WANTED: Info on Fender MIDI Strat.
tmis...@altair.selu.edu
What is your opinion? Can you plug it into any MIDI device or do you have to
use a proprietary MIDI sound module?
Thanks
Kevin - tmis...@selu.edu
Steve Schultz
Roland GK-2A hexaphonic pickup and control unit built in to the
guitar rather than attached to the face of the guitar. It is
designed to work with the Roland GR-1 and GR-09 guitar
synths/triggers, the Roland GI-10 MIDI interface (which can
control external MIDI synth modules), the Roland VG-8 guitar
effects/sounds modeling device, and I believe it will also work
with the new Axion MIDI interface.
Check out a Roland dealer for more info.
--
Steve Schultz eMail: 75247...@CompuServe.COM
Carl Christensen
>The Fender MIDI guitar is an American Standard Strat with a
>Roland GK-2A hexaphonic pickup and control unit built in to the
>guitar rather than attached to the face of the guitar. It is
>designed to work with the Roland GR-1 and GR-09 guitar
I just bought one of these and it's working out well. Previously I had
put a GK2A on a Japanese Strat (which I'm now selling hint hint ;-) and it
worked out OK. I just hated having that 'black box' on my guitar, and I
was always worried about the fact that maybe I didn't have the pickup
mounted 'just so.'
My new MIDI'd Strat is tracking me better I feel, probably because the
synth pickup is adjustable in height like a regular pickup. So if I
change the saddle height or action I can just turn screws, instead of
estimating a bunch of plastic, rubber, and glue like the old GK2A. I
don't think it's a GK-2A pickup on it, my specs say GK-2. I don't know if
there's any functional difference.
It's a nice and neat guitar, in addition to the better MIDI capability,
I've got a great Strat as well. When I was first looking into this I was
hoping they MIDI'd a Strat Plus. I wanted the Lace Sensors and roller nut
and locking tuner (MIDI guitars are sensitive to tuning fluctuations).
The American Standard-based MIDI Strat is working out fine though, so I
guess they knew what they were doing. Before this came along I was ready
to plunk down big bucks for a Custom Shop MIDI'd Strat Plus, which may
have been nice but overkill for what I want. The MIDI Strat only cost me
$769, so that's basically the price of an Am Std Strat and Roland GK2A
pickup anyway. Oh yeah, you have the full functionality of it -- there's
a 3-way toggle switch for mixing guitar & synth sounds via the GR1 or 09
(useless for me except as a synth on/off switch -- I use the GI-10). And
you have the up-and-down buttons on there. I guess the only drawback is
the 2nd tone control is now the synth master volume. It didn't matter to
me, I hardly ever used the 2nd tone control anyway. I prefer to do tonal
stuff at the pre-amp stage. The 13-pin Roland cable input is on the side
(like on a Les Paul or Rick), so it's nice and out of the way (unlike the
usual GK2A setup). I like the jumbo frets and bigger radius on the guitar
too (well, jumbo compared to my 'vintage' Fender's I've had). The seem to
'sound' the note better, especially on bends. This probably helps out the
MIDI tracking also. I can do some pretty quick riffs on this I never
could before, like my version of ELP's "Hoedown" which never seemed to
track that well on my other setup. You get the usual glitches on low
notes, like anything below the A string, but that's to be expected on
anything outside of the SynthAxe I think. Still, you can't get a SynthAxe
to sound like a Strat no matter how many fancy sampler modules you have!
:-)
Hopefully Roland won't change their guitar synth pickup anytime soon, or
if they do it will be possible to retrofit my MIDI strat into this. But
when I think of how much better this setup is than my last MIDI guitar
experiment 7 years ago (the Ibanez IMG2010 system), it's amazing.
Now all I need is the Godin classical/MIDI guitar and I'm all set! ;-)
------
Carl Christensen /~~\_/~\ ,,, For music fun in Windows
E-mail: ca...@netaxs.com | #=#==========# | download alcomp11.zip
C/C++/Delphi Consultant \__/~\_/ ``` at a popular FTP site!
