Hey all, does anyone have experiance with MIDI guitar synths?
Anyone use one on a regular basis?

I've been playing around with Guitar Synth (software package if you've not seen it, but I'm sure you all have!) and now fancy getting a MIDI guitar synth to use for pads, piano etc.

I'm looking at the Roland GR20 with the new GK3 pickup. Anyone used/own one? Any opinions?

The GR20 looks pretty good, plenty of on board sounds and also the option to use MIDI to trigger other modules.

Cheers for looking,

Hewesy

Hi there

Over midi I have never been too kean.
I love and use my Roland G-808 and GR300 setup and it plays so much better than any midi system. I also have a Roland GM70 and a Stepp DG1. The step is mad, but really good...
The newer midi system do track well, but they do still need getting used to and as l,ong as you accept their limitations, you will be fine. It's just more fun to play a GR300 system (but you are stuck with the roland synth part, which I love, but it won't ever sound like anything except the GR300 ;-)
Cheers
David

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http://www.davidmorley.com

I used to have a GR300 and G303 system. Yes it was fun and easy to play, but limiting. I got an Axon AX100 guitar to MIDI converter (the best, but expensive) and soon realised I would never play the GR300 again, so I sold it.

The GR20, or a used, older Roland such as GR33, GR30 etc, would be a good place to start. But you will have to adjust your technique to get the best out of it. How much you have to adjust no-one can tell until you try.

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Nik
Godin, Axon, Tonelab, Repeater & the skin of my teeth!

Thanks for all the replies, I hope to sit and play with the GR20 to see whether it's worth coverting, although I may just upgrade guitar synth as that tracks pretty well just through the soundcard (no MIDI pickups required).

How much is the Axon stuff then, and is it worth it?

Just some general advice on guitar synths. A good approach is to consider the difference between electric guitar and 12 string acoustic. Both have a lot in common so if you can play one, you can play the other. The difference between an electric guitar and a guitar synth is very much like that between an electric and a 12 string acoustic. You have the basic skills but to get the best from them you have to approach them as very different instruments.

When I used a guitar synth I had different approaches for live and recording. Live I would always blend the synth with a similar guitar tone, the attack of the guitar tone would give good articulation (avoiding the tracking delays) and the body of the sound came from the synth. Very effective live. But for recording I used a completely different approach. I would put 3 plain G strings on for the plain strings and 3 wound g strings for the wound strings. Tune all to a standard G pitch and use the pitch transpose on the synth to get whatever tuning you like. Monitor the synth output and should be OK. The reason for that is that each string will have a similar tracking delay, will keep your playing MUCH tighter for recording.

Hope that helps.


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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Thanks for the advice Zen, that's the sort of thing I'd never consider.

Did using the same string gauge help with the tracking? How long did it take to find the optimum gauge?!

I do like Guitar Synth, which doesn't seem to track to badly considering it simply runs from the soundcard.

What guitar synth did you use?

Quote Hewesy:

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How much is the Axon stuff then, and is it worth it?

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The Axon AX100 guitar to MIDI converter is around £600. You also need a hex pickup - Roland GK2a works - on your guitar.

The main advantage over the Roland stuff is that the tracking delay is substantially lower - absolute maximum is 13mS - which is low enough to fool the human auditory system into think it is real time. 13mS is like being 13 feet further from the speakers. The tracking from the Axon finally persuaded me to sell my old Roland GR300.

Also it has fret, string and pick split functions, so you can have several synth patches mapped no only over the fretboard, but also according to where you pick the string, and it has a nice arpegiator and various hold functions - very performance oriented.

Recording its output into Cubase, I find far fewer wrong notes, far less pitch bend data for correcting those wrong notes, and very few false triggers, glitches etc. when compared to any Roland stuff.

On the down side, apart from the price, the user interface is not the best. The manual is worse, and to get the best peformance you must play cleanly with a pick.

Yes it's worth it IF you are serious about guitar synth, but it's not the best place to start.

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Nik
Godin, Axon, Tonelab, Repeater & the skin of my teeth!

Worth pointing out at this point that although the Roland GK series is the standard for split pickups, you can get piezo based systems that drive a compatible output. Cost more, but are rumoured to track better.

Personally, I'm aiming to have both GK and piezo based systems next year, so I'll reserve direct comparisons til then.

But guitar synths are _extremely_ good fun. As long as you play to the strengths of the instrument you have, you'll have fun!

Thanks for getting back...

