yrg thread

[Elantric]

Use search here. I used a MIDI Monitor app with my Macbook Only observe MIDI Note On and MIDI Note Off events. No sysex

[Elantric]

Using Control Panel Ver 0.001 I set it to 1

[MRKiammi]

I have been playing Dick Dale style high speed repetitve single notes all morning. Perfect tracking here. No " double notes ".

I am confused now, no tracking problem you said no sensitive problem
What's the problem now for you??
And are you experience the same internal sounds ??

[Elantric]

I don't have any problems - it's just down to improving my own playing techique

[tapper mike]

SoundLoop might be a better source for side by side comparission as he has a z5 and the 55's have strings and have a joystick which can be used as a whammy bar.

Controller comparrision
I don't have a joystick but I've got tones of other control on the baby. Unlike the fixed pitch bend for whammy bar and fixed mod for joystick for mod on a yrg. The joystick can be set to anything. And it can be set to more of anything. My Key triggers allow for up to 5 events, My expression pads (touch cap array), pots and touch strip can all be set up to 8 different events.
Events can be anything from key triggers, re triggers, program change, cc chord (as shown in Harvey's video on the z6) They are channel dependent/selectable. So it has a lot more going on then a YRG as far as access to control.

String sensor settings
If you enter into edit mode then select sensor the sensors are global. (as opposed to the "Songs" or "Patches" When you hit a sensor (be it a string or a key trigger) you get a bar readout of the attack You can set the curve, the threshhold and the gain on a per sensor basis Which is a lot more effective then the yrg app where you can only set all strings at once for "sensitivity" and curve.

The Neck
Tuning -

You can tune the ztar to anything you like unlike the YRG which limits you to the presets. The ztar does come with common tuning presets however you can add your own and save them. While you can get ztars in both left and right hand models you can easily flip the ztar and flip the tuning (see harvey's video on the z6) There are convienent octave up down buttons on the ztar. (I wish they did more). There also is a handy dandy transpose feature in the editor. If you dig deep enough into the tuning librarian you can set each button on the fretboard to it's own note value.

Zones/channels/Fretboard settings

I've already covered zones in a separate post. Zoning/layering channels opens up worlds of musical ideasl Expecially for the tapper.
The YRG has "Open" and Closed for picking. and then tap. The ztar has fretboard settings
Off. Fret, Tap, Chord, Pad

On the YRG Open allows the open string tones to ring out. but requires more force and is less responsive to hammeraons.
Ztars do not have an "Open" setting persay. If you want something Open to ring out in "fret" mode. Hold down a different string otherwize you'll get a quick decay (baby z model analysis your model may vary) Yo can set hammer ons. pull offs and Open pull offs on or off as well set the decay rabge and the delay. The response is so fast that sometimes by putting in a little delay it responds more closely to a guitar. So more that a ztar has to offer.


The ztar has two scan modes you can set on a per zone basis. Guitar and Poly.
Guitar only playes the highest not of a given string that is held. So in some ways Fretboard: Tap, Scan Mode: Guitar, Velocity Fixed is very similar to the YRG's tap mode. You don't have to settle for a fixed velocity in tap mode because the fretboard is velocity sensitive as well. However you may anyway due to left hand armature. Trying to force The left hand index finger to get some velocity out of it while also trying to minimize your attach with the right chand can be a challenge. Even though you can apply curves or revers the velocity (liter you attack the louder it sounds) it can be a challence. However. Ztars still let you use a fixed velocity on the nech and use a different sensor to control the volume/velocity level. This is where an expression pedal comes in handy to rock back in your accents.



The YRG does not have a poly mode the ztar does.
Poly is . If you hold down say the A note of a string and then press the B note both will ring out. This defeats hammer on's pull offs while tapping because in poly it acts like a keyboard not a guitar. That being said you can bring a little bit of hammerons pull off's back by advanced editing. Poly allows one to attain harmonic structures not possible with the guitar and sometimes not possible with a keyboard. You can tap simultanious full chords with the lert and right hand. PolyChords, Clusters and wide intervals are all attainable in "Poly" "Tap"

The YRG does not fretboard chord mode.
You can assign a chord to a single "Key" and then have it arpegiate. You can assign several chords to several fretboard keys. and then to choose to play as blocks or arpegiate

The YRG does not have fretboard pad mode.
Pad operates as a latch. hit it once it's on hit it again it's off. This is a nice feature for triggering loops similar to MPC"s Electribes, Emu Command station, FL Reason and the like.

