Re: Midi Converter
Eufrasia Radich
Not sure if this is possible. I have an acoustic guitar with 1/4" out. Is it possible to capture a performance as MIDI by using some sort of 1/4"-to-MIDI converter cable/junction box? What I'm trying to accomplish is ditching the audio while maintaining my strum performance as MIDI data to trigger a VST instrument, such as the Orange Tree Samples 6 string. Programming strum patterns is a huge PITA in any VST I've ever seen. I have Melodyne editor; not sure if that would figure into an equation like this?
I know about the JamStix MIDI guitar, but it's $700 that I don't have to spend. Also, companies like Fishman have an add-on, but it's also expensive. I'm wondering if there's a more affordable way with a cable converter or something along those lines.
Basically it cost money to do it right. The Fishman triple play etc. I have a Godin guitar with the built in HEX pick up system and can send midi via my Roland GR 50 guitar synth module. But that system new would be well over $2,000. Anyhow, It still doesn't result in a "guitar strumming" midi track much better than just using the built in strums found on Strum Session. Midi is just not THAT organic. Requires heavy editing to fix all the glitches.
The trouble with guitar to midi no matter what the system is you have to play very, very precisely and clean with perfect pitch and picking attack . The pitch to midi conversion in real time demands a lot of processing power. It works like a guitar tuner. You probably have one and realize that you need to feed most of them a clean note for them to work. Especially the cheap ones.
Hi. I have Melodyne Editor, which IS a polyphonic version, although I've never tried anything like what I'm talking about. I'd want to "get rid of/delete/ignore?" the audio portion of my strumming performance and keep only the strumming "triggers" if that's what they're called, so I can trigger acoustic guitar VSTs. Will have to explore this.
@abacab Yes you get both versions for $100 US The demo is free to try. Real easy to download and install. I like companies like this, Didn't even have to hand out my email , no log on,, no strings attached .
It seems well designed and you certainly get a lot of features that are advanced. Like it scans your existing plug ins and you can use them?? I couldn't get that to work , just kept getting errors this might be a demo thing. It plays the demo piano patch sort of OK with massive delay even at 32 buffer setting. I'm hearing at least a 20 ms delay. And the CPU icon was flashing a yellow warning. If I set my buffer back to 128 the warning stopped but now you can play a note and go get a coffee and come back before it plays. Mabey my systems sucks so would be interesting to see if others can make this thing play in stand alone. I didn't totally a failure.
Well weirdly enough the latency is OK when you stick this in a Audio tracks effects bin. If you set the mixer to wet you get a recording of what ever instrument you were triggering and it's just a hair bit late but that could be fixed.. I recorded an audio track of the electric piano patch and its glitchy but this is not what I would be doing anyhow.
So what you need to do is enable it's midi output. This works as planned. I then can choose the MG2 as a input to a midi track or instrument track and record the audio as midi. This is of course pointless if you have Melodyne Studio or better but I only have Assistant so can do polyphonic So I either put my $100 towards upgrading Melodyne or buy this. It's certainly a fun toy. But disappointing about the stand alone which would make it more useful.
The setup in CbB is fairly easy. Add the plug-in to an audio track, enable MIDI Output in the drop down above the plug-in UI and the plug-in appears in instrument and MIDI track input drop downs. From there it works just like any MIDI controller.
check out some CAL scripts to strip out the majority of notes - i've used the "lowest note only" script (i'll have to see if i can remember the exact name) to strip out the chord info and leave only the bottom notes which then if transpose as needed for the strumming mode. lately i just play the single note on the guitar or keyboard to get the strumming.
i've found the Session Guitarist very nice but you tend to have to play it differently than GS-2 because the SG are using sampled playing and the strums don't always end once the note is off - a good thing in many cases, whereas GS-2 is synthetic all the way so it's more responsive. key switching is also important to consider. i tend to do the key switching as i play it out on my keyboard rather than waiting for later. depends of course on what my source is - if existing or already performed strumming - CAL script or manual edits, otherwise i just play it intending to use a virtual instrument.
I haven't tried any of the guitar vsts so I have no idea how they work. I've used Melodyne Editor on bass guitar lines. I've converted a few to MIDI and then turned those into groove clips. That's pretty straight forward.
The Triple MIDI Converter (TMC) is a 4HP bi-directional passive MIDI cable converter, featuring three independent 5 pin DIN to TRS MIDI converter circuits. Each of the three circuits features a 180 degrees 5 pin MIDI DIN socket, and two 3.5mm TRS sockets (one for TRS-MIDI Type A, and one for TRS-MIDI Type B). Thanks to its bi-directional design the TMC can be used to convert MIDI DIN to TRS MIDI, and vice versa. The TMC can also be used to convert both TRS-MIDI Type A or TRS-MIDI Type B to the opposite type. The Triple MIDI Converter is a small and useful utility module to help you keep all of your MIDI devices synchronised and playing together nicely.
what i'm trying to achieve is to trigger a drum-set (audio to midi) and change the chords / notes this drum-set plays. on my audio-to-midi converter i can assign each incoming audio signal (via piezo mic) a note value. this again i pass on to a synthesizer. my current restriction is, that each drum can only be assigned one note value, which means in order to change to notes my drum-set is "playing", i need to reconfigure the converter. the idea i basic: i'd like to pinch a converter-box between the (midi-)output of the converter and my synthesizer/sound-generator. this converter is to change the incoming data / notes as played on a connected midi-keyboard, and thus output the new notes.
Yes it is quite easy.
What you need is a look up table. This is just an array.
The index of the array ( the position of an entry in the array ) is the note you want to intercept, the contents of the array is the note number you want to map it to.
Then read in a note on or off message on say channel 1. Then run the note number through the array and output it on channel 9 percussion.
and, additionally:
would i be using standard midi in-out schematics (as found here ,22447.0.html),
but build 2 midi-inputs and one output? one input for the actual triggered notes and one for the notes played be the keyboard?
The Arduino Uno has only one serial port so having two inputs is problematic. You might get some success with using the software bit banging emulator softwareSerial ( part of the IDE ) but I am not sure if this will work at MIDI speeds.
Are you saying that you want to disregard the note that the drum sends and send a mapped value from the last keyboard note when the drum machine sends anything?
If so that is still on with an arduino but I don't see how in practice you will play this.
Are you saying that you want to disregard the note that the drum sends and send a mapped value from the last keyboard note when the drum machine sends anything? If so that is still on with an arduino but I don't see how in practice you will play this.
Yes it is possible to do this with an arduino. You simply store the mapped note from the keyboard on every note on message and output it (send a note on message on channel 9) when you get the drum trigger note on message. Being on different channels you should e able to separate them easily.
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