Ableton Forum

So I recently found out about Christopher Willits and was very inspired. He seems to be using a roland gk-3 pickup through one of roland's guitar synthesizers. Anyways I want to try and get into this. I know guitar midi limitations. I'm not trying to emulate a sax or anything. Really I'm going to be using it for chords to use Ableton's pads and instruments. Just more ambient than lead stuff. Anyways I was wondering on what you guys knew on gear for this stuff. Do I have to use the guitar synths? Since I don't need any of the sounds and I just need something to translate into midi so ableton can read it. Thanks.

Maybe the Terratec Axon AX50 USB?

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct07/a ... X50USB.htm

dhilsabeck wrote:Maybe the Terratec Axon AX50 USB?

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct07/a ... X50USB.htm

They don't sell them anymore.

kanuck wrote:

dhilsabeck wrote:Maybe the Terratec Axon AX50 USB?

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct07/a ... X50USB.htm

They don't sell them anymore.

Good advice dhilsabeck. I have one.

There is a Reaktor device called FretKeyes, http://co.native-instruments.com/index. ... tchid=9472

Works pretty good just pluggin your guitar straight into ableton with FretKeys on that channel. Send it to any Synth.

I use a gk-3 and a gi 20 into my laptop. It takes a bit of messing to get it set up, and you really need to adapt your playing style(learn to palm mute and use the hold pedal), but it makes for a great controller with complex voicing capabilities if you can get the hang of it.

Here is a thread with a cool Guitar synth demo...

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=152101

the Roland guitar synth is crap. really bad latency. in all the threads I've read over the years this is the worst piece of midi guitar equipment out there. I've played one, the latency on the low E string is the length of the noise of the pick clicking on the string. unplayable.

I have an Axon, very low latency. never read any negative reviews of those boxes.

between magnetic and piezo pickups I gather there's no real difference in latency. from what I've read the piezo stuff tracks faster/better because it's a mechanical coupling from string to the electronics rather than a magnetic coupling.

for piezo I'd recommend the Ghost or RMC systems (I use RMC.)

another thing piezo pickups give you is a very very nice acoustic sound from your electric guitar. although they can also be mounted on an acoustic guitar, like Rave has. these go into the bridge where the magnetic type can be added to any guitar without any modifications to the guitar. installing a bridge isn't trivial or cheap.

really fun thing to have. in one take I can record dirty guitar from the regular pickups, clean guitar from the piezo and midi from the midi pickup.

FWIW I have a Brian Moore i9.13, freaking love that guitar.

+1 Axon

Tone Deft wrote:the Roland guitar synth is crap. really bad latency. in all the threads I've read over the years this is the worst piece of midi guitar equipment out there. I've played one, the latency on the low E string is the length of the noise of the pick clicking on the string. unplayable.

I have an Axon, very low latency. never read any negative reviews of those boxes.

between magnetic and piezo pickups I gather there's no real difference in latency. from what I've read the piezo stuff tracks faster/better because it's a mechanical coupling from string to the electronics rather than a magnetic coupling.

for piezo I'd recommend the Ghost or RMC systems (I use RMC.)

another thing piezo pickups give you is a very very nice acoustic sound from your electric guitar. although they can also be mounted on an acoustic guitar, like Rave has. these go into the bridge where the magnetic type can be added to any guitar without any modifications to the guitar. installing a bridge isn't trivial or cheap.

really fun thing to have. in one take I can record dirty guitar from the regular pickups, clean guitar from the piezo and midi from the midi pickup.

FWIW I have a Brian Moore i9.13, freaking love that guitar.

Right. But from my experience (tests with GK-3 equipped axe and a Godin + lots of googling) to drive a VG-99 (no pitch to MIDI conversion, only modeling) it seems a GK-3 is the way to go. For RMS equipped guitars they ship a special VG-99 filter to avoid feedback and howl due to very high pick up sensitivity (that is a very good thing in pitch tracking). It really seems you need both... what do you think?

you lost me with "no pitch to MIDI conversion."

I played a mag pickup into a Roland guitar synth and the latency was unplayable. then I got the RMS w/Axon and it plays GREAT. I thought it was the whole Roland rig that sucked but I've read from many people that the mag pickups work fine. more people agree that the Roland guitar synth stuff isn't very good.

not sure what you mean by needing both. don't have time at work to google what all those boxes do. RMS bridge plus Axon is all I've needed.

if you watch Willits' stuff closely he quantizes to quarter notes and doesn't play quickly. great outcome but he doesn't push the guitar-midi interface very hard so he can get away with the Roland box. IMO.

use what you like.

Tone Deft wrote: you lost me with "no pitch to MIDI conversion."

I played a mag pickup into a Roland guitar synth and the latency was unplayable. then I got the RMS w/Axon and it plays GREAT. I thought it was the whole Roland rig that sucked but I've read from many people that the mag pickups work fine. more people agree that the Roland guitar synth stuff isn't very good.

not sure what you mean by needing both. don't have time at work to google what all those boxes do. RMS bridge plus Axon is all I've needed.

if you watch Willits' stuff closely he quantizes to quarter notes and doesn't play quickly. great outcome but he doesn't push the guitar-midi interface very hard so he can get away with the Roland box. IMO.

use what you like.

Curious, what do you mean by quantize to quarter notes? Is he setting his gr-20 to only pick up every 1/4 note? I'm not trying to do crazy leads and such I'll be mainly doing pads and a few slow basslines (maybe). I mean i could ear out lead parts on a keyboard it's just I'm a guitarist and learning all the chords I know on guitar back to piano is way too much work for me. perhaps 5 years from now I could but not atm.

in Live he quantizes to 1/4 notes, just like you would with a piano keyboard.

so it seems, I'm not a huge fan or Willits expert, I've just watched some videos of his over the years.

IMO you're kind of overthinking it. you don't need to be a shredder to make use of a midi guitar.

the guitar just becomes another keyboard. I got into it for the reason you noted, I know the notes/chords/scales on the guitar way better than I do on the piano.

Tone Deft wrote:in Live he quantizes to 1/4 notes, just like you would with a piano keyboard.

so it seems, I'm not a huge fan or Willits expert, I've just watched some videos of his over the years.

IMO you're kind of overthinking it. you don't need to be a shredder to make use of a midi guitar.

the guitar just becomes another keyboard. I got into it for the reason you noted, I know the notes/chords/scales on the guitar way better than I do on the piano.

oh I see, so you meant after he records he edits and quantizes them on ableton to quarter notes. Sorry, I'm fairly new to the recording and ableton world.

anybody have any experience with the yourock midi guitar? they look kinda cheap but i saw a video of someone using it with sylenth1 and it seemed to be pretty on point...