Anyone here doing MIDI guitar?

[msmcleod]

13 minutes ago, rsinger said:

I've been playing guitar synth for over thirty years and all the equipment I have works with hammer-ons and pull-offs. I started with a Roland GM-70 back in '87 or '88. I like synth sounds or I use modelling, say for bass guitar, so I've been using a VG-99 and now an SY-1000. For MIDI I often use a You Rock gtr. 

 

I managed to get one of those for a stupidly cheap price from Amazon a few years ago.  It's surprisingly good as a guitar MIDI controller, although it does require its own playing technique.  I've used it for recording finger style parts with the Ample Guitar M Lite.  

[rsinger]

I use it in tap mode and it does a pretty good job.

[rsinger]

I'm an amateur and not as good as Kenny, but here are a few pieces that use MIDI gtr and guitar synths,

Drums are programmed and guitar is mic'd, everything else is MIDI gtr.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ih06B0ZDbYE30dyVMKH30hoZntbUlX2Q/view?usp=sharing

MIDI gtr, you rock gtr, and the bass guitar is modeled.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qRUbtwT7RXQ7RI_bVU3Mqw9ooNzdRX4i/view?usp=sharing

Bass, strings, and trumpet are Boss SY-300, pads are you rock gtr.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w1HsIhvbJQAWddTG-1N34_sTb14zRXk4/view?usp=sharing

A couple pads are keyboard in the beginning, and arps are keyboard (a sustained note). Bass guitar, guitar, and harmonica are SY-1000, 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bq6MTffuDx6apNx13vjgGK6PtY4PdtOC/view?usp=sharing

Edited May 10, 2022 by rsinger
added strings

[Starship Krupa]

On 5/8/2022 at 7:58 AM, Bajan Blue said:

eventually i sort of gave up with that idea and tried to improve my keyboard playing

This. I've been going to NAMM Shows for 35 years, seen countless MIDI guitars, and it just seemed like a solution in search of a problem.

I've read so many accounts of people saying that they had to develop new techniques and whatnot. It's always seemed that with all the time it would take me to work out all the glitches and get good at it, if I spent that time learning how to imitate guitar playing on my keyboard (a la Daft Punk on "Digital Love"), I'd get better results.

Best application I've heard: Fripp and Belew on 80's Crimson.

Coolest use: Josh Menashe of Triptides playing a plastic  Casio DG-20 into an iPad that was running a Mellotron emulation. Since Triptides are a '60's retro band (complete with Farfisa and 12-string electric), it was mind-bending to see all those eras of technology represented.

I sort of accidentally wound up with a MIDI guitar that I didn't know was a MIDI guitar until the morning I was going to sell it for $50 at a swap meet.

https://www.engadget.com/2012-05-21-gtar-iphone-guitar-hands-on.html

A friend's girlfriend won it in a raffle and gave it to me, and since I didn't have the right iPhone, I tossed it in the closet. By the time I dug it out, the company was gone and the iPhone app with it. So I forgot about it until the next time I put on one of my Musicians and DIY Electronics swap meets in Oakland.

The morning of, I plugged it into a computer via the USB port just to check it. The computer happened to have Cakewalk running, and Cakewalk cheerfully asked me if I wanted to add it as a MIDI device. Uh....yeah? I guess? Turns out that before the company went away, they updated the firmware in the thing to make it a polyphonic MIDI controller, and mine was from that era.

So far I've kept it around as an oddity, but it's kind of useless as a MIDI controller. It does "note on" okay, but is hopeless for "note off." To be usable, one would need to rig some kind of "all notes off" panic button.

On the other hand (or strap) I love my Rock Band keytar. After watching Edgar Winter and Gary Wright tear it up on Midnight Special as a kid, I wanted to strap on a keyboard and prance around the stage. Hold the platforms: