yrg thread

[JAMES L. HARRISON]

I saw the same info; IIRC it came directly from Harvey. I'm sure it would not be the same level of instrument that he currently makes; as a matter of fact I believe he would have to have it made offshore. Even then the price point may be difficult to handle.

James
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I don't know where you got that information. All of Harvey's instruments cost money because the are all manufactured in his small shop in the San Diego area. Thre is no way he could naimtain that type of quality and be able to sell it at the prices you mention. I bought if he has a field of backers like III and has worked out a deal with a chinese manufatureer. I would advise you ask in the starr labs forum on yahoo.

[Maruuk]

Having messed around with it finger-plucking style (block chording, some arpeggiation, some single note runs) for a while with a working control panel, two things stand out:

1) The sensitivity even when adjusted between 8-10 is full of glitches and problems. At 8 if you don't pluck firmly you'll still get occasional note trigger failure. At ten it's too sensitive and you get a lot of false triggers. Hard to find a happy medium, it needs a lot of work.

2) The double-triggering problem is huge. Lots and lots of little extra triggers, especially on fast runs or fast finger-picked arps.

If you concentrate hard and just play simple, clean block chords, you can make them play clean. Otherwise it's a mess.

I'm thinking even the damn Yamaha is better than this glitch-happy toy. But I await a better CP, and await some genius with some hipster settings for it that might minimize some of these nasty dealbreakers.

But sho nuf, I be thinking about that Fender Squire Strat or even that Mustang bigtime after trying to make recordable music with this toy. It's torture.

[MRKiammi]

Having messed around with it finger-plucking style (block chording, some arpeggiation, some single note runs) for a while with a working control panel, two things stand out:

1) The sensitivity even when adjusted between 8-10 is full of glitches and problems. At 8 if you don't pluck firmly you'll still get occasional note trigger failure. At ten it's too sensitive and you get a lot of false triggers. Hard to find a happy medium, it needs a lot of work.

2) The double-triggering problem is huge. Lots and lots of little extra triggers, especially on fast runs or fast finger-picked arps.

If you concentrate hard and just play simple, clean block chords, you can make them play clean. Otherwise it's a mess.

I'm thinking even the damn Yamaha is better than this glitch-happy toy. But I await a better CP, and await some genius with some hipster settings for it that might minimize some of these nasty dealbreakers.

But sho nuf, I be thinking about that Fender Squire Strat or even that Mustang bigtime after trying to make recordable music with this toy. It's torture.

maruuk Email me, if you want me to send the newest cp
I would like to hear if you got same issues with
The cp I got??

EDIT:
inspired just released a beta for pc yesterday v0.054

http://inspired.com/yourockguitar/updat ... el_Win.zip

[Thuneau]

I got my YRG the other day. I couldn't get it to work right for me- million double notes or missed hits.
Today I installed the Control Panel 0.054 and tweaked some settings.
It's very playable now.
First of all, I turned the Hammer Velocity to 0 and Pluckdecay to 99. This got rid of most double notes by preventing all notes triggered by merely touching the next fret before plucking the string.
Then I played with the sensitivity and string tension.
I found that with higher sensitivity the right hand picking would double trigger the note ons - first time when it contacted the string and second time when it released the string. Just putting a bit of tension on the string is enough to trigger a note. I normally play with very thick pics and the effect is even worse with them. Softer pick helps.

So I went the opposite of everyone I read about and cranked the string tension way up and increased the software string sensitivity to 10, then dropped it to 9 after playing for a while.
This gives me very good response. I can play very fast runs and single note tremolos with no mis-triggers. It only sounds bad when I play sloppily.
I can't play any legato notes because of the software settings, but I'm OK with that. When I want that technique I can play my electric guitar.
For pads, arpeggios and some lead lines, this little controller is great.

I hope they will revise the firmware to ease up on the note-ons due to just touching the strings with the pick. They should filter out very low frequencies at the string velocity sensors or only allow for trigger to occur after the low frequency component of the wave has changed polarity once. That way the initial touch of the pick would not trigger a note, only the release of the string.

[Maruuk]

I was using CP .054 but only adjusted the sensitivity, didn't tweak anything else. I'll have to try these new settings, thanks Thuneau! Getting rid of spurious triggerings is certainly a major hurdle for the YRG.