The neck Feel
The YRG neck feel/shape is consistent with a gretch or a itlle larger then a gibson custom. It's a fat wide neck with additional space above the low string and below the high string. While a thickness of this magnitute should be re enforcement to the strings so when you clamp down you get the full ring out of a bar chord. more often then not it fails to secure the strings. I currently have nine analog guitars and for ditigal guitars. (DG-20, EX-AG, YRG, BabyZ) The ability to hold down a bar chord and arpegiate or strum on any guitar or digital on the YRG sucks compares to all of them. I've been pulling my hair out trying to play "stairway to heaven" on it. Now remember I'm older, (50) been playing guitar since the 70's and been playing stairway since the 70's. Did the cover band thing and always got a standing ovation for the song. The strings on the YRG are just too small even if it had the slightest amount of curvature to the fretboard it would greatly improve the playing ability of the instrument. I think they want you to play slow and sloppy on it.
It's next to impossible to get a decent scale unless you set the curve to fixed out of a YRG. Especially when working the lower strings. While the extra space devoted to the upper region could make playing past the 12th fret easier for people with especially big hands (not me) it becomes a moot point when trying to access the lower strings above the 12th fret from the left hand.

BabyZ neck comparission.
The babyz neck is much more narrow and is not anywhere near as wide. It is niether a C or a U shaped neck it's more of a [ shape sometimes I wish it had just a little bit more beveling/rounding under the high and low strings.
The strings have a hardened rubber feel and rise up above the fretboard. Touching the fretboard itself is near impossible due to the shap and densidty of the strings. This can feel a bit odd at first. But after a few days it feels fine. In "Guitar" mode you can touch a fret (key actuallY) without sounding it and then squeeze a bit harder to make the note contact. It is a balancing act to figure out how hard to press in guitar mode to actually have a grip on the note. You can fine tune the sensitivity. but it's all a matter of getting a grip on how hard by playing it. The string is rubber so you don't catch "has it made contact" through physical force (like you would an EZ to where the button has a start point and a contact point. Once you work out how hard is just hard enough so you can maintain a light attack with the left while kei picking or string picking with the right things get a lot easier. Scaling, hammerons, pull offs are as easy as cake on a ztar. Also because you can set a zone to start at the first fret as opposed to the 0pen or zero position. it makes doing things like octaves or jazz comping chords a breeze. It does take a little lefthand force to pull off a slide in guitar mode. Newer robber string ztars take some burn in time to get that rubbery pourous feel of of them. Honestly a little baby powder on the strings helps.

In tap mode the ztar neck is a whole different enchilada. Yes you can touch the string ever so gently and it won't produce a sound. however zero to on is very slight. Anyone using a ztar should just as a development experiment set the fretboard to tap then set the velocity to the widest range. then tap with each finger on both hands and try to control how much force you apply. In tap mode you don't have to hold the strings down as hard to sound. slides, hammer ons and pull offs become a breeze and you never have to worry about an open note. Generally I prefer to set up tap to a fixed velocity setting for the entire neck if only the left hand is involved or I'm doing single note tapping lines with both hands. Remember you can still set "Sensors" to control the volume/velocity. So even if the nexk has a fixed velocity you can manimulate dynamics via the joystick, the expression pedial or any other sensor. One of the hard things about tapping left is trying to repeat a note.
You can set your strings or key triggers or expression pads to trigger or retrigger a note. That is something that it shares with the YRG but it does not do automatically you do have to work with the settings to get it to work.

Zones
One thing the YRG lacks is total control over channels. You have three settings. poly, 1~6. or 11~16 the string per channel is often a bust. Zones (repleating myself from an earlier post) are anywhere you can draw a rectangle. You set the zone then you can set the channel to the zone as well as all the fretboard stuff I've already covered. Two zones can have separate velocity settings.
Example, You are playing block chords with the left only and you want that fixed. See Me -
Okay so you have the left going and want to create a different zone for your melody which you will play with your right hand only. You can then set your second zone to a different region and set it to variable velocity as it's pretty easy to work out right hand only tapping with velocity.
Oddly I spoke with Kevin about this before the YRG was released. His response was "Interesting" but I doubt if he had the hardware and os to pull it off. Because it's not a feature of the current model.

Believe it or not. I've only scratched the surface of a comparission.

[tapper mike]

Re-bass
You'll never get response time out of a bass. Before a velocity can be determinded the pitch has to be determined as it goes thru the pitch to voltage transision. In order for the pitch to be determined the note has to to thru an entire sine/cycle. The sine length of a bass is very long due to the nature of the low note value. The guy in AU with the new midi bass thing basically uses the hagstrom solution (see my hagstrom notes a few pages back)
That being sensors on the frets and under the fretboard to relay pitch information. the strings themselved don't need to be picked (see the video)
Inspired instruments is not making claims yet of models to come. They may have a bass model in the line up. Starr labs did have a bass model years ago but lack of sales (I think there were only two ever made) caused it to be discontinued.

[mac wilson]

There's too much Ztar in this thread.

I understand the comparison here, but the Ztars are 10 times the cost. I've owned a Ztar. They are ok, they just cost a lot and they have buttons.

I don't particularly like buttons

Anyway, have any of you tried a 'physical' capo (as opposed to the capo settings)

I've been using a capo and it's pretty strange. You might want to try it.

Hard to describe, you just have to try it.