Philadelphia, PA Obligatory WWW page --> <http://www.netaxs.com/~carl>
Sean Ryan
If you need all that shit to play guitar, why not just play a full
keyboard
synth. Guitar ---> minimal analog effects --> amp. That is all I
need to be creative. I write and perform industrial ambient metal
and use synths for synth parts and samplers, but I don't think
guitar synths are worth shit! Just ranting................................
..............
There is nothing rock n roll about guitar synths.
-
SEAN RYAN YUE...@prodigy.com
Thomas F Brown
I would tend to agree that the MIDI guitar is generally not a very good
synth controller, but some folks are too lazy to learn to work a keyboard
or a wind controller. That's why we have midi guitars.
M. Ivaliotes
I don't own any guitar synth equipment, but there is some pretty cool stuff
out there. Music has to take the next step sooner or later. We can't stick
with 1954 forever. I think the 80's keyboard explosion and the 90's 'vintage'
backlash may yet give way to a better synthesis, something which includes
computing power with traditional instruments and good old fashioned talent to
produce rock'n'roll. I'd be willing to bet there will be some pretty darn
good MIDI packages just to make your guitar sound more like a '63 than it
did when you got it off the shelf for 200 bucks. There is never a true
substitute for good tonal quality of an instrument, but I for one am very
interested in what MIDI effects will be able to achieve in the coming years.
Matthew Ivaliotes
lo...@uiuc.edu
http://www.cso.uiuc.edu/ph/www/lotus
speaking just for me
Thomas F Brown
>
>I guess wimpy guitarists like Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, and Allan
>Holdsworth should listen to experts like you and give up their MIDI
>guitars...
Holdsworth did give his up. Most people do eventually.
Carl Christensen
>In article <4asnqv$18...@usenetp1.news.prodigy.com> YUE...@prodigy.com (Sean Ryan) writes:
>>If you need all that shit to play guitar, why not just play a full
>>keyboard
>I would tend to agree that the MIDI guitar is generally not a very good
>synth controller, but some folks are too lazy to learn to work a keyboard
>or a wind controller. That's why we have midi guitars.
God, what a bunch of douche bags. I like seeing the jaws drop when I play
a Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman keyboard line on my MIDI guitar (of course
I guess they're not alternative enough for you). I couldn't do it until
recently since MIDI guitars haven't been affordable enough or tracked well
enough until the Roland GI-10 came out IMHO. Obviously you're too cool
for this since you play industrial noise. Hell, I could play keyboards
for that, but my music requires more than holding down a minor triad and
an occasional fifth, sometimes we even use a major triad!
I guess wimpy guitarists like Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, and Allan
Holdsworth should listen to experts like you and give up their MIDI
guitars...
Alec Horgan
> tomb...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Thomas F Brown) wrote:
> >Holdsworth did give his up. Most people do eventually.
>
> Yeah right, he probably just doesn't like insuring his SynthAxe.
I'm sure he would like to insure it, but he probably couldn't afford to.
He had it stolen awhile ago, and, of all people, the guy from Stone Temple
Pilots bought him a new one.
Alec
Carl Christensen
>Holdsworth did give his up. Most people do eventually.
Yeah right, he probably just doesn't like insuring his SynthAxe. I
suppose he wouldn't be accepted on his group because he used too many
solid-state guitar amps.
Paul Hitchcock
: >There is nothing rock n roll about guitar synths.
: I would tend to agree that the MIDI guitar is generally not a very good
: synth controller, but some folks are too lazy to learn to work a keyboard
: or a wind controller.
Excuse me? What's laziness have to do with it? I use MIDI quite a bit
for practice purposes and I've never seen a keyboard player who can work a
wide range of realistic guitar sounds. That's why people want to see
a good MIDI guitar synth.
How do you do a real-time hammer-on or pull-off on a keyboard? Or use a
wheel controller to express the subtle differences between bends and
slides? And that's just the easy stuff---
Carl Christensen
: I am looking for anyone who has played the Fender Stratocaster MIDI guitar.