I did have the hammer vel set to 0 but not the other stuff. Yes, 9 seems to be about the best possible sensitivity compromise for me (and I just fingerpick, no flatpick) but it does seem on the constant edge of note-dropoffs (failures to trigger) and spurious triggering from over-sensitivity. They kind of slam you from both sides.

And yes, as we all suspected, the demos were all complete BS: very carefully edited segments resulting in a few guys playing very simple, clean parts. One can imagine the reams of 4-letter frustration left on the cutting room floor!

[Thuneau]

Another tip for using the control panel.
The changes are not realtime. You have to hit Set Preset for the guitar to accept the changes you made in software. If you just change the numbers in the software and don't send them to the guitar it won't make any difference in playing response.

[Maruuk]

Right, you'll see the guitar FLASH when it gets the setting update.

Anybody else have the problem of your DAW being unable to access the midi in from the YRG when the CP is active? And vice-versa, my CP launches, but stays all grayed-out as along as my DAW is active. Sure makes for fun tweaking.

[Thuneau]

Yes, it's claiming the guitar for itself. But, it's pre-alpha, so we have to live with it.
When they get closer to actual 1.0 release hopefully changes will be realtime, there will be more parameters to tweak and MIDI will be available to other apps.

[Maruuk]

I doubt the new CP revs can go that much further beyond what it can already do, but judging on the big jump in performance we had from the new firmware, the answer may lie there instead.

[tapper mike]

can't have it both ways. Eitehr you can access a daw with the yrg or you can access the control panel app.

...Also I'm still waiting to see a link where Harvey set the price for the rock controller. As I recall KK had met harvey at one of the shows and was ribbing him on the release price of the YRG. KK had stated "50" just to mess with him. then retracted.

I keep pretty close tabs on both the starr labs yahoo forum and the ztar forum as well as the midi-guitar forum. Had Harvey made a price announcement for the rock controller I would have seen it.

[MisterAcoustic]

I got my YRG the other day....

Thuneau, thanks for all this info. I tried increased string tension, but without the benefit of the control panel, and it got me nowhere. This definitely gives me something new to try.

One question though... With this setup, do you get good dynamics? (pick soft, get a soft note, pick harder, get a louder note?)

I ask because on the strings that I can make work most of the time, I am also able to do fast flat-picked types of runs - but, there are almost no dynamics, or, only accidental dynamics (no rhyme or reason when it happens).

I'm sure I'm getting extra triggers from the neck, it's just that I'm covering them up by picking every note, so they're not distinguishable on the internal voices I'm using.

Even though I think my YRG may have some physical problems, even that might be addressable with these control panel capabilities. I may have to wait to use it though, since I've already emailed support at Inspired and am waiting on their reply - don't want to change anything so I can demonstrate my current issues for them.

[Maruuk]

Glad to hear the CP locks onto the YRG like Alien and it's not my DAW at fault.

[Thuneau]

I got my YRG the other day....

Thuneau, thanks for all this info. I tried increased string tension, but without the benefit of the control panel, and it got me nowhere. This definitely gives me something new to try.

One question though... With this setup, do you get good dynamics? (pick soft, get a soft note, pick harder, get a louder note?)...

Two things:
1. The CP has separate dynamics adjustment for the internal guitar, internal synth and MIDI paths.
So, depending on the sound you are listening to you might get different "feel".

2 The internal guitar sounds are multisampled in a rather poor way. What seems like a drastic jump in picking strength is sometimes simply a new sample that is dramatically brighter than the sample reproducing the note only half step below.

I can live with the dynamics set to #4 (Medium 48-127). But I got good response from the setting #1 (Linear 1-127). I played a VSTi synth in Reaper and it felt OK for the limited time I spent with it.

[Maruuk]

In case folks don't have it, they released a PC-only pre-alpha of the CP...

http://inspired.com/yourockguitar/updat ... el_Win.zip

Just remember, it hogs your YRG so exit the CP BEFORE you launch your DAW. Otherwise your DAW won't be able to see it. Yes, I know that makes realtime tweaking impossible.

[Maruuk]

Ham Vel 0
Pluck decay 99
SS 9

And I still get a TON of extra triggers. And even at 9, a soft pluck results in zero trigger. Looks like no quick cures here.