Midi Guitar
I intend to devote much more time to this subject as it is the instrument that I play. (Here's the excuses....) As I'm trying to put up my WebSite at the moment and as I've registered keywords of my site as searchable with some of the big search engines - to try not to disapoint any other midi-guitarists that have found their way here I will just touch on a few topics to hopefully keep you interested.
Well I play a Fender Stratocaster Ultra (4 lace sensor pickups) with a Roland GK2A pickup attached (and YES there IS room to attach the GK2A in front of the bridge despite the double pickups at the bridge position) into a Roland GR50 Guitar synthesizer. The GR50 may be a little out dated particularly in the sounds it makes but it is a formidable piece of kit!
I MIDI out from this to a Digitech VHM5 Vocal Harmonizer and MIDI thru' to a Roland SC55 Sound Canvas. The SC55 provides some respectable synth sounds which are layered with the internal sounds of the GR50, but the VHM5 gives me the ability to play a chord on the MIDI guitar and sing up to 5 part harmoney on my own - the harmonizer tracking the chords I play.
As I use the rig live, I have to use 2 on stage amplifiers - one for the guitar and guitar sounds and one for the synth. There are 3 output jacks on the back of the GR50. One is mono guitar out and the other two are Stereo L & R synth outs. Each of the three outputs eventually get routed to either of two volume foot pedalswhich enable me to mix the guitar vs synth sound in real time.
Midi guitar is a very different type of guitar to play even though you are actually playing an ordinary guitar. You have almost certainly heard of - if not encountered the ubiquitous 'MIDI Delay'! This is a delay or hesitation which is experienced when playing a string and hearing the sound. This can be caused by two main reasons.
The first is the synth sound that you are using. If it has a slow 'attack' like a swelling string sound then obviously if you play 32 notes to the bar at 160bpm, you are not giving the sound envelope time to reach its full maximum before you cut the note off and start the next. Therefore it appears that several notes are missing from what you play. Well the answer to this is don't use a sound with a slow attack if you are playing Van Halen. Select a sound from your arsenal that has a quick attack like a flute or brassy sound.
The other reason for an apparent delay is the time the (Roland) synthesizer takes to read the note you have played on the guitar. Because high notes (top strings) have a fast wave cycle and low notes (bottom strings) have a very slow wave cycle it takes lower notes longer to make one and a half sine waves - which is what the synth requires to understand which note you've played. If this really bugs you and you can't live with it, then substitute your bottom strings o your guitar (E and A) with thin top strings (B and E) tuned to E and A but two octave up. The reading cycle is faster and to get the note in the correct octave, just detune that midi channel part by 2 octaves below!
The GR-50 is a guitar to midi converter and tone generator featuring LA style synthesis with 128 preset sounds, 63 rhythm sounds, and 64 user programmable sounds which can be assigned to 2 independent parts and controlled by the the guitar driver or external midi. Features include
The GK2 guitar converter can be mounted on electric or acoustic guitars. All string sensitivity adjustments are done from the GR- 50, and the GK2 has up/down buttons for patch selection or used to activate octave shift or hold functions. |
Anyway enough for now... if you are interested in midi guitar and techniques, you should visit here again sometime when I have put more info together.