: What is your opinion? Can you plug it into any MIDI device or do you have to
: use a proprietary MIDI sound module?
I have a mini-review of it elsewhere in this group, search for my name or
'MIDI Strat' again to find it. Mine is working out fine (I use it with
the Roland GI-10 MIDI brain and Korg X5DR synth module). I like it
much better than having the Roland pickup/black box on my other guitar.
You do need some kind of control unit to plug into, it doesn't output MIDI
directly but the Roland 13-pin cable which you can plug into the Roland
GI-10, GR-1, GR09 unit. I think it's backwardly compatible with the last
older Roland unit (GR50?). I think Roland's GK2 pickup will be used by
them for awhile so hopefully this guitar won't be obsolete. It's still a
fine Am Std Strat even so, and cost me less than a new Am Std Strat with
a separate Roland pickup would have. It's nice having everything
integrated in the guitar.
A few guys were knocking it (the idea of playing synth using a guitar) but
I can't see how it's any worse than all the self-proclaimed rock n'
rollers who drown their signal in too much distortion, effects, or the
ever elusive tube amp sound. It's just another way to achieve the sound you
want, and to criticize MIDI guitar is just plain idiotic.
--
Carl Christensen /~~\_/~\ ,,, For music fun in Windows
E-mail: ca...@netaxs.com | #=#==========# | download alcomp11.zip
C/C++/Delphi Consultant \__/~\_/ ``` at a popular FTP site!
Catch my WWW page at --> http://www.netaxs.com/~carl
Thomas F Brown
>
>: I would tend to agree that the MIDI guitar is generally not a very good
>: synth controller, but some folks are too lazy to learn to work a keyboard
>: or a wind controller.
>
>Excuse me? What's laziness have to do with it? I use MIDI quite a bit
>for practice purposes and I've never seen a keyboard player who can work a
>wide range of realistic guitar sounds. That's why people want to see
>a good MIDI guitar synth.
You use a guitar synth to get guitar sounds?
>How do you do a real-time hammer-on or pull-off on a keyboard?
It's called legato. No problem.
Or use a
>wheel controller to express the subtle differences between bends and
>slides? And that's just the easy stuff---
You learn to work the wheel. It's not hard.
Gene Miller
>MIDI & Guitar Synths are outlets for frustrated keyboardists.
>If you need all that shit to play guitar, why not just play a full
>keyboard
>need to be creative. I write and perform industrial ambient metal
>and use synths for synth parts and samplers, but I don't think
>guitar synths are worth shit! Just ranting................................
>There is nothing rock n roll about guitar synths.
> SEAN RYAN YUE...@prodigy.com
>
>
Well Sean, I guess you just don't get it eh? Try playing a Les Paul through a
Marshall stack with killer attack and lots of distortion and then use that
second stack with a GR-1 and fretless bass patch and maybe add in that heaven
setting controlled with the sustain pedal and then.......anyway you get it now??
Tune down for metal? why? THAT'S what is great about the GR-1 AND I can do all
of this LIVE WITHOUT multitracking. And, if I need it I still have that
sequencer handy under my foot! Computer driven you need? No problem, I just use
a MKII keyboard controller through an SC-55 and I can now cross control any
device in either direction through either the controller OR guitar. Now lets add
that rack of effects to the "straight" guitar side and crank it all up and see
just what sounds we can get O.K? Now THAT'S Rock 'n Roll without a tech crew!
I too have to crank out MIDI synth stuff in my multimedia business. I just find
it easier to crank it out through the GR-1 using six channels and just remix
and touch up at the sequencer end on the computer and convert back to single
channel and overlay. I can easily do 10 times as much quality composing in a day
than I could with the 5 keyboards I used to use! And it's all GS/GM to boot so I
don't have to reconvert custom patches back to standard!
Gene Miller+++Multimedia Magic Inc. Austin, Tx.
