Jamstik Bass

[Florian Peitz]

DidJamstik finally make a MIDI Bass controller? Unfortunately, no. While the Jamstik has a traditional 6 string guitar format, it can still be a useful MIDI controller for bass players who want to get their music into a MIDI format using a stringed instrument setup. Check out some of our team's favorite electric bass plugins to use with the Jamstik.

Since the Jamstik MIDI guitars & controllers are entirely digital, you can make them sound like any instrument you want, including bass. Plus, the Jamstik apps and software have bass tuning settings and instrument patches available, just keep in mind that the Jamstik will be tuned to 6-string bass rather than a traditional 4 string.

We do not currently have a project in our development pipelines, but a MIDI Bass guitar controller is a very popular request, so our team is definitely considering building a dedicated bass version as a future project. If you'd like to give us your input and sign up for notifications related to a bass MIDI guitar, please feel free to participate in our Future Projects Survey here.

MIDI guitars interest me - I have Roland GK pickups on a guitar and a bass (OK for direct processing, not so good for generating MIDI), a YRG1000 MIDI controller, and an Artiphon Instrument 1. However, my interest was piqued by the Jamstik range, and with the Studio being (a) the cheapest and (b) headless, when one came up for sale for a good price I went for it.

Tracking is good, as is the playability. MIDI out is via either a USB-C socket or a 3.5mm TRS socket with a supplied TRS to 5-pin lead. At first it didn't do anything, but I checked the settings and it was set to MPE mode which sends signals to channels 2-7, so reset it to single channel and all was well. There's a variety of parameters to play with in the Windows desktop software or the Android app.

I haven't given the humbuggers a test out yet but I shall at some point. I've just found a review of the guitar which forms the basis for this - it's an Asmuse Leaf, and the review is complimentary about the pickups (and, indeed, about the guitar).

Incidentally, there were no instructions on how to restring it (I don't need to now but I'm looking to the future). Jamstik do a tutorial video and it looks almost as simple as double ball end strings - you don't have to poke the end through the tuner, just bend it a bit, put it under the bridge roller, and start winding (with a dinky little allen key which is held magnetically to the bridge). Excellent. And I like allen key tuning on a headless - admittedly you have to be sure not to lose the key, but it gives greater feel than turning headless knobs.

I'm not sure why the MPE would make sense if one was trying to play all the strings on the same MIDI instrument. I can see that it would be useful in some cases, but definitely not all. After all, if I play a chord and want it to sound like a Hammond organ, I'm better off with single channel and sending it all to a Hammond organ patch than MPE and sending bottom E (channel 2) to Hammond organ, A (channel 3) to pan pipes, D (channel 4) to orchestral strings, G (channel 5) to angel choir, etc. I mean, I'd obviously assign all the channels to the same patch but why not just do it with a single channel?

Yes, it does work in a useful way - it has the three modes (single channel, multi-channel - channels 1-6, MPE - channels 2-7 with channel 1 for controls) and it tracks the notes well. The advantage over the Roland is that it generates MIDI directly - the Rolands have to be run through one of the various GR pedals to generate MIDI (I've got a GR-20 and a GR-55) and the MIDI can be a bit glitchy and slow. The GR pedals seem primarily aimed at processing the signal direct. With tight integration of instrument and electronics, plus the fact this is a whole lot more modern than the GRs, the Jamstik generates MIDI more accurately. I don't know how the latest serial pickup and GM-800 module compare.

On MPE all channels would be one patch but the dynamics of that channel are sent per string. So if you do a string bend (again probably not with a hammond organ) why would you want all the strings to bend by the same amount - pitch bend is a per channel message, normally you would just want the bending to be done on the string that did it not all the strings.

The GR pedals seem primarily aimed at processing the signal direct. With tight integration of instrument and electronics, plus the fact this is a whole lot more modern than the GRs, the Jamstik generates MIDI more accurately. I don't know how the latest serial pickup and GM-800 module compare.

The GR pedals process the signal directly as well, but that is a cover on the tracking, not too surprising as the GR55 is 13 years old now, came out basically when the first iPad did, the speed of processing has changed a lot (although the speed of calculating a frequency from a wave not so much).

In this case, it was because the module I'd plugged it into to test it out was set up just to receive on channel 1, so the initial result was silence. That has educated me on MPE though so thanks, I'm rather a tyro at this.

Here is something a bit different for me. In this, I am playing a MIDI keyboard with my left hand to send octal radix scale intervals to the Meander melody DEGREE input with this Meander quantized to Cmin diatonic scale. The melody is then harmonized by the Forsitan Modular Interea and then arpeggiated with the AH ARP3.1 . With my right hand I am playing the computer keyboard MIDI melody part which is quantized to the Cmin pentatonic scale of the 2nd Meander module.

this is quiet wonderful to play with. to turn all the knobs may take a while and every constellation really sounds so relaxed.but you are right: it is difficult to understand what is going on in detail.

I added a piano keyboard display to show the scale notes for MSQ and also added that to Meander. It is underneath the circle of 5ths widget on the panel. So, the modal (mode and root) scale can be seen as text, as musical staves key signature and as piano keyboard display. This is mostly for those wishing to learn a bit more about modal scales and the circle of fifths.

In doing this, I also changed the default mode and root behavior in Meander and MSQ that users should be aware of. I think all existing patches will play unchanged, but for new patches or editing old patches, the modules now default to the pure modal root when the mode is changed. In the pure or natural form, each mode has a natural root which results in the mode scales being be made up only of white notes on the piano keyboard but with a different root or tonic scale first note. After the mode is set, you can still transpose the mode to any of the 12 chromatic keys and that info will persist in patch save and load. If you change the mode manually, the root will also change to the natural tonic but you can reset the root to whatever key you want.

By the way, I am working on developing a new module named ModeScaleProgressions. This is functionally the left side of the Meander module with harmonic progressions but not melody, bass and fBm output. I have it working but am still working on some panel issues, so this image is actually just a snip of Meander but is very close to how the new module will look and work. Hopefully there will be some users interested in just having modal chord progressions without all of the rack space taken up by Meander.

3a8082e126