bobm@rtech.UUCP (Bob Mcqueer) (08/11/85)
> Of course, the real problem these days is that a corresponding box does > not currently exist for MIDI, to my knowledge. The only nonkeyboard controller > type in which there seems much commercial general interest is the electric > guitar - Roland and New England Digital (the Synclavier folks) have inter- > faces to MIDI, but are part of (e.g. Roland) or options for (Synclavier) their > synthesizer systems. My own instrument is guitar, and I am not happy with either > performance and/or price on both of these units. I myself was not terribly happy with the Roland unit's capabilities to price ratio either. I sent them a long letter with my criticisms for what it's worth. Another name to look into is "SynthAxe". Shortly after MIDI got going, they got themselves a MIDI id. I don't know what their status is these days, though. I can't seem to find their address right now (all I remember is that they're in London), but if somebody's real interested I may be able to dig it up. Or IMA will have it. > The basic idea on a violin or guitar synthesizer is to provide one pickup > (usually magnetic, so you usually can't use nylon or gut strings, etc.) for each > string on the instrument. Separate pickups for each string are necessary > because two or more fundamental notes playing at the same time will almost > invariably "confuse" the following pitch-extraction electronics. Yes, definitely. Given this, one of the things I disliked about the Roland unit was that it THEN merged all it's data into one midi channel. This might be what you want sometimes, but it seems to me that sending each string on a seperate (assignable) channel would be a very good feature - you can imagine something analogous to a "keyboard split" on your guitar neck, educational software which can realize what string you're playing a given note on, or tablature generation for the folkie types. > amplitude/trigger information may control either a local synthesis system, > be sent out over MIDI to another unit, or both. Trouble is, MIDI is a terribly keyboard oriented specification. They may call it musical INSTRUMENT digital interface, but it is clearly prejudiced towards keyboards. It does not have a good way of representing glissando, quavers, or semitones. The pitch wheel message is all you have, and it doesn't specify a standard step, requires continous update to affect a slide, and affects all notes which are playing. MIDI is going to have to be expanded somehow to adequately represent "shaking" a note on guitar, or playing one of those expressive sounding quavers on a violin. And MIDI can't be expanded without doing more piggybacking of further opcodes onto unused data bytes in the control message if you want to transmit a channel number with the status, or adopting some really ugly conventions to make use of the leftover "system" opcodes. The pitch wheel messages may be OK for a single voice instrument, but even there I have my doubts, and if you want your instrument to be able to drive another synth directly with pitch wheel messages, it better come equipped with a calibration setting to adjust how many pitch wheel steps there are per half step. By the way, I'm still working off of 1.0 spec., in case there has BEEN any standardization of pitch wheel increments, or new extensions which I don't know about. My apologies if I'm out of date. > ***** PERSONAL NOTE ***** : I am in the process of designing a hopefully > low-cost MIDI guitar synthesizer system. Still, ( FLAME ON!!!! ) WHY haven't > the major synth companies more fully addressed the nonkeyboard musician who > wants to play synth? I'd like some more competition out there when I get the > bloody thing built! If there are any aspiring guitar , violin, etc. synthesists > out there in netland, please let's start some dialogue in this newsgroup. Ok, let's. I'm interested in what you're doing. Bob McQueer amdahl!rtech!bobm
bobm@rtech.UUCP (Bob Mcqueer) (08/11/85)
[]--- Also, the July IMA newsletter has: Cherry Lane Technologies 110 Midland Ave, PO Box 430 Port Chester, NY 10573 (914) 937-8601 This company markets a guitar to MIDI interface called the "Pitchrider 7000". The couple paragraph blurb says that it transmits string bends over MIDI, and can assign each string a separate channel. It features a pickup to be mounted on your guitar, rather than a whole instrument, ala Roland. I saw this right after posting my first article. No price quoted. Bob McQueer amdahl!rtech!bobm
hedger@ada-uts.UUCP (08/15/85)
