The Yamaha EZ-EG Guitar Midi Controller Thread

[kara]

IMHO what you ask is impossible to do.
The ez sends a note on with velocity 16 when you fret a note. With the application of marc you can do severall things
1. filter those out
2. play the note with same velocity as the last played
3. send a note off

But it would be impossible to differciate a fretted note (normal) from a hammer on.
The same for a pull off.

R_

BTW. If someone is dissapointed of his EZ I'm interrested in buying it. Thanks to marc's application is has become my main instrument on stage and I'm looking for a spare one. Just pm me.

Any configuration advice would be appreciated. I'd ideally like to have it act like a normal guitar, without much audio when fretting notes and chords but allowing open strings, hammers and pulls.

[mbncp]

You could do probably something like "same as last note velo -5" for hammer-ons and actually by changing the "velo -5" to "velo -10" control the "decay" as well but the system couldn't possibly distinguish between a hammers-on or if you just positioning your finger for the next note to be fretted.
When you push a key it's always velocity of 16 no matter how hard you hit it.

In our apps we use the sysex values sent by the ez.
That is fret up/ down and string plucked.
Also at any time we 'have' a picture of the whole fretboard (what's up and what's down).
For the hammering I should do a mix of Fret Down Mode = lastvelo and legato.
Fret Down Mode = lastvelo, if you set the Velocity to 1 , the velocity stays unchanged (uses last velo), but if you set velocity to anything greater than 1 you will get a decrease after each note by this value (-1).
Legato: If a fret adjacent to the one being played is pressed, the app will first send the new note on followed by the previous note off. Most synth, if enabled, will play legato or glide or what ever it's called.

To emulate a real guitar it would be better to use a timer to set the next velocity. After 0.2 sec the velo would be 90%, but after 2 sec it would be only 70% or what ever, or a mix of the two (decrease in time and after each fret).

Anyway right now I'm working on the GUI, so we can hide unused 'blocks' of settings (midi play back, foot pedal, left/right split/layer, fretboard,..) and adding tooltips to all controls. And hammers, pull stuff will be next.

Btw. did anyone try to load a midi file or use the add song to playlist. See COMDLG32_OCX.txt if you get an error, and let me know if you still get an error after installing COMDLG32.OCX.

marc

[Markleford]

What would I need to do to be able to do hammer-ons but only if a lower note is fretted on the same string as the hammer-on?

In my system, you set initial fretted velocity to zero, hammer on velocity to your preferrred positive value, and pull off velocity to your preference (I generally make hammer ons a little louder).

- m

[Lava]

Here's an old video of me slopping around on it

http://www.shanesanders.com/2003/ztarvideos/

Awesome. I want one so bad. When you said your first thought about it was "This is impossible", did you mean "Oh my god, the impossible has finally come true, this is so easy" or did you mean "this is impossible to play at first"?

[mbncp]

[Lava]

Okay - somebody's gotta be able to hack that.

[braj]

You could definitely fit all that into a nice wood body.

[mbncp]

Okay - somebody's gotta be able to hack that.

No need, you have plenty of room to put a laptop in it.
Btw. I' selling the speaker, brand new, never used

[SecondSkin]

Okay - somebody's gotta be able to hack that.

No need, you have plenty of room to put a laptop in it.
Btw. I' selling the speaker, brand new, never used

C'mon Marc --- you at least tried out "Country Roads" using the 12 string sound, didn't you???

(I did)

[mbncp]

(I did)

I did too, it was a monday morning at 5 am in the basement of an old swiss chalet at 10000 feet.
I had a Villa Lobos Sheet Music in front of me and I used my HEADPHONES.

[SecondSkin]

(I did)

I did too, it was a monday morning at 5 am in the basement of an old swiss chalet at 10000 feet.
I had a Villa Lobos Sheet Music in front of me and I used my HEADPHONES.

I belted it out full volume...

[realmarco]

It occured to me as I was waiting for the soldering iron to warm up that the EZ-AG could probably be gutted to a large degree and replaced with a PDA of some sort. In this way, we could take complete control of the OS for unlimited power. Yes?

or stick a pda on the ez-eg and run the scripts from the guitar

[Shane Sanders]

My ultimate goal would be to mount the "strummer" hardware onto my Ztar miniZ. I'm not wanting to use a keyboard

What kind of data sends the miniZ ?
Do you get some message (CC, SYSEX, ) each time you press a fret button, or only note on/off events ?

The hard part would be to do the mounting, as you still need some hardware from the ez, I didn't open mine so it's hard to say.

the Ztars sends all sorts of MIDI data and it has it's own internal OS. You can configure various things and set up zones, etc. I have the older software. Apparently there is an upgrade that I need to investigate.

From your pictures, it looks like the EZ's are just about the same thing as the Suzuki XG-1m on the inside.

[Shane Sanders]

You could definitely fit all that into a nice wood body.

Yeah, this thing could definitely be re-worked into sturdier housing. The neck is thin enough that one could actually just carve a bass neck sheath for it really. It would just sit in there like a shell.

[Shane Sanders]

Here's an old video of me slopping around on it

http://www.shanesanders.com/2003/ztarvideos/

Awesome. I want one so bad. When you said your first thought about it was "This is impossible", did you mean "Oh my god, the impossible has finally come true, this is so easy" or did you mean "this is impossible to play at first"?

I think you have me confused with Bucodi's post at the top of this page.

At any rate, I definitely think the EZ is a workable instrument, especially if one was going to tap and use a secondary foot controller/breath controller for velocity. I feel lucky in this regard because the miniZ sends velocity data from the fret-buttons already whereas the EZ does not.

I've got a preset saved on it that lets me fret chords and tap the rhythm out on two little pads that are about the size of an American silver dollar. It's like hand drumming with your left hand, and it brings out some nice syncopated things that one wouldn't normally think to do on a guitar.