Ableton Forum

i'd normally ask this Q on the osxaudio.com forum but its down today so i figure i'll take a stab here.

anyone using a midi pickup for guitar?
specifically the Roland GK-2 or GK-2a.

how do you like it? can you comment on sensitivity, accuracy, and/or latency?

I haven't used one..... However my old guitar teacher uses one to put stuff
into cubase.... He's a jazz fusion guru, very advanced.... I'd imagine if
it works for him...... It should work for anyone...

edit: tho I'm unsure of how much post editing he has to do.

-Ben

you have to play really clean in order for the roland pickups to track right. It will definitely help your playing since you are concentrating on playing clean. Might want to look into the RMC midi pickups that are used on brian moore's iguitar and the godin line. Those accuratley pickup alot better than the roland series. Search over at harmony central for USB guitar and a video from NAMM 2005 should pop up about brian moore's series. Watch the vid and check out the tracking through the GI-20. It sounds great, tracks fast and is accurate..

I'd also like to know what is a decent MIDI guitar pickup seeing that I am primarily a guitarist. Unfortunately for me, the worst investment I have ever made was buying a Casio Midi Guitar many years back, and let me tell you that it was total crap!!!! But I didn't know any better in those days. I was just happy that I could input MIDI notes without having to use a keyboard.
I have tried the Roland GK-2, but wasn't that impressed. Though maybe I am expecting too much or not prepared to compromise my playing style to accomodate the pickup.

I've been using a GK2A and GI-10 setup for a few years now, it's a good way of inputting midi but far from perfect. I find its biggest weakness is the velocity accuracy, rather than the tracking speed, but you get used to it and work within the limitations.

I generally use it for chords, and use a different technique when playing them, i sort of "grab" the strings all at once rather than strumming, partly to avoid everything sounding strummed, and partly cos a pick tends to produce less consistent note velocities. Setting the pickup sensitivity right for each string makes a big difference too.

The mono synth lead in this clip was all done with a midi guitar (recorded at the same time as the audio so they play together).

Astral Fridge Magnet wrote:I have tried the Roland GK-2, but wasn't that impressed. Though maybe I am expecting too much or not prepared to compromise my playing style to accomodate the pickup.

They can probably be bought second-hand for not too much money now, and think of it this way, even if you only use it a little bit, it would give you another angle to come up with ideas, and you can never have too many angles, right?

I had a Godin LGX-SA for a while, with the "good" Piezo-based midi bridge. It sucked (tracking, velocity, usefulness of the MIDI out). You're better off learning to play keyboards.

Moonburnt wrote:

Astral Fridge Magnet wrote:I have tried the Roland GK-2, but wasn't that impressed. Though maybe I am expecting too much or not prepared to compromise my playing style to accomodate the pickup.

They can probably be bought second-hand for not too much money now, and think of it this way, even if you only use it a little bit, it would give you another angle to come up with ideas, and you can never have too many angles, right?

I guess that's true, though my playing style is more or less in the Joe Satriani, Steve Vai vein. So trying to do that sort of playing didn't really work that well. But if they are getting cheaper then perhaps why not?

Take a normal acoustic or electric guitar/bass and try out something like DIGITAL EAR if something like this exists for osx. It has a realtime audio to midi mode and you can route the midi out over a virtual cable back into Live.
I´ve tried it out with my voice and with a bit of adjustment I could sing my synths! Should work for every monophonic sound sources.

I know it´s not exactly what you asked for, but well worth to give it a try.

http://www.digital-ear.com/digital-ear/demo.asp

Greetings

There are at least two other MIDI guitar pickups worth mentioning.

The first is the AXON (video at Harmony Central). This seems to be faster at tracking notes than the Roland. More expensive though.

The other is the GIBSON MAGIC system but that has not yet been produced. The technology was demonstrated on their web site two years ago.

We need optical signals inside the strings.

Some friend told me you could get the new AXON AX100MKII audio2midi and use it with a roland gk pickup. It makes sense because the fast tracking in the AXON is not due to the pickup itself, but to a new way of detecting the pitch made by the 1rack unit.

So maybe the best (and cheapest, btw) way to go guitarMIDI is the GK3 with the AX100MKII. I´ll give it a try and ost some comments.

Did a lot of research on MIDI guitar, and ended up picking up the Yamaha G50 on Ebay for $350 -- same technology as axon, faster tracking than roland.