job@uk.ac.cam.cl (John Bates) (06/04/91)
What equipment do you need to use a midi guitar with an amiga? Obviously something under the pick-ups. What else is needed? I'd lurve some insight here. Love Jobby xx
dgold@basso.actrix.gen.nz (Dale Gold) (06/06/91)
job@uk.ac.cam.cl (John Bates) asked: > What equipment do you need to use a midi guitar with an amiga? > > Obviously something under the pick-ups. What else is needed? MIDI guitar usually refers to an instrument that is designed to act as a MIDI controller. However, you can get kits to get a normal electric guitar to do the same thing. I don't know how succesful they are. The MIDI guitar functions in the place of a synth keyboard, and may or may not have its own sound module. You can use it just like any synth to drive all the synth modules you can afford to buy. To use it with an Amiga (and its sound samples) you'd best get some good sequencer software. Cheers, Dale dgold@basso.actrix.gen.nz Korokoro, New Zealand
cuddihyd@cshl.org (David Cuddihy) (06/19/91)
In reference to MIDI-controllers for guitar, the thing I hear most commonly about is a MIDI-tracker, which you simply plug the guitar into(Instead of an amp or whatever). It simply decodes the analog signal, tries to guess what frequencies are occurring, and sends that off to a MIDI-processing chip that turns it all into MIDI data. The only complaint I hear about these(like by people like Trevor Rabin etc...) is that they can be slow, hence if you do some super-fast run where more than one note is sounding, it could lose track and start dropping notes but that was many years ago. They're probably better now. I think you can pick one up for around $600 but I wouldn't bet on that. I don't have any information on brands or anything like that. Have fun, -.Davevad
ele9110@cdc835.cdc.polimi.it (Massimo Oluzzi) (06/20/91)
antonello@promind.UUCP (Antonello Biancalana) writes: >> What equipment do you need to use a midi guitar with an amiga? >What you need is a MIDI converter for guitar or you can buy a synth >guitar. ... >I know that Korg, Shadow and Roland made some good MIDI converters that >i had to test on my electric guitar. >A thing that be considered is the quality of the MIDI converter. >Some MIDI converters have a lot of delay on their response, so when you >pluck your strings, you can hear to the sound after a little delay (Ugh!). Does anybody have informations about CASIO midi guitars (MG-510 and PG-380)? (I mean informations both from a technical point of wiew - conversion delays - and from an acoustic point of wiew - when using it just as an electrig guitar). Thanks to you all. Massimo Oluzzi ele9110@cdc835.cdc.polimi.it
whitcomb@aurs01.UUCP (Jonathan Whitcomb) (06/21/91)
In article <1991Jun20.114614.3891@cdc835.cdc.polimi.it> ele9110@cdc835.cdc.polimi.it (Massimo Oluzzi) writes: > >Does anybody have informations about CASIO midi guitars (MG-510 and PG-380)? >(I mean informations both from a technical point of wiew - conversion >delays - and from an acoustic point of wiew - when using it just as an >electrig guitar). I have a Casio MG-510, and it's a love-hate relationship. As a basic guitar, it's very good. It's a Stratocaster copy, with a humbucker pickup in the bridge position, and a switch that shuts off one coil. The pickup selector is a 5-way switch. It plays quite well, and sounds very good... the humbucker is very ballsy, and the other pickups are clean and sweet. There is one volume control and one tone control for the audio out. Hardware is average... sealed, Schaller type heads and a standard (spelled C-H-E-A-P) tremolo bridge. Actually, the bridge is my only complaint with the guitar... like any standard strat, it is a bear to keep in tune after you use the tremolo bar. It seems rather short sighted to put such a bridge on a guitar designed for MIDI pitch tracking. The neck has a good shape, an ebony fingerboard and large frets that play nicely. Give the guitar section a B+. The MIDI section consists of a MIDI pitch tracking pickup, internal audio to MIDI circuitry, and various switches, knobs and microswitches. There is a MIDI volume control pot. The 3 MIDI switches on the front each have three positions. The output selector switch selects guitar out, MIDI out, or both. The octave selector can choose low, middle and high octave out. The final switch uses two positions to select pitch bend styles (smooth or glissendo), and the third position changes the MIDI output to Program Change. This means you can select the program change number by playing different notes on the guitar... a nicely imlemented feature. Another nice feature is a built in guitar tuner. Two LED's indicate if you are sharp, flat, or on pitch, and it automatically adjusts for each string... no swithes. In back there are two banks of micro switches that allow you to select the basic MIDI channel for mono mode, or allow you to set each string to have a its own sequential MIDI channel. There is also access to the 9 volt battery. There are two outputs: guitar and MIDI. There is also a jack for the optional external power supply. The MIDI section has an on/off switch. I give the MIDI electronics section a B. My main gripe is that it is difficult to switch between guitar and MIDI out in a live setting... the switch is small, and right next to the other two, so it's hard to quickly reach down and flick it to the right position without hitting something else in the process. As far as the number of features in a small space, the logic is great. And the big question is how well does the MIDI track the guitarist. Give this section a C. The delay is most noticable on the lower strings, and when you try to play chords. Higher pitches track more quickly (which should be obvious to anyone with a DSP background). I find that I can't use the MG-510 as a synth controller for live situations... the tracking is just too unpredictable. However, I can mix the synth and guitar sounds live to get some very rich texture, because the ear picks up the attack from the guitar signal, and doesn't perceive the slight delay for the synth to kick in. Don't try to use it live for synth signal only. You can use the MG-510 with a sequencer, but I find I use the quantize feature pretty often after I've recorded a new track (I use Dr.T's KCS Omega on an Atari Mega ST4). If you're handy correcting slight timing errors with your editor, you should not have a problem. I got my MG-510 for $400 as a close-out special from Sam Ash. For that price it was more than worth it. If you can find one cheap, and don't need to use it live for synth sounds exclusively (unless you mix it with guitar), I recommend you pick one up. ********************************************************************** Jonathan Whitcomb UUCP: <whitcomb%aurgate@mcnc.org> Alcatel Network Systems, Raleigh, NC Delphi: JBWHIT
farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) (06/23/91)
antonello@promind.UUCP (Antonello Biancalana) writes: >I know that Korg, Shadow and Roland made some good MIDI converters that >i had to test on my electric guitar. There's also the Zeta Mirror Six, which is the best of the lot, by far. I say this even though I was one of the people who created the thing. It's a good guitar plus a good MIDI instrument, something not so true of any of the other schemes. >A thing that be considered is the quality of the MIDI converter. >Some MIDI converters have a lot of delay on their response, so when you >pluck your strings, you can hear to the sound after a little delay (Ugh!). The primary design goal of the Mirror Six was that it should play just like a guitar - and we came pretty damn close, in my opinion. Check it out - it's expensive, but it's neat. -- Mike Farren farren@well.sf.ca.us