can an electric guitar drive arranger?
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Yes, I'm finding it surprisingly accurate, PROVIDED the guitarist develops and implements a whole separate playing style strictly for this purpose of leading the arranger. If anybody thinks that they're going to fire up this hookup and "rock out", forget that. For that purpose, one should strive for that one good take with the arranger, and then work with the result in the sequencer.
Once I got the GI-20 dialed in to my playing style, there is no delay. None. Of course, the arranger is quite unforgiving if you're even slightly late inputting your chord on the downbeat.
Unwanted notes: there ARE some on occasion, but only when I get lax with my technique, losing my concentration or reverting back to regular guitar playing. For instance, when coming off of an E chord on guitar, while my fretting hand was moving to the next chord, the arranger would detect a D briefly, when the 4th string was let go of - and would include a D in the recognized chord. I was having this happen until I improved my technique, and started gently but accurately damping the strings between chords. Fine sensitivity adjustments at both the MIDI interface and the signal coming into the 2X are available, and I imagine at some point I will need to take a closer look at both of these adjustment points. Another available control that may be handy is that you can selectively mute any of the strings at the interface box, and therefore cut out the string(s) that are being a problem, but are unnecessary. I can also imagine that one's guitar technique, the various sensitivity adjustments, and the de-selection of strings may be specific and unique for each particular piece you are working on.
This is all new to me, but I'm developing a kind of quick, harp-like strum to get out all of the notes of the chord I want to input, with a deliberate lifting of the fingers from the frets while simultaneously damping all six strings with the strumming/picking hand before going on to the next chord. (Actually, it's a lot easier to do than it is to write about.) Still have a few procedural strategies to work out, and then I'll be running a test mule down the trail. I haven't actually recorded to the sequencer yet, but it should be a lot of fun after that. Hey, it's fun right now!
Once I got the GI-20 dialed in to my playing style, there is no delay. None. Of course, the arranger is quite unforgiving if you're even slightly late inputting your chord on the downbeat.
Unwanted notes: there ARE some on occasion, but only when I get lax with my technique, losing my concentration or reverting back to regular guitar playing. For instance, when coming off of an E chord on guitar, while my fretting hand was moving to the next chord, the arranger would detect a D briefly, when the 4th string was let go of - and would include a D in the recognized chord. I was having this happen until I improved my technique, and started gently but accurately damping the strings between chords. Fine sensitivity adjustments at both the MIDI interface and the signal coming into the 2X are available, and I imagine at some point I will need to take a closer look at both of these adjustment points. Another available control that may be handy is that you can selectively mute any of the strings at the interface box, and therefore cut out the string(s) that are being a problem, but are unnecessary. I can also imagine that one's guitar technique, the various sensitivity adjustments, and the de-selection of strings may be specific and unique for each particular piece you are working on.
This is all new to me, but I'm developing a kind of quick, harp-like strum to get out all of the notes of the chord I want to input, with a deliberate lifting of the fingers from the frets while simultaneously damping all six strings with the strumming/picking hand before going on to the next chord. (Actually, it's a lot easier to do than it is to write about.) Still have a few procedural strategies to work out, and then I'll be running a test mule down the trail. I haven't actually recorded to the sequencer yet, but it should be a lot of fun after that. Hey, it's fun right now!
Last edited by Lefty7 on Sat May 12, 2012 2:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I see. It's kind of similar to using a midi controller for inputting notes in Sibelius in real time. You have to develop a completely different style in order to get the notes right. I'm sure with little practice you'll get there. Does your Guitar have one of those 13 pin synth access thing? would that make the midi conversion any more accurate at all?Lefty7 wrote:Yes, I'm finding it surprisingly accurate, PROVIDED the guitarist develops and implements a whole separate playing style strictly for this purpose of leading the arranger. If anybody thinks that they're going to fire up this hookuo and "rock out", forget that. For that purpose, one should strive for that one good take with the arranger, and then work with the result in the sequencer.
Once I got the GI-20 dialed in to my playing style, there is no delay. None. Of course, the arranger is quite unforgiving if you're even slightly late inputting your chord on the downbeat.
Unwanted notes: there ARE some on occasion, but only when I get lax with my technique, losing my concentration or reverting back to regular guitar playing. For instance, when coming off of an E chord on guitar, while my fretting hand was moving to the next chord, the arranger would detect a D briefly, when the 4th string was let go of - and would include a D in the recognized chord. I was having this happen until I improved my technique, and started gently but accurately damping the strings between chords. Fine sensitivity adjustments at both the MIDI interface and the signal coming into the 2X are available, and I imagine at some point I will need to take a closer look at both of these adjustment points. Another available control that may be handy is that you can selectively mute any of the strings at the interface box, and therefore cut out the string(s) that are being a problem, but are unnecessary. I can also imagine that one's guitar technique, the various sensitivity adjustments, and the de-selection of strings may be specific and unique for each particular piece you are working on.