It's not the string gauge that matters, it's the pitch of the note it's tuned to. The pitch to synth converter requires a minimum of half a cycle to identify the pitch and generate the correct note. The standard for MIDI guitar is Roland, I actually used a Korg Z3 for many years, but the pick-up was Roland compatable.

The tracking issue is all about consistency.. keeping all notes within a similar tracking time. It really does make a difference with your playing. The reason for using 3 plain G's and 3 wound G's is purely so that that the guitar feels 'right' under the fingers.

The trouble with the software guitar synth lies with how it handles multiple notes played close together and accidental string noise. Roland have spent decades fine tuning their algorithms so the guitar synth tracks accurately. The output from a standard guitar pick-up doesn't even come close. I'll give you the perfect example why.. When you pllay a power chord it consists of stacked root 5ths and octaves. From first principles a power chord produces a dominant note an octave below the root.. so imagine playing a root E on the 6th string and a B on the 2nd fret of the 5th string.... The roland pick-up will play both notes, but the soft guitar synth will struggle between the root, 5th and octave.. and stutter between all 3

Hope that helps


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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

I still don't think there is a better tracking system than the GR300. The Axiom was slower in my experience.
But if you need midi, the axiom is probably one of the better ones.

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http://www.davidmorley.com

Yup.
I had a GR300 for about 12 years. Tracking was instant and it was very responsive. Just a shame it has such a limited range of usable sounds, no memories and no MIDI. I also had a Roland GM70 for 10 years and considerable experience with Roland GR30 and Yamaha G50, but when I got the Axon I quickly realised I would never seriously use the GR300 again.

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Nik
Godin, Axon, Tonelab, Repeater & the skin of my teeth!

Quote Shingles:

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Yup.
I had a GR300 for about 12 years. Tracking was instant and it was very responsive. Just a shame it has such a limited range of usable sounds, no memories and no MIDI. I also had a Roland GM70 for 10 years and considerable experience with Roland GR30 and Yamaha G50, but when I got the Axon I quickly realised I would never seriously use the GR300 again.

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Have I already said that?

Oh.

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Nik
Godin, Axon, Tonelab, Repeater & the skin of my teeth!

The GM70 hooked up to my G808 is quite cool too, but tracking is in no way like an axiom, but I do still get pleasure out of playing the 808/gr300 setup. At on time I had 2 GR300 and that was great in stereo!!

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http://www.davidmorley.com

Two things I can add:

You need to have you guitar working nicely, buzzing fretts and such need to be sorted out, check with a digital tuner that your octive setting (and others) is spot on - You can normally adjust this at the bridge

The way you play also matters, notes must be held properly, buzzing, muting and slight bends can cause problmes. Normally if you are a good player you will adjust quickly, you might even find it helps your playing no end.

As Robert Fripp once said on the subject " I can't understand why a first rate guitarist would want to become a thrid rate sax player "

If you already have a guitar in mind to add a Roland pickup or piezo saddles to then great but if you are in the market for a new guitar as well its worth taking a look at http://www.godinguitars.com/indexlanguage.html

The LGXT

( http://www.godinguitars.com/godinlgxtp.htm ) is my fav solid body model however I would love the Multiac Jazz

( http://www.godinguitars.com/godinjazzp.htm ) which is basically a Jazzbox, Electro acoustic and guitar synth in one instrument (talk about Pat Metheny in a box!!)

Sorry mate I can hardly resist the opportunity to spread gear lust these day!!


Pabs

Talking of Guitars, you might be able to pick up a Casio PG 310 or 380 guitar, they also have a built in Midi which was not too bad

I used the "Roland Ready" strat for a couple of years and never really liked it. It was a basic Mexican Strat with a GK-2 pick-up hard-wired in from the factory. I found that the GK pick-up required considerable adjusting and fiddling before every use to get the tracking right. Earlier this year I dumped the Strat in favor a Brian Moore i8.13 which comes with a piezo bridge wired into a 13 pin jack. this goes into the same Roland GI-20 interface that I used with my Strat but with immensely different results. I can play much closer to my typical guiar style and get the synth/sample sounds I expect much more often.

For very fast attack sounds a guitar MIDI controller is always going to be a little slower and less precise than a keyboard controller, but for anything a little room in the attack time, the Brian Moore works perfectly.

Brian Moore Guitars

Thanks for the mass of replies all, very much appreciated.

