good note detection device?

[laurentius]

http://www.patmetheny.com/orchestrioninfo/index.cfm

Hi there,

Pat Metheny is doing this crazy project with a whole orchestra of robots both being triggered by the computer or in realtime via his guitar. Amazing.
Besides many other aspects one specific issue makes me question how it works: How can there be such a good note detection without midi? He is not using a midipickup (his guitars only have a normal pickup plus one microphone output for a more direct string sound). As far as I am cocerned a really good note detection only works for monophonic instruments or voice in realtime. The IRCAM institue in Paris offers this score following device but it seems they are working hard to make it happen for polyphonic instruments like guitar. And in another video you can see Pat doing some crazy chord stuf and all these vibes and pianos and bottles playing with him.
Amazing!
If anybody knows some sort of software or even max patch to achieve this level detection I would be surprised and thankful!

Cheers,
Lars

[3phase]

probably he has at least a hexaphonic pickup...
analog or digital pitchtracking is much faster when it dont bothers with translating the info to midi...
see the famous korg ms 20 for example.. was able to follow a guitar pretty well when only playing on a single string.
The clavia G2 has a pretty fast pitch tracking device.. should be possible to patch such a thing in reaktor... but..
havent seen one yet..

there was also systems that was triggering with contact on the frets.. to give a robot a key might be enough..

[laurentius]

there is obviously no hexaphonic pickup involved - i am sure about that.

anyway you mentioned the clavia g2 - you mean the nord modular? i have one and haven't found any pitch tracker that worked well yet.

thanks for answering,
lars

[3phase]

what is working well?..i patched one for a hexaphonic pickup that worked ok...but only 4 strings ... there is a pitchtracker module but you have to gate and compress the signal a bit..

and every body that want to trigger with a guitar is using hexaphonic pickups theese days.. there are some that are included in the bridge.. Or there are normal looking pickups that are internaly hexaphonic pickups.. at least i ve seen such a thing on an israelian guitar.. with activ electronics for each string...

as long you dont ask him or steal his guitar you cant be sure...

[TheEclectic]

RMC and Ghost Hexaphonic are the two big names in bridge midi pickups. Even if he is using midi pickups, his tracking is great. Assuming that he is using midi pickups, I wonder what converter he is using - Axon or Roland or something different.

Having dabbled with midi guitar for a few years, I can say that eliminating all of the false triggers is very difficult. I have tried both Axon and Roland and have found Axon to be the best for triggering external devices. However, when I record I always have to clean up the midi track and would not think of playing a sound with a fast attack live. (slow attack sounds often take longer to be audible than the length of the false trigger, so the false trigger is never heard, but percussive sounds like piano and vibes have quick attacks and will sound the false triggers)

At any rate, it is amazing what he is doing and I would love to know the secrets of his success.

[laurentius]

it's great indeed. again, i think miditracking has reached it's peak some time ago. i know that different engineers work intensely on "scorefollowing" and pitchtracking and probably pat has some really good connections

[drumrak]

theres a reaktor ensemble that pitch tracks pretty well i think its called pitch reader. it does have a little lag tho.

[stringtapper]

You can get some fairly usable monophonic pitch tracking using Miller Puckette's [fiddle~] external with Max. Haven't tried using it in M4L yet though.

[3phase]

as far as i know there is only monophonic pitch tracking.. thats what the hexaphonic pickups are for... you have 6 times monophonic pitch tracking than

[stringtapper]

as far as i know there is only monophonic pitch tracking.. thats what the hexaphonic pickups are for... you have 6 times monophonic pitch tracking than

Well new technologies such as Melodyne's DNA are foreshadowing polyphonic pitch tracking. It will probably be a while before it's at all reliable though.

[laurentius]

@3phase
yeah, your thesis about the hexaphonic pickp makes sense. how does it work in terms of splitting the signal anyway? i mean: do i have to open a pitch tracking device for each of the six strings then? anyway it wouldnt work on my 8 strings classical guitar which by the way i would never dare to put a pickup on

[3phase]

yes.. i use a gibson with hexaphonic pickup that comunicates via an ethernet cable with a breakout box called BOB
it allready beefing up the hexaphonic outputs so that they sound like a real guitar.. you can connect 6 amps to it.. or 6 vritual amps with different fx on each string..what is nice allready.. and you can drive the G2 with it and use pitch tracker modules on each of the just 4 Inputs of the G2...

hope the G3 will have 6 ins and outs.. better in a surround world

by the way.. these clavia people are actually rocknrolers.. the G2 is a great guitar preamp..and fx unit..even without pitchtracking... you cn directly plug in an electric guitar with good results.. i dont think that this is by accident