This is all new to me, but I'm developing a kind of quick, harp-like strum to get out all of the notes of the chord I want to input, with a deliberate lifting of the fingers from the frets while simultaneously damping all six strings with the strumming/picking hand before going on to the next chord. (Actually, it's a lot easier to do than it is to write about.) Still have a few procedural strategies to work out, and then I'll be running a test mule down the trail. I haven't actually recorded to the sequencer yet, but it should be a lot of fun after that. Hey, it's fun right now!
Sam
Yes, it requires its own particular playing technique, developed strictly for accomplishing the job at hand. And thanks for the encouragement. The most exciting thing for me right now is: it works!Assyrianpianist wrote: You have to develop a completely different style in order to get the notes right. I'm sure with little practice you'll get there. Does your Guitar have one of those 13 pin synth access thing? would that make the midi conversion any more accurate at all?
Yes, the guitar utilizes the 13-pin output connector/cable. I believe all of the 'synth ready' or 'synth access' electric guitars use this. Understand that you can't simply take any regular electric guitar and MIDI-ize the output signal - at least, not at this time. You need a specialized pickup which is 'hexaphonic' which gives you 6 separate independent outputs - one per string. Therefore, you can selectively decide which of the strings is turned 'on' and which is/are 'off'. There are only a few makers of such pickups (currently in biz), the most notable being Roland, (who also builds the whole synth-ready guitars as well as dedicated guitar synthesizers), and Graph Tech, who just makes the electronic components. These are being installed in specialty guitars offered new from a variety of well-known makers. (The components can also be installed in an existing guitar.)
The Graph Tech stuff is loaded into the Carvin guitar I am using. It consists of a pickup, an onboard preamp, and the 13-pin jack. Do not confuse the 'synth-access'-necessary hexaphonic pickup with the regular electric guitar pickups. They are different and separate, (although both can be on the same instrument.) I find it interesting that the hex pickup on the Graph Tech system is an inherent part of the guitar's bridge, and the actual pickups are really the individually-adjustable saddles that each string rides in.
I considered buying the electronic components and the guitar separately, and having the instrument built, but found it not to be cost effective. Actually, it would have been more expensive to do it that way, with the resulting instrument likely less reliable.
Assyrianpianist wrote: You have to develop a completely different style in order to get the notes right.
MORE ABOUT DRIVING THE ARRANGER WITH A MIDI GUITAR.
I’ve had more opportunity to play with this set-up since my last post, so I’ll report some additional observations. The first one is: this IS a lot of fun.
When playing while utilizing certain particular accompaniment styles, you can fall into a groove quite effortlessly, and you don’t even have to think about using any special chord-presentation techniques. But for others styles, I’ve had to zero in on my technique a bit more. I find that if damp the strings with my picking hand GENTLY just before moving to the next chord, I consistently have no unwanted or weird responses from the arranger. If I play a little too enthusiastically, I often damp with too much downforce, and this sometimes results in some small unwanted stuff, most likely from string harmonics that you can barely even hear, but are detected and go into the chord scan. Lifting the fretting hand deliberately, and not letting strings hammer off to open is also best, because the slight vibration from the open string will also be read and drawn into the scan to be recognized.
A few times I’ve wondered if these special-purpose playing habits are going to screw up my regular guitar playing. Then I realize: what’s to screw up? It’s like the difference between driving a pickup truck, then getting out of it and driving a car. Most anyone with the appropriate awareness and ability can make the change back and forth. (I notice that there are some real problems in the world, and this isn’t one of them! Onward.)
The timing of your chord presentation to the arranger’s “ear” is interesting. While the scan and resulting accompaniment happen ‘virtually’ simultaneously, there are, of course, a few nanoseconds for it all to transpire. Getting the chord inputted at exactly the right time is a little like trying to jump through an open roadside doorway from a moving vehicle. You have to anticipate your own forward motion, and jump just early enough for it to carry you cleanly through the timing doorway. Otherwise, you’ll miss the beat that you want the change to happen on, and the ‘backup band’ will stay on the previous chord until the next beat. Therefore, any time you increase the tempo, the vehicle is moving faster, and it’s increasingly harder to make it through each timing doorway cleanly; your jumping point becomes more critical. So, as far as selecting the most practical tempo ranges, I’ve found that 80-120 bpm is usually best. Once you’re above 120 bpm, it is more difficult to keep hitting the arranger’s timing ports accurately on a regular basis.
SOME of the arranger’s many different ‘styles’ seem very easy to play along with (without glitches), and there are some that aren’t. Because of my music preferences, I naturally gravitate to the ones for “Rock; Jazz; Pop,” and several of the various “Latin” offerings. So in general terms, the results of this studio project, this experiment, is this: the technology to do this already exists. It’s here, and although it has to be gathered up from different makers and different sources, it is within everyone’s reach. Granted, the ‘arranger’ synth technology is expensive compared to a similar synth without it. But it does work – I’m doing it ! There is no blessed reason why, in the very near future, this could not be offered to all guitarists everywhere. The guitar synth manufacturers haven’t cranked out anything significantly new lately, and the ones who want to step out in front with their next round of offerings should sit up and take notice.
There are lots more details about using this that I’ve observed, but I’ll save them for another posting.
Have some fun, all.
wow! looks like you made a serious progress in this area. Congrats!
A note about partials and harmonics: If you could figure out a way to filter out all low velocity pitched or non-pitched sonic material that your guitar produces, then you would have more accurate results. Say, you could set the unit to exclude all notes/sounds that are below a certain volume...or something like that? Maybe then, you won't have to change your normal playing techniques all that much? Just an idea.
A note about partials and harmonics: If you could figure out a way to filter out all low velocity pitched or non-pitched sonic material that your guitar produces, then you would have more accurate results. Say, you could set the unit to exclude all notes/sounds that are below a certain volume...or something like that? Maybe then, you won't have to change your normal playing techniques all that much? Just an idea.
Sam
SIGNAL SENSITIVITY; GUITAR SYNTHS ARE EXAssyrianpianist wrote:wow! looks like you made a serious progress in this area. Congrats!
A note about partials and harmonics: If you could figure out a way to filter out all low velocity pitched or non-pitched sonic material that your guitar produces, then you would have more accurate results. Say, you could set the unit to exclude all notes/sounds that are below a certain volume...or something like that? Maybe then, you won't have to change your normal playing techniques all that much? Just an idea.
Thanks, Sam, for your interest and encouragement, and your ideas and suggestions are appropriate. These are areas of fine tuning that I have given some thought to, and expected to have delved into a bit farther by now - but this thing is so much fun, I usually just get into playing with it.
The [Roland GI-20] pitch-to-MIDI converter box I'm using that takes the MIDI-able output from the 13-pin guitar cable and sends the signals to the synth/arranger has a "PLAY FEEL" (!) selection. The choices are !. Normal, (a general all-purpose setting); 2. Finger picking, (slight increase in sensitivity); 3. Hard picking, (decrease in sensitivity); 4. Soft picking, (obviously with increased sensitivity over Normal); 5. Tapping play, ("...when making use of many kinds of techniques...providing very stable sound expression. The range of power that can be expressed is a bit narrow"); and 6. No dynamics. Initially, I went to 'Hardpicking', thinking that it would best reflect my shaped fingernail/no pick playing. It worked OK, but, not surprisingly, occasional lighter-played notes were sometimes ignored. Then I compared that setting with 1. and 2., and the pendulum swung the other way: too many transient string vibrations added to the scanned mix of notes. So next I will observe what happens with the 'Tapping play' setting. As per it's description in the owner's manual, the narrow range of expressed power might be best for this application. I'll try it for awhile and will report on it.
Sidebar: a few friends tried to tell me that I should 'protect' this idea, intimating that there may be some sort of applicable patent or such. NOT. All the components to accomplish this are on the market and available, and the patent office would simply define what I'm doing as legally "obvious". So at this point, I defer to two of my heroes or mentors in abscentia. Lester Polsfuss, (a.k.a. Les Paul) once told a young interviewer - I'm paraphrasing - "I never wanted to invent anything. I just want to play. But what I wanted, nobody made yet." And Ben Franklin invented an amazing number of widely varied things, but never even attempted to patent a single one of them. He believed they should all be "for the people".
One more general comment. Forget, for a moment, the arranger. The use of guitar as a synth controller means that 'guitar synths' per se are passe. The incoming signal from any external controller can be assigned any of the synth's sounds via a 'bank select' MIDI Control Change message. Therefore, the only reason to produce or use a dedicated guitar synth would be user-friendliness, or frankly, circumnavigating some keyboard synth intimidation that a guitarist may feel.
A new line of synths, with and without the arranger, should have the 13-pin input, leading to an onboard pitch-to-MIDI converter. No big deal. Any quality synth could be a 'guitar synth'. Any modern recording studio, real or virtual, large or small, would simply have to have one. Take note, manufacturers.
