Are you a tech-savvy guitarist?

[Dazed Veins]

Well.. I prepare my own plectri.. how 'bout that?

[dwozzle]

@nix808, sure, I'd give it a try, but as I said, it's not that likely I'd buy a pickup without being really sure it'd work out. Triple Play is about $400 in the US I think.

I'm not at all sure any hex pickup solution will work for me in real life, because I doubt there's room for it on my guitar (three humbuckers). I understand that that's the best solution technically though.

@Musical Gym, Thanks for the pointer to JamOrigin, hadn't heard of it. I downloaded the demo, will check it out when I get a chance. Demo video looks pretty impressive, I agree.

[Musical Gym]

Glad I could help.

[dwozzle]

This is just my $0.0002, but after downloading JamOrigin and playing with it for quite a while, I'm sorry to say that I think MIDI guitar for a player like me is essentially doomed.

It felt like playing with mittens on. I wanted to be able to control VSTIs with guitar because I play guitar much better than keys, meaning I have much more dexterity and control, leading to more nuanced and expressive playing.

That didn't make it through audio to MIDI conversion at all. Yes, I could make all those sounds come out by playing guitar, but I was doing well to not drop entire notes, and to find a middle ground of pitch bend where it didn't skip around wildly but allowed some hand vibrato. Didn't feel expressive at all. There's also delay, not huge, but more than on a keyboard or straight guitar.

I don't blame JamOrigin. I understand the technical reasons why really fast and accurate pitch detection is in some sense impossible; they allude to that on their site.

I won't be exploring this further, unless I run into a store with a Fishman already installed that I can try out. I'm much happier playing guitar with my guitar, and using a keyboard and other direct MIDI controllers for VSTIs.

[RunBeerRun]

The Jam Origin one, you really had to whack at it to play chords, and once you get past that, the latency is worse than already too-high freeware I have.

You can get a Fender Mustang digital guitar for $50 I think.

[Musical Gym]

You can get a Fender Mustang digital guitar for $50 I think.

Where?

[nix808]

Heya,
I used this device in my hex detector,
but in conjunction with a squeal/rumble cutting filter.
I am trying to build a monophonic bass to MIDI for Runbeer.
When I took out the cutting filter,
this performance ensued->

It works freaking marvellous.
I want to use this post to define prior art on any ensuing devices.
I want to be named as the inventor,
and henceforth have copyright-if possible hehe
Hope you think it is interesting.
The pitch read feeds back to the bandpass' cutoff,
thus focussing the read to a huge degree.
I have noted that even cascaded bps still work,
ie. give a reasonably accurate figure in the rigged test-bed.
A single 16db bp will probably be used,
as as the freq goes higher a cascade starts to fail slightly.
Note- I have only tested this once briefly today(the cascade).
Cheers
I will have a free monophonic bass demo VSTfx within a fortnight for all.

[nix808]

Heya,
I'm bumping this one.
I'm looking for a guitarist to partner with.
The hexaphonic and quadraphonic versions of the device
will be $150. I am willing to split 45,45,10 % of net,
which is maximal as no overheads really.
The numbers are: me,you, my dev friend who has helped.
PM for monophonic demos.

I would expect the player to do demos and marketing.

It's working really good. If this is the best solution available,
we have a product- coz there r so many guitarists.

Cheers

[tapper mike]

Baby Z


16 Fret Fingerboard. Touch-sensitive rubber strings offer a smooth linear feel.
6 Touch-sensitive rubber Trigger Bars for fingerstyle performance.
6 programmable Expression Pads
8 programmable Rotary Pots
Touch strip
Encoder Wheel User Interface
Sustain Pedal Jack
Volume Pedal Jack
MIDI IN, MIDI OUT, USB
Internal MIDI Wireless optional
Power supply, cables, soft case included

Once you get used to tap mode with your left hand it frees your right hand to play with all the knobs, pads etc. That's something which borders on impossible with pitch to voltage converters on guitars because you have to use both hands to play the guitar

The one thing about midi vibrato vs guitar vibrato. Mid vibrato operates on a "dial/knob" that the further you turn it the faster it vibrates. This is completely unnatural to a guitarist who using a wiggling/shaking motion/ The midi modulation effect varies with the instrument. Sometimes if fluctuates on the brightness and volume and sometimes on the volume and pitch and sometimes it's just a volume or other fluctuation to emulate vibrato. So in short it's not going to react like wiggling your finger on the left or bouncing a whammy bar.

[zerocrossing]

This is just my $0.0002, but after downloading JamOrigin and playing with it for quite a while, I'm sorry to say that I think MIDI guitar for a player like me is essentially doomed.

It felt like playing with mittens on. I wanted to be able to control VSTIs with guitar because I play guitar much better than keys, meaning I have much more dexterity and control, leading to more nuanced and expressive playing.

That didn't make it through audio to MIDI conversion at all. Yes, I could make all those sounds come out by playing guitar, but I was doing well to not drop entire notes, and to find a middle ground of pitch bend where it didn't skip around wildly but allowed some hand vibrato. Didn't feel expressive at all. There's also delay, not huge, but more than on a keyboard or straight guitar.

I don't blame JamOrigin. I understand the technical reasons why really fast and accurate pitch detection is in some sense impossible; they allude to that on their site.

I won't be exploring this further, unless I run into a store with a Fishman already installed that I can try out. I'm much happier playing guitar with my guitar, and using a keyboard and other direct MIDI controllers for VSTIs.

This has been my issue for years. I think the tech is seriously flawed in a way that can, for reasons of physics, not be overcome. 33 ms of delay is too much, plain and simple, plus all the other things you mention.

I think the only hope for guitarists is for someone to make a guitar-like MIDI instrument like this:

http://madronalabs.com/hardware

There have been a few tries of things like this (Starrlabs, Yamaha, Casio), but nothing that really nails it and sells one at an affordable price. I saved and saved for a Starrlabs Ztar and found that my $2000 bought me something that felt like a cheap toy. So, I gave up. The good news is that keyboard is significantly easier to get decent on if you're just doing single hand chords, bass or lead lines. Get a MIDI keyboard with good aftertouch (I find the Novation controllers to be good) and wait until the day someone makes something really good.

[nix808]

Here is the breakdown->

<<(posted on VGuitar forum):
I will certainly do the test on my pitch to MIDI software,
however I think I can tell you with great accuracy atm.
On E2, the fastest string it's->
1200 samples buffer, to negate the percussive string attack
44100/1200 = 36.75
1000/36.75 = 27 ms
256 samples soundcard buffer(usually would have clean audio)
44100/256 = 172.65
1000/172.65 =6ms
1 ms MIDI polling via Ruby language

27ms + 6ms + 1ms = 34ms total
>>

So the delay includes a 256 soundcard buffer.
It seems that it is not too slow when u play it IMO.
There is also the option to use a stream, which only has the soundcard latency.
Let me know if you would like to try pitch to stream, I can pm a mono demo for ordinary guitar pickup.

[nix808]

Here I have the testimony of RBR->
"Ok it works very well with both guitar and bass, the latency seems pretty good, it could respond faster to note changes. I think you can help that with the gate knob. Haven't tried any of the numerical inputs as I don't know what ranges to work with."

This relates to the current version.
The elder ones are not as good.
The gate sets the OI thresh-hold. It can be slightly better, maybe.