Yamaha EZ-AG MIDI Guitar

ManxRed · Post by **ManxRed** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 3:34 pm

I notice one post on this about two years ago attracted no responses but I'm hoping maybe more people know about this now.

I am a very good guitarist but a frankly crap keyboard player and it takes me forever to play or programme MIDI tracks and parts in Ableton for pianos, strings, horns, synths, etc. including solos.

However I've been made aware of this Yamaha EZ-AG MIDI guitar, which is essentially a stringless guitar tutor for newbie guitarists, however it sends MIDI, so it can supposedly be used for sending MIDI parts to a DAW. I've seen references to it on other places in the internet where people are using it with Cubase and some other progs, but not heard of anyone using it with Ableton, so thought I'd ask on here.

Anyone using it with Ableton??

I'm on the verge of shelling out one hundred and fifty big ones for this toy in the hope that it will dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes me to programme Herbie Hancock solos into my songs, but just want to be sure that it will work OK with Live (I'm on 5.2 by the way) or if there's anything I need to know first (like does it need some MIDI interface box, or software patch, or some settings in Ableton altered or whatever.

Thanks in advance for the info if anyone can help out!

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 4:00 pm

It's very cool, flimsy but cool.

One thing to keep in mind is that a guitar is 6 mono synths unless you just send all data to one channel (or use a synth with a special guitar mode like imposcar).

The plastic strings track velocity also!

ManxRed · Post by **ManxRed** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 4:44 pm

Thanks Kodama,

I only really want to play a lot of chords and a few solo runs (I don't really need anything like pitch bend or stuff, I can always programme that in later), so I guess as long as I'm sending to one MIDI channel I ought to get the desired effect.

It does look a bit flimsy, but I'll only be using it in the spare room, I'm not thinking of taking it on tour!!

Thanks!

dave dominey · Post by **dave dominey** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 5:11 pm

i had one for a while, was nice to play with but i ended up selling it on

there is a monster thread on kvr about them

a couple of guys created some really useful scripts to use with them too

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... sc&start=0