Carl Christensen
>>for practice purposes and I've never seen a keyboard player who can work a
>>wide range of realistic guitar sounds. That's why people want to see
>>a good MIDI guitar synth.
>You use a guitar synth to get guitar sounds?
Sure, my Strat has three single-coil pickups as well as the synth pickup.
No keyboardist can get the sound of a real Strat with a string pad layered
in the background even if he has the most expensive samplers at his
disposal. Also, the voicings and picking patterns you do on guitar are a
lot different than a keyboardist would do, so you get a different sound
that way. That's why they make a box called the Oberheim Strummer to help
keyboardists out. Are you going to bitch about that now? My god,
keyboardists trying to emulate guitarist patterns; isn't it bad enough
guitarists trying to be keyboardists!
One thing I've discovered over the past few years, the people knocking
guitar synths usually have such poor technique they couldn't get a few
clean notes out of it if their life depended on it. Since Thomas has such
a hard-on for MIDI guitar I wonder if he fits into this category?
------
Carl Christensen /~~\_/~\ ,,, For music fun in Windows
E-mail: ca...@netaxs.com | #=#==========# | download alcomp11.zip
C/C++/Delphi Consultant \__/~\_/ ``` at a popular FTP site!
Thomas F Brown
>
>>You use a guitar synth to get guitar sounds?
>
>Sure, my Strat has three single-coil pickups as well as the synth pickup.
>No keyboardist can get the sound of a real Strat with a string pad layered
>in the background even if he has the most expensive samplers at his
>disposal. Also, the voicings and picking patterns you do on guitar are a
>lot different than a keyboardist would do, so you get a different sound
>that way. That's why they make a box called the Oberheim Strummer to help
>keyboardists out. Are you going to bitch about that now? My god,
>keyboardists trying to emulate guitarist patterns; isn't it bad enough
>guitarists trying to be keyboardists!
>One thing I've discovered over the past few years, the people knocking
>guitar synths usually have such poor technique they couldn't get a few
>clean notes out of it if their life depended on it. Since Thomas has such
>a hard-on for MIDI guitar I wonder if he fits into this category?
Someone seems awfully defensive about his instrument. All I said was
that the MIDI guitar is a poor synth controller compared to the
keyboard and wind controllers. There's really nothing the MIDI
guitar can do better (or even as well). I thought this was pretty
self-evident, but perhaps one would need to have experience with
all three to arrive at this conclusion.
What MIDI guitar *is* good for is using as a sort of super effects box,
mixing in the synth sounds behind the straight guitar sound. I've
done this quite a lot in my commercial work, but for my own stuff,
forget it. The guitar sounds better unadorned to me.
The MIDI guitar is a wonderful toy, but I have noticed that most
players tire of it eventually and go back to guitar. Have fun with it.
Carl Christensen
Probably because you're so offensive about it?
: that the MIDI guitar is a poor synth controller compared to the
: keyboard and wind controllers. There's really nothing the MIDI
: guitar can do better (or even as well). I thought this was pretty
Have you ever tried a SynthAxe? I have, and it's not weaker than a
keyboard or wind controller. While my Roland GI-10 isn't up to this
sort of level, it's far better than my past experiments with the Ibanez
IMG2010 & Roland GR707. I can't do too fast stuff lower than the open A
string, but everything else is fine. My tool for measurement is to play
my arrangement of Aaron Copland's (or ELP's) "Hoedown" which has
sustained passages of 16th notes at 150-160 bpm, and it does this OK.
And let's face it, the voicings and way you construct a solo on a guitar
are so different than a keyboard or wind instrument that it really makes
it viable as a MIDI controller. Allan Holdsworth said he finally found
his "voice" when he moved into the world of SynthAxe and synthesizers.
It's a shame to hear guitarists such as yourself (I assume you're
primarily a guitarist) fall into the old Usenet trap of just outright
disregarding a whole area of something because it fails to meet your
subjective standard. We're back to the same old problem with this group
with posts along the lines of "Fender sucks", "Peavey sucks", "Crate
sucks", "Gibson sucks", etc.
: forget it. The guitar sounds better unadorned to me.
So unadorned means no reverb, chorus, etc?
: The MIDI guitar is a wonderful toy, but I have noticed that most
: players tire of it eventually and go back to guitar. Have fun with it.
As I've said before, tell that to Holdsworth, Belew, Fripp, et al.
Can you document exactly what guitarists of note (outside of friends of
yours that didn't have any luck with it) have come out and said they've
given up on MIDI guitar?
--
Carl Christensen /~~\_/~\ ,,, For music fun in Windows
E-mail: ca...@netaxs.com | #=#==========# | download alcomp11.zip
C/C++/Delphi Consultant \__/~\_/ ``` at a popular FTP site!
Paul Hitchcock
: It's called legato. No problem.
No, it's called "in your dreams, pal." In a pull-off, for instance,
there's a percussive attack on the first note, followed by the sustain of
the second note with no discernable attack phase. It's physically
impossible to perform the feat on a keyboard, where there's a one-to-one
correspondence between a note's sound and a key's being pressed. Not
knocking keyboards, mind you, but that's just the way it is.
Like it or not, there's no really good guitar synth on the market simply
because the guitar is a more complex and expressive instrument than a
keyboard and hence is extremely difficult to emulate. Technically
speaking, a guitar player has more "degress of freedom" available on his
instrument than does a keyboardist.
: Or use a
: >wheel controller to express the subtle differences between bends and
: >slides? And that's just the easy stuff---
: You learn to work the wheel. It's not hard.
Either you're being deliberately disingenous or you've never been able to
discern the difference between the two musical entities. For example, a
single fret slide will play the next semitone with no attack phase and
without any intervening frequencies being audible; a bend, however quickly
and adroitly performed, exhibits a continuous audio spectrum from start to
finish. A pitch wheel, because of the way it's constructed, can only do
the latter, not the former. If you want slide-like sounds in a
keyboard-recorded sequence, you have to do a bit of manual editing to
eliminate all of the unwanted bend commands. There's simply no way to do
a realistic pitch-wheel "slide" in real time-- it's a question of hardware
limitations, not technique.
Again, no problem with the keyboard-- it's as "good" an instrument as the
guitar, whatever that may mean. I do, however, have a problem with your
rather dismissive assertion that the only reason guitarists want a synth
of their own is due to "laziness" regarding learning to use a keyboard.
They're two different instruments which require very different playing
approaches.
To each his own.
JUSTIN_RICE
> In article <4b9lcr$9...@netaxs.com> ca...@netaxs.com writes:
>>
>>>You use a guitar synth to get guitar sounds?
>>
>>Sure, my Strat has three single-coil pickups as well as the synth pickup.
>>No keyboardist can get the sound of a real Strat with a string pad layered
>>in the background even if he has the most expensive samplers at his
>>disposal. Also, the voicings and picking patterns you do on guitar are a
>>lot different than a keyboardist would do, so you get a different sound
>>that way. That's why they make a box called the Oberheim Strummer to help
>>keyboardists out. Are you going to bitch about that now? My god,
>>keyboardists trying to emulate guitarist patterns; isn't it bad enough
>>guitarists trying to be keyboardists!
>>One thing I've discovered over the past few years, the people knocking
>>guitar synths usually have such poor technique they couldn't get a few
>>clean notes out of it if their life depended on it. Since Thomas has such
>>a hard-on for MIDI guitar I wonder if he fits into this category?
>
> keyboard and wind controllers. There's really nothing the MIDI
> guitar can do better (or even as well). I thought this was pretty
> all three to arrive at this conclusion.
>
> What MIDI guitar *is* good for is using as a sort of super effects box,
> mixing in the synth sounds behind the straight guitar sound. I've
> done this quite a lot in my commercial work, but for my own stuff,
>
> players tire of it eventually and go back to guitar. Have fun with it.