I have been looking at the Godin guitars for a while, although I have toyed with the idea of adding a MIDI pickup to a Parker Fly (as I've always wanted one of those to, kill two birds...!).

A lot to consider from your replies, time to consult the ol' bank balance!

What kind of applications did you use the synths for? thickening guitar parts live or playing synth lines instead of a keys player?

Cheers,

Hewesy

That reminds me (the bit about the doing keyboard bits) you can drive keyboard players mad doing things on guitar, they will spend hours trying to work out how the hell you played something.

Quote pablo fanques:

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If you already have a guitar in mind to add a Roland pickup or piezo saddles to then great but if you are in the market for a new guitar as well its worth taking a look at http://www.godinguitars.com/indexlanguage.html

The LGXT

( http://www.godinguitars.com/godinlgxtp.htm ) is my fav solid body model

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I've got onme fo those!
Love it.

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Nik
Godin, Axon, Tonelab, Repeater & the skin of my teeth!

Lots of great info on here!

I am in a similar position except that I am an acoustic guitarist and I know nothing about electrics. I fingerpick in the folk and classical styles, and also write/produce electronic music and am looking for a more natural means of entering MIDI than my trusty old controller keyboard, since I have never learned to play the keyboard with anything like my fluency on the guitar.

I am also speculatively interested in being able to use a MIDI guitar in a live context (I am slowly building up a rig to do live trance/house sets and would love a good gimmick!)

I *do* have an electric guitar (unused for over 5 years) which I'm happy to get set up solely for the purpose - if details about it would help then I'll tell you what I can, but I'm not sure I'll be able to tell more than the make.

Cost isn't so much of an issue (although more than a grand and there's no chance!) - I just need the most accurate investment and will save up accordingly!

I don't need any synth modules - I've got those coming out of my ears! Just good, clean MIDI, if it can be done!

It all seems to be coming down to a Roland or Axon, from what I've heard, but with these specific requirements in mind, does anyone have any more thoughts?

FINALLY.... I have been wandering around every music shop I can find in London, looking for someone, ANYONE, who has any of these bits of kit on demo. No-one has even been remotely helpful, aside from one bit of advice "Oh, people only use the Rolands in the UK". *sigh*. Can anyone help here? I'd ideally like to test more than one competing system side-by-side...

Thanks in advance!

http://www.guitarplayer.com/archive/0204/0204_Features4.htm

"currently I’m using a Godin LGXT with Synth Access. I began using the Godin while recording my DVD, which we’ll get to, and I was so happy with its MIDI capabilities that I had to try it with Shakti. It’s the best MIDI controller I’ve ever used. Routing it into the laptop through a Roland GI10 MIDI interface there are no glitches, and only about 1.5 milliseconds of latency. It’s unbelievable!"

just to point out that Terratec bought BlueChip, the makers of the Axon, earlier this year and may well be planning some new midi-guitar products. Given they have more financial muscle that BlueChip had, I'm hoping they'll "democratise" the Axon like Creative democratised E-MU!

Caleb

Quote pablo fanques:

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http://www.guitarplayer.com/archive/0204/0204_Features4.htm

"currently I’m using a Godin LGXT with Synth Access. I began using the Godin while recording my DVD, which we’ll get to, and I was so happy with its MIDI capabilities that I had to try it with Shakti. It’s the best MIDI controller I’ve ever used. Routing it into the laptop through a Roland GI10 MIDI interface there are no glitches, and only about 1.5 milliseconds of latency. It’s unbelievable!"

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Hmmm. I wonder how he figured that out? Holdsworth used to use the Axon system and indeed MIDI recordings of his playing were used for programming it's Neural Net. He is right that the Godin is a great guitar and helps tracking on Roland systems a lot. I guess 1.5 milliseconds could be the latency of the MIDI input on his PC, but the GI-10 doesn't do magic. It needs two string cycles to translate a note into MIDI just like all the other Roland boxes. Hell, it takes 1 millisecond for a MIDI Note-on message to get transfered from the GI-10 MIDI output to the computer MIDI input!

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Nik
Godin, Axon, Tonelab, Repeater & the skin of my teeth!

Quote zenguitar:

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Just some general advice on guitar synths. A good approach is to consider the difference between electric guitar and 12 string acoustic. Both have a lot in common so if you can play one, you can play the other. The difference between an electric guitar and a guitar synth is very much like that between an electric and a 12 string acoustic. You have the basic skills but to get the best from them you have to approach them as very different instruments.