All n all, this thing could be ok. I initially was rather timid of it when I realized that I would have to adjust my technique, as that's always disconcerting, unless your prepared to do so.

I like the fact that it's completely silent except for the thumping sound of the strings. Also, I don't have to ever worry about environmental issues (something that's always been a nightmare for me)

[tapper mike]

If you think that the thread is out of control there is something you can do.
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=290187
Add your input to that thread.

About every midi guitar controller has been respresented in this thread including non-existant ones (prototye only) and long since discontinued products.
A complete comparision requires a complete comparission including listing attributes not available on the YRG.

Some ztars have buttons others have strings. The buttons on a ztar with buttons are not like the buttons on an ex-eg The neck strings on a babyz or a z5 are not like the strings on a yourockguitar.

Also many of us active participants are in agreement that other instruments should be represented in comparission to other instruments. We've covered fenders prototypes, the yamaha G10, DG-20, EZ-EG, 13 pin (roland/axis) and various others. The YRG is not being slighted from coverage. We've covered the good bad and the ugly along the way.

[annode]

I have been playing Dick Dale style high speed repetitve single notes all morning. Perfect tracking here. No " double notes ".

I'm still running the original firmware Elantric. On my YRG there is no way NOT to sound doubles as I described a few time in posts.
If you aren't getting them...i'd like to know why....cause I sure am.
If your curious, run the tool MidiMonitor or any midi to text tool and watch what's happening. If you can pick one fret note after another moving up or down a string, without getting a trigger from first, your finger and then the string pluck trigger pls tell me why your YRG is different then mine.

EDIT: Dick Dale is not the sorta style which illuminates the double triggers.
It's when you want to pick the fingered note once and move to another note on a single string.
My God man! Are you really thinking that machine gunning/rifling picking style will make false trigger evident? Sounds a little suspicious to me.

It baffles me why a simple, well described picking effect eludes people.

[annode]

Guys could we please get ontopic again,
This is a yourockguitar thread, and you guys keep talking
About ztar,g10, Roland etc etc.
I am sure most of you really rather would like
One of those instead, but could you please
Talk about it in another thread, i dont
Know much about this, but right know
I only wanna hear about the yourock
Experiences, how to do settings, what people feel
Improvements etc etc. And since this is
An yourock thread, could we keep it to that please?
Could i perhaps ask the moderator
To remove All the inrelevant threads
In here, we have some good tips, and discussions, but they are
Drowning in All the other stuff.

For me and those who have been following this thread...we are sorta on vacation until Inspired releases new app. versions.
There's nothing more that can be said that hasn't already been said...so for me, talk about anything..it doesn't matter at this time.

[mac wilson]

If you don't make any effort at all to stay on topic this thread is done for YRG (still good for other topics though).

Guess I'll have to resort to Yahoo OH NO!!!!

[annode]

Re-bass
You'll never get response time out of a bass. Before a velocity can be determinded the pitch has to be determined as it goes thru the pitch to voltage transision. In order for the pitch to be determined the note has to to thru an entire sine/cycle. The sine length of a bass is very long due to the nature of the low note value. The guy in AU with the new midi bass thing basically uses the hagstrom solution (see my hagstrom notes a few pages back)
That being sensors on the frets and under the fretboard to relay pitch information. the strings themselved don't need to be picked (see the video)
Inspired instruments is not making claims yet of models to come. They may have a bass model in the line up. Starr labs did have a bass model years ago but lack of sales (I think there were only two ever made) caused it to be discontinued.

I studied 'the theory of vibrating strings' in college - Piano Technology.
The thicker the string diameter relative to it's fundamental pitch, the greater it's inharmonicity. So...the larger the string diameter with say bass string the more difficult it is for a pitch sensor to differentiate it's fundamental and equal divisions.

That's the thinking around why I feel doubling the octave range with piccolo bass string will help the pickup system of the GI-20 read the low strings fundamentals.

[annode]

If you don't make any effort at all to stay on topic this thread is done for YRG (still good for other topics though).

Guess I'll have to resort to Yahoo OH NO!!!!

As far as i'm concerned, it will automatically come back to topic when the new sofware is released...so what me worry?

[annode]

Anybody run this through MIDI-OX or other monitor yet to see if the YRG spits out any live SysEx data for fret-position *without* strumming?

- m

No fret position data sent from the YRG.
I used MidiMonitor. To be absolutely positive, i'll look when I have the 'other' checked. I imagine that would show all non-specific data.

Just dloaded midi ox for spin. Try it out tonight.

[Markleford]

Just dloaded midi ox for spin. Try it out tonight.

Thanks: I know many hosts will filter out SysEx before it gets to the track/fx bus by default (relegating it to a patch-transfer mode), so internal MIDI monitors might not tell the whole story depending on your system.

I know a lot of people here don't like external scripts, but if per-fret SysEx is indeed available, it could increase the potential for the YRG tenfold, as it did for the EZ-*G. The difference here being that the YRG seems much much better that the EZ right out of the box!

- m