I am a synthesist(keyboard) who has been trying to gather information about guitar/midi conversion for a bassist friend of mine....we're not so interested in 'synthesized' bass as we are in converting the bass to midi for the purpose of controllinga midi-equipped sampling machine....the pitchrider mentioned in the response note to you sounds good....just a couple more notes....................... I am not (as yet) a member of IMA and have never delved into the innards of the spec, but I did read somewhere that there would soon be an update to the existing spec(not a new release) to stabilize things like pitch bend information etc....as far as why none of the big companies except roland are designing guitar synths??? I think the answer is somewhat obvious....when Roland first came out with the guitar and bass synths (gr-303???), very few people bought them. Granted they needed a lot of work, but so did all synthesizers then(they still do!!!). However, guitar players on the whole displayed very little interest in the product. Roland went one step further with the gr-707 and tried to make improvements despite the fact that the previous synths didn't sell well. Keyboard players, on the other hand, bought the products and displayed an interest in furthering the technology, consequently we've seen a real boom in the technology and instruments available over the past few years...not to mention the steady decline in prices for most products...I have as many problems with the big instrument manufacturers as anyone and this isn't meant to sound like a press release, nor is it a criticism of guitar players, but I don't think we are going to see anyone producing affordable efficient guitar synths until guitar players are willing to buy products and support the development of these instruments...I would be interested in discussing these as well as any other topics of interest..... **************************************************** Keith Hedger- Intermetrics e-mail:ihnp4!inmet!ada-uts!hedger
salzman@rdlvax.UUCP (Gumby) (08/15/85)
Hi there. Here's another guitarist who's VERY interested in sysnthesis and MIDI for guitar (and other such instruments). >.... Another name to look into is "SynthAxe". Shortly >after MIDI got going, they got themselves a MIDI id. I don't know >what their status is these days, though. I can't seem to find their >address right now (all I remember is that they're in London), but >if somebody's real interested I may be able to dig it up. Or IMA >will have it. I saw Lee 'Rit' this past sunday night at the Hollywod Bowl (with Dave Grusin, great show!), and he played the SynthAxe for a tune. The thing is a monster. I read about it in a product review magazine (possibly put out by the Guitar Player/Keyboard Publishers) and I believe it's made by Fairlight. I recall that it was quite expensive, but it's just a MIDI controller and that's it - to hook up to any MIDI synth. It's a beast, must be a real bitch to play - even Rit was struggling with it a little. It sounded pretty good though. As far as Roland goes, I've played with that thing before and it does have problems. But, for $2000-$3000, it's not bad. The SynthAxe is $10,000+, or even a lot more than that (can't remember). The Roland is usefull. I think there's a lot of potential in using a guitar synth now, even without the capability of being able to do smoothe bends and slides, etc. Consider using it for orchestration (chords), and such. I don't think that the people who are using them are really taking advantage of it. That's easy for me to say, since I don't have one. >> ***** PERSONAL NOTE ***** : I am in the process of designing a hopefully >> low-cost MIDI guitar synthesizer system. Still, ( FLAME ON!!!! ) WHY haven't >> the major synth companies more fully addressed the nonkeyboard musician who >> wants to play synth? I'd like some more competition out there when I get the >> bloody thing built! If there are any aspiring guitar , violin, etc. synthesists >> out there in netland, please let's start some dialogue in this newsgroup. > >Ok, let's. I'm interested in what you're doing. > I'm also definitely interested in what you're doing!!! I want to here more about this. Also, where is a good place to pick up a MIDI spec? "...One likes to believe in the freedom of music. But glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity..." -Neal Peart (RUSH: from "The Spirit of Radio"). -- * Isaac Salzman (Gumby) * UUCP: ...!randvax!ttidca!rdlvax!salzman or * ...!sdcrdcf!psivax!rdlvax!salzman * ARPA: ttidca!rdlvax!salzman@Rand-unix.arpa