When I used a guitar synth I had different approaches for live and recording. Live I would always blend the synth with a similar guitar tone, the attack of the guitar tone would give good articulation (avoiding the tracking delays) and the body of the sound came from the synth. Very effective live. But for recording I used a completely different approach. I would put 3 plain G strings on for the plain strings and 3 wound g strings for the wound strings. Tune all to a standard G pitch and use the pitch transpose on the synth to get whatever tuning you like. Monitor the synth output and should be OK. The reason for that is that each string will have a similar tracking delay, will keep your playing MUCH tighter for recording.

Hope that helps.

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

My Stepp has 6 high E strings!

Quote zenguitar:

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Quote zenguitar:

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Just some general advice on guitar synths. A good approach is to consider the difference between electric guitar and 12 string acoustic. Both have a lot in common so if you can play one, you can play the other. The difference between an electric guitar and a guitar synth is very much like that between an electric and a 12 string acoustic. You have the basic skills but to get the best from them you have to approach them as very different instruments.

When I used a guitar synth I had different approaches for live and recording. Live I would always blend the synth with a similar guitar tone, the attack of the guitar tone would give good articulation (avoiding the tracking delays) and the body of the sound came from the synth. Very effective live. But for recording I used a completely different approach. I would put 3 plain G strings on for the plain strings and 3 wound g strings for the wound strings. Tune all to a standard G pitch and use the pitch transpose on the synth to get whatever tuning you like. Monitor the synth output and should be OK. The reason for that is that each string will have a similar tracking delay, will keep your playing MUCH tighter for recording.

Hope that helps.

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http://www.davidmorley.com

Most of what can be said about guitar synths has been said here, but I just thought I'd add my own experiences. I've used most of the various systems over the years, Roland Gr300, 700, GM70, shadow, Stepp, etc. For consistent midi conversion and sequencing I found the Roland GI10 to be a good unit, but for sheer choice of sounds and live use, its hard to beat the Roland GR33, if you play reasonably cleanly its tracking is excellent. I use it with a Roland GR1 (the built in sequencer is great) and a Boss RC10 looping pedal. This allows some very big soundscapes and solo performance options, but also means a small amount of tap dancing to operate the pedals! I'm selling the GR1 to buy another RC10 or two, so if anyones looking for a guitar synth drope me a line.

I was looking at the current line of roland midi pickups today at sound control after reading the review in this months SOS, and at £100 I was very tempted - but they didn't have any on any guitars so that I could try one out, and the roland rep couldn't tell me what the latency (correct term?) is like.

Anyone know figures? I'm no great player so anything below 18ms will probably be just fine for me.

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http://www.jeremycorbett.co.uk

Quote Mahoobley:

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I was looking at the current line of roland midi pickups today at sound control after reading the review in this months SOS, and at £100 I was very tempted -
Anyone know figures? I'm no great player so anything below 18ms will probably be just fine for me.

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£100 will buy you the Roland pickup, (gk2a, GK3), but you will still need a midi converter or synth such as the GI20, GR33 or GR20, so total price is nearer £350 complete. Unless your a very fast player, tracking speed is no longer an issue, Steve Vai uses a Roland along with many other players such as Robert Fripp, I believe the latest synths are down to 10Ms?

Hope this helps, cheers Dave

If Godin+G1 10 is good enough for John Mclaughlin, then it's good enough for me. Actually I have used the Godin LGXSA for over 5 years now and it is a fantastic instrument - It seems like Mclaughlin has only just discovered it.

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The 'Perfect Mix', like the 'Lost Chord' is just around the corner...

For a budget synth controller, I've been looking at the Switch guitars. These are freaky-looking synthetic guitars, no wood at all, which could be a good thing from a synth controller angle, I suppose - not senstive to temperature or humidity.

http://www.switchmusic.com/ has more details, look for the MIDI models. I know that Macari's in London carries them, and Walton's in Dublin...

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(this is not a .sig)

Hehe,i was looking at the Japanese Fernandes Digi-Zo Hyper Coke,among other things.

The SOS review of the Roland neglected to mention much in relation to live playing of external synths,which of course would be my only reason for purchase.

Making my own Titanium plectra now.

http://www.fernandes.co.jp/top.html

And Ultra.

http://magicalpowermako.net/fernandes/

Thanks again for all the info and links, I do like the look of those switch guitars, something a bit different to adding a MIDI pickup straight to my standard electric.

See what Father Christmas brings I think!

Cheers all,

Hewesy