MIDI Pickups

[Mustang Martigan]

I demoed MIDI Guitar 2 and MIDI Bass 2 recently. Both plugins are pretty weak at handling bends and other articulations.

Besides that software, and installing a MIDI pickup, are there any other options worth mentioning?

Is there any tech out there that's virtually flawless at capturing a performance and turning it into a midi track?

That's what these things do, right?

Thanks, Adam

[lfm]

Heard good things about Fishman Triple play
https://www.fishman.com/tripleplay/

If it can handle slide by generating notes plus pitch wheel I am not sure.
But since you track each string separately options are better.
Then it could do bends and stuff like vibrato pretty well.

Plugins first need to do polyphonic tracking to start with, so odds are worse.

But pedals like EHX Gog2, octaver, can do polyphonic tracking pretty well, so guess technology developed quite a bit. Maybe there are pedals that do midi from a pedal.

[zerocrossing]

Here’s the hard truth. Learn to play keyboard. MIDI Guitar 2 is as good as any hardware hex to MIDI device I’ve used, but it’s not perfect either. I mean, think about it. It really can’t be. You’re always going to need a few cycles of waveform before a guess can be made about pitch, and that means low notes are always going to be late.

A guitar like controller might be the way to go, but after getting really disappointed by a Starr Labs controller, I gave up. That thing sucked beyond words. I can’t imagine these new cheap things are any better. These days my controller of choice is a Roli Rise 49. Of course, it’s not a guitar, or anything like a guitar, but I can get really good results out of it. Way better than any MIDI guitar solution.

[Mustang Martigan]

Here’s the hard truth. Learn to play keyboard. MIDI Guitar 2 is as good as any hardware hex to MIDI device I’ve used, but it’s not perfect either....
These days my controller of choice is a Roli Rise 49.

I heard the same this about the MIDI Guitar plug...that it's pretty much as good as it gets.

The Roli Rise looks amazing, but it's way out of my price range. To give u an idea of my budget, I was about to spend $60 on a used MAudio Oxygen 49 v3, or go really crazy and drop 90 on the v4 (to get the added pads).

[WatchTheGuitar]

Pretty much all this gear as bad at interpreting bends and slides. But, if you have a bottomless wallet then there are guitars you can get that use tech like ‘fret scanning’ that is supposed to be vastly better at it, but they’re a few grand and all booked up for about a year or more

https://www.rorguitars.com/products/expressiv-midi-pro

I’ve been using keyboards and sample libraries like OTS Evolution to do ‘guitar’ recently
https://soundcloud.com/main_tenant/sketch-of-a-sketch

[TobyB]

RO'R is excellent.
FTP is pretty useable for the price ... but you have to learn to play it ... lots of people dismiss it because they're not as clean and precise in their technique, and it's not forgiving.
Linnstrument is a great MPE interface for string players, you can use all your familiar scale and chord patterns repeatedly all over ... copy many riffs too ... you don't need to translate to keyboard shapes.

[Tj Shredder]

Here’s the hard truth. Learn to play keyboard. MIDI Guitar 2 is as good as any hardware hex to MIDI device I’ve used, but it’s not perfect either. I mean, think about it. It really can’t be. You’re always going to need a few cycles of waveform before a guess can be made about pitch, and that means low notes are always going to be late.

This is not true as soon you have other means to sensor the pitch. I have a Peavey MidiBase, which uses the frets as contacts to get the correct pitch immediately, and then uses pitch tracking to sensor the bends. The also decades old Axon needed a quarter wavelength which is acceptable for guitar (but not for bass)…
The Fishman demo videos look convincing, the guy is bending and the synth follows. But you’d need to test it yourself I guess…

[Scotty]

I own Jamstik Studio midi guitar. Putting it through its paces now. Just got it in this week. The youtube videos show it tracking slides, hammerons, pull offs and tapping technique with a high degree of accuracy. I'll update you with my findings. I have tried a few over the years. This one looks the best so far. In my case I am just trying to speed up the creation of scores for content on my website with detailed and accurate representations of my guitar work. It has to track well to be worthwhile. I am less concerned about using it performatively. I do play keyboards albeit as a secondary instrument.

