Hi Kevin,
Is this a MIDI guitar device playing the STR-1.
Essentially yes. The Godin I have has 3 outputs; the first is the signal from the humbucker pickups just like a standard electric guitar, the second is the audio output from the piezo pickups in the bridge which gives you an acoustic guitar like sound (think Ovation), and the third is the "Synth Access" output.
That last output you can connect to a box like the Roland GI-20 or Terratec Axon 50 which in turn will convert the pitched signal received from each individual string into MIDI note data. I have a GI-20 and on the rear of that unit is a standard MIDI OUT socket. I just plugged that into the Oasys MIDI IN using a standard MIDI cable, just as if I was plugging in a MIDI controller keyboard.
All I did here was dial up one of the STR-1 factory Programs in Program mode and then transfer it with it's effects into SEQ mode. I recorded a guide drum track (using KARMA) and then recorded MIDI from the guitar into the sequencer that triggered the STR-1. So the guitar sound is purely STR-1 and the amp/cab simulation IFX. There's no audio coming from the guitar itself. For me, recording a guitar to a MIDI track was such a strange experience. As I said, in many ways it's just like playing the guitar, but there are other key ways in which it is really very different. For example, it's very odd not to hear the sound of your fingers dragging on the strings as you slide a barre chord up the fretboard. There are a whole bunch of other guitar gestures that also don't translate to MIDI, however it only takes a few (very fun!) minutes to understand what works and what doesn't, and to adapt your playing style. I am sure after some further practice I will get some better performances than this.
The biggest hurdle for the designers of this technology is converting the pitch at which a string is vibrating into a MIDI note/velocity accurately and also doing that sufficiently quickly that there is isn't too much latency between hitting the string and then hearing the MIDI sound source play that note.
Most of the MIDI guitar systems seem to consist of two parts :
1) A guitar with a special pickup that generates a signal for each of the individual strings.
2) A device that converts those signals into MIDI data for use with external gear or a synth built into the device.
These two parts connect using a special 13 pin connector/cable, which follows a standard devised by Roland. In the same way that MIDI lets us connect up many different vendors equipment and have them interoperate correctly, this 13-pin standard lets you pick and choose which guitar and which pitch->MIDI converter you want to use together. You are not limited to Roland equipment only.
For the guitar part you have a bunch of options :
1) Buy a Roland pickup and mount that onto an existing standard electric guitar (Roland GK-3)
2) Buy a guitar such as the Fender Roland Ready Strat which is a standard Mexican made Fender strat with a Roland GK2A pickup mounted on it at the factory.
3) Buy a guitar that has a non-Roland pickup system built-in, from a manufacturer like Godin or Parker, but is compatible with the 13-pin standard.
For the converter/interface there are again a mixture of Roland and non-Roland options
1) Buy a Roland GI-20, that will convert the string pitch to MIDI note data for use in your MIDI setup
2) Buy a Roland GR-20 that will converts the string pitch to MIDI note data and use that to drive it's own built-in synth engine or a MIDI output.
3) Buy a non-Roland unit like the Terratec Axon AX50 to convert pitch to MIDI.
Both parts contribute to the quick and accurate conversion of the string's pitch to MIDI note and pitch bend data.
I pondered installing a GK3 onto an existing guitar and decided against that, and instead tried the Fender Roland Ready Strat with a Roland GI-20. That really didn't work satisfactorily for me. The latency was bad and the Roland pickup didn't appear to be correctly setup by Fender, as it would not generate a sufficiently strong signal for the GI-20 to be able to correctly differentiate between different 'velocity' levels. In fact the whole installation of the pickup and the associated 13-pin socket just looked to have been poorly done. I knew the GI-20 was good from reports from friends, so I returned the Fender immediately and bought the more expensive Godin LGX-SA. This guitar uses quite a different technique to the Roland pickup system. I believe the Roland system uses a magnetic type pickup similar to a standard electric guitar pickup, whereas the Godin uses a piezo based pickup similar to that used in the Line6 modeling guitars. This combination of the piezo pickup and over all better crafted guitar contribute to producing an output that the GI-20 is far happier to work with. The difference between the two guitars using the SAME GI-20 unit is remarkable.
The only slight wrinkle here is that the STR-1 is not specifically designed to be used with a MIDI'fied guitar setup. You can run the GI-20 in two modes. The first is Poly mode and causes all the MIDI note on/off data generated by striking the strings to be sent to a single channel, just like a MIDI keyboard. That works well however you lose one of unique behaviours of the guitar doing that. The ability to pitch bend an individual note whilst leaving the other notes untouched. In order to activate that capability you have to enable Mono mode on the GI-20, which routes the MIDI generated for each string to a separate MIDI channel. So you need to have 6 STR-1 instances in a combi on channels 1-6 to generate the sound of each string. That chews up a lot of slots and of course denies you opportunity to do any deep Program editing other than Tone Adjust. D'oh. So now I have another reason to wish for this feature, and it's real shame that it only seems to have got as far as Korg's survey and not into a bit of code that lives under the Function button. It seems further away than ever before at this point. Oh well,
where there is a will there is a way, and I really have a lot of will to plumb the depths of the fantastic STR-1 engine that Korg so kindly gave us ... one string at a time if needs be
It should be noted that whilst this exposes a weakness of the Korg model, it also exposes a great strength; namely the ability to route multiple timbres/synth engines to the same IFX bus and IFX chain. In this case that equates to routing the six strings of my virtual guitar to a single amp and cabinet, which is essential for realism. You wouldn't be able to do that using the Motif model and the Fantom would not allow you to use so many effects in a chain. It's great that the Fantom G allows you to "embed" a single IFX into a Program (in Korg parlance), but the Korg model offers some benefits too in terms of flexibilty.
Daz.
