heard anything about the YRG being shipped out yet? Anyone actually got one yet? I believe it's this month we should all be receiving them.

All has been a bit silent recently both on the forum as well the the YRG site. No new vids on the "tube" either.

[Maruuk]

There is a significant credibility issue at this point.

[annode]

Any of you guys heard anything about the YRG being shipped out yet? Anyone actually got one yet? I believe it's this month we should all be receiving them.

All has been a bit silent recently both on the forum as well the the YRG site. No new vids on the "tube" either.

Hey guys.
I also noticed how close it was getting to the promised shipping date so I wrote Kevin.
He promptly responded saying;

The order for thousands is coming from China. We are in production, it's still going to be some weeks before they arrive here. You are on the list, you will be very happy about that.


We apologize for the delay.


Kevin

Well, "some weeks" is not exactly a date...but what I can interpret from that comes from my own experience with deadlines. When two parties agree to honor their end of a contractual agreement, details may get fuzzily defined, and if seemingly broken, any claimed damages may not be practically recoverable.
This may be why we aren't getting clear and defined feedback. They just don't have it.

What is clear is that it will come...when it gets here.

That's all we can do is wait.

[Maruuk]

Nothing is clear until actual production units start to show up here. All the rest is the stuff that walks in the famous saying.

[annode]

The deadline I am referring to above is between the company and the end manufacturer in China.
Didn't want to confuse it with the company and the buyers.