Now I'm Just Playing With It...
NOW I’M JUST PLAYING WITH IT
I was up ‘til the wee hours last night playing with it. Thought I was gonna hurt myself, but thankfully, no blisters. Not that. And I’m not referring to playing guitar, or even the Pa2XPro, (although they were in use at the time). I got into playing specifically with the chord scanner and recognition response.
I don’t who will be interested. Now I’m just a reporter. I’ve already mentioned the things I must do physically (or must keep in mind), to keep those unwanted notes or chords from polluting my attempted pristine chord progression, (and to keep my backup band from laying any clunkers.) So last night, I turned it around. I started purposely throwing weird stuff at the chord scanner to see what would come out the other end. I would let open strings ring or drone. While playing an established chord, I started to throw in one or sometimes two other notes, often hammered. I wanted to hear how these would affect the chord the machine gave back, and if it was at all musical or just nonsensical crap.
In its own programmed way, the robot was an interesting jammer. I learned that, within the confines of the key I was playing in, I could get some cool, very musical and at times complex variations out of the backup band. And I was surprised at how many of those intentionals, (once printed into MY personal memory, and reused at the guitar), would yield a consistent or similar chord change…but one that I didn’t write. After that, I got crazier, and began throwing all kinds of goofy junk at it. Still, I was surprised (on occasion) that some of the really goofy things sent from the MIDI guitar was absorbed and was translated into something blissfully musical and even beautiful. But of course, much of this crazy stuff simply led to something even crazier. And in certain keys, it gets way bad way quick.
I can’t stop saying it: this is fun.
You can also do things that are just so ridiculous, you bust out laughing. For instance: inputting a chord from the ax that is obviously NOT within the recognition parameters of the particular musical ‘style’ selected. I was playing with one Rock style accompaniment, was in the key of A, and then played Am7(added 11). Most of the guys in the band couldn’t follow that – but they played on, playing what they knew, bless ‘em. Shoving jazz chords into a rock style, or basic metal rock chords into Latin Dance style, is usually predictably bizarre, but every once in awhile the combination of the guitar chord and the chord resulting from the arranger is extraordinary. Usable. Cool. Well out of the box. And the combination is nothing that I would have ever thought of.
So I’m thinking of songwriting teams. There was Rogers and Hammerstein. There was Lennon and McCartney. There are many others. Now there’s me and R2D2...
I was up ‘til the wee hours last night playing with it. Thought I was gonna hurt myself, but thankfully, no blisters. Not that. And I’m not referring to playing guitar, or even the Pa2XPro, (although they were in use at the time). I got into playing specifically with the chord scanner and recognition response.
I don’t who will be interested. Now I’m just a reporter. I’ve already mentioned the things I must do physically (or must keep in mind), to keep those unwanted notes or chords from polluting my attempted pristine chord progression, (and to keep my backup band from laying any clunkers.) So last night, I turned it around. I started purposely throwing weird stuff at the chord scanner to see what would come out the other end. I would let open strings ring or drone. While playing an established chord, I started to throw in one or sometimes two other notes, often hammered. I wanted to hear how these would affect the chord the machine gave back, and if it was at all musical or just nonsensical crap.
In its own programmed way, the robot was an interesting jammer. I learned that, within the confines of the key I was playing in, I could get some cool, very musical and at times complex variations out of the backup band. And I was surprised at how many of those intentionals, (once printed into MY personal memory, and reused at the guitar), would yield a consistent or similar chord change…but one that I didn’t write. After that, I got crazier, and began throwing all kinds of goofy junk at it. Still, I was surprised (on occasion) that some of the really goofy things sent from the MIDI guitar was absorbed and was translated into something blissfully musical and even beautiful. But of course, much of this crazy stuff simply led to something even crazier. And in certain keys, it gets way bad way quick.
I can’t stop saying it: this is fun.
You can also do things that are just so ridiculous, you bust out laughing. For instance: inputting a chord from the ax that is obviously NOT within the recognition parameters of the particular musical ‘style’ selected. I was playing with one Rock style accompaniment, was in the key of A, and then played Am7(added 11). Most of the guys in the band couldn’t follow that – but they played on, playing what they knew, bless ‘em. Shoving jazz chords into a rock style, or basic metal rock chords into Latin Dance style, is usually predictably bizarre, but every once in awhile the combination of the guitar chord and the chord resulting from the arranger is extraordinary. Usable. Cool. Well out of the box. And the combination is nothing that I would have ever thought of.
So I’m thinking of songwriting teams. There was Rogers and Hammerstein. There was Lennon and McCartney. There are many others. Now there’s me and R2D2...