>
>
incredible with it. A guitar controller is gonna sound different in the hands
of a guitarist. Why chastise people for wanting to try something new. I like
guitar synths. I really like the VG-8, but not for the guitar sounds, just
it's general weirdness. I would not consider the VG-8 a toy, but an
ultra-processor with very musical and incredible possibilities. Just gotta
wait some one to exploit like we've never heard it. Right now however, I'm
busy enough just trying to over-process and loop my guitar lines. Later...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Justin Rice -----------------------------------------------
Arts & Sciences "Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny." FZ
RJM1...@centum.utulsa.edu "...but mine goes to eleven!" Nigel Tufnel
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
- My opinions do not reflect those of TU -
Thomas F Brown
>: >How do you do a real-time hammer-on or pull-off on a keyboard?
>
>: It's called legato. No problem.
>
>No, it's called "in your dreams, pal." In a pull-off, for instance,
>there's a percussive attack on the first note, followed by the sustain of
>the second note with no discernable attack phase. It's physically
>impossible to perform the feat on a keyboard, where there's a one-to-one
>correspondence between a note's sound and a key's being pressed. Not
>knocking keyboards, mind you, but that's just the way it is.
You clearly aren't familiar with synth programming. It is quite possible
to do this on most decent synths. In fact, it's so common it's trivial.
That's why it works for guitar controllers--it's already been programmed.
>: Or use a
>: >wheel controller to express the subtle differences between bends and
>: >slides? And that's just the easy stuff---
>
>: You learn to work the wheel. It's not hard.
>
>Either you're being deliberately disingenous or you've never been able to
>discern the difference between the two musical entities. For example, a
>single fret slide will play the next semitone with no attack phase and
>without any intervening frequencies being audible
A keyboard can easily play two consecutive semi-tones with no intervening
frequencies and only one attack. Remember, keyboards control the same
synths that midi guitars do.
Paolo Valladolid
: that the MIDI guitar is a poor synth controller compared to the
: keyboard and wind controllers. There's really nothing the MIDI
: guitar can do better (or even as well). I thought this was pretty
: self-evident, but perhaps one would need to have experience with
: all three to arrive at this conclusion.
The words "poor controller" sound a bit misleading, with all due
respect. Someone might think, based on your post, that MIDI guitar
controllers are totally unusable, which would be a false conclusion.
While it cannot be denied that MIDI guitar controllers are still
subject to glitching, these glitches tend to happen because of
sloppy technique on the part of the player. Today's controllers
are perfectly usable by any guitarist who has reasonably clean
technique.
: What MIDI guitar *is* good for is using as a sort of super effects box,
: mixing in the synth sounds behind the straight guitar sound. I've
: done this quite a lot in my commercial work, but for my own stuff,
: forget it. The guitar sounds better unadorned to me.
MIDI guitar or guitar synthesizers are not meant to replace the
sound of guitar. They are tools to be used by guitarists to
accomplish what cannot be done with straight guitar alone.
From what I've seen on the Digital Guitar mailing list, most users
of guitar synths/MIDI guitars do *not* use synths to replace the
sound of guitar. These people use the synths for MIDI sequencing
for songwriting purposes. Not everyone has the time or inclination
to write everything down on manuscript paper when writing songs;
it's much faster to sequence and then get more immediate feedback
on what those horn parts will sound like in conjunction with the
string section.
: The MIDI guitar is a wonderful toy, but I have noticed that most
: players tire of it eventually and go back to guitar. Have fun with it.
At last count there are 578 subscribers to Digital Guitar. I have
reason to believe the majority of them actively use MIDI guitar.
I haven't seen many signs of anyone dropping out.
Again, this illustrates why MIDI guitar has finally become a good
sell with a lot of guitarists. It was wrong to try to market guitar
synths the same way one would market effects boxes. Only when people
began to realize that MIDI guitars could be used as effective
songwriting tools did the MIDI guitar start to really take off.
Paolo Valladolid
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