[WatchTheGuitar]

Meh, I bet someone from my old school could transcribe guitar better and faster than Jamstick
I did go to school with Guthrie Govan tbf

[Scotty]

Meh, I bet someone from my old school could transcribe guitar better and faster than Jamstick
I did go to school with Guthrie Govan tbf

Huh?

[WatchTheGuitar]

Meh, I bet someone from my old school could transcribe guitar better and faster than Jamstick
I did go to school with Guthrie Govan tbf

Huh?

Was just a joke. If you read the white text then Guthrie is a world famous guitarist and he transcribed tabs and solos for magazines for years

[tapper mike]

Heard good things about Fishman Triple play
https://www.fishman.com/tripleplay/

If it can handle slide by generating notes plus pitch wheel I am not sure.
But since you track each string separately options are better.
Then it could do bends and stuff like vibrato pretty well.

Plugins first need to do polyphonic tracking to start with, so odds are worse.

True

I've abandoned all hope on midi guitars even though I'd been playing them since the 80's and whenever some new tool came along I'd be quick to jump on it. I gave up before tripleplay became available.

Now I'm all mpe and all linnstrument for my midi playing. Bitwig and other hosts have adopted to mpe input and can handle the rigors of non mpe plugins via some magic of multiple instances of a selected plugin matching up with the channels. No midi 2.0 required.

The linnstrument isn't for everyone and it's not a guitar. But I've found it to be the best tool for midi expression. I've also given up keyboard playing as a result.

[anttimaatteri]

you need some work to do when using the fishman system. other than that its doing its job.
but my guess is, the best thing is the roland/boss stuff, very expensive.
if pat metheny used it some 30-40 years ago live on stage without any major problems, it should do the job for us peasants too^^

[CapnLockheed]

you need some work to do when using the fishman system. other than that its doing its job.
but my guess is, the best thing is the roland/boss stuff, very expensive.
if pat metheny used it some 30-40 years ago live on stage without any major problems, it should do the job for us peasants too^^

That's only partially true. I've owned most of the Roland GK/GR systems. I still use a GK3 with a VG88. BUT I only use it for COSM based audio hex effects. There's no midi involved and so no latency and/or other gliches. I don't use it for pitch to midi at all. For that I use the Fishman Triple Play. It's not perfect either, but it does midi better than the Roland units IMHO.

The Roland GR synths were ok provided you relied on their internal sounds which are kinda just meh. But once you start trying to export midi to drive external synths performance drops dramatically. The best Roland setup for that was, (for me anyway),
a GK3 pickup driving a GI-20 midi converter. It had some nice features but at the end of the day the Fishman simply tracks better. Some people complain about needing a pc to use it but I got iConnectivity midi2usb host so I can play my hardware synths independently of a pc.

[Yadrichik_Chaya]

I own Jamstik Studio midi guitar. Putting it through its paces now. Just got it in this week. The youtube videos show it tracking slides, hammerons, pull offs and tapping technique with a high degree of accuracy. I'll update you with my findings. I have tried a few over the years. This one looks the best so far. In my case I am just trying to speed up the creation of scores for content on my website with detailed and accurate representations of my guitar work. It has to track well to be worthwhile. I am less concerned about using it performatively. I do play keyboards albeit as a secondary instrument.

Any updates on the findings now that you've had the Jamstik for a few months? Personally I love it! In this improvised track everything is the Jamstik - So much fun playing a violin/vibraphone solo! (No quantize)

https://soundcloud.com/user-414219875/s ... ar-anagram

In this track I do fast picking (200 BPM) with a piano patch and zero quantize:

https://soundcloud.com/user-414219875/f ... o-quantize

I am very impressed by the tracking