MidiGuitar software - by JamOrigion

About 10 years ago I saw Jeff Beck with Jennifer Batten. Great show! She pulled off some amazing leads with what I think was a Les Paulish looking Godin. They probably had custom engineered gear.

I gave up on these a long time ago. The Roland one that’s been out now for…10 years?

Try 36 years. First one was introduced in 1977. Scary, aint it?

That would be a pity. My GR20 will definitely play back midi.
:bulb: If I were you, and interested in the 55, I’d download the PDF manual for the unit, then you’ll know for sure.

No, I think the GR55 is like the GR20 in that it can not be used as a standalone MIDI synth being triggered by external midi. The only thing that triggers the module’s inbuilt sounds is the hex guitar pickup that you fix to your guitar (or in the case of Godin guitars that comes built in to your guitar).

Thr GR55, like the GR20, will send midi information to e.g. a DAW or another synth module.

The difference between the GR55 and the GR20 is that the newer GR55 also uses the hex pickup for generating modelled sounds (i.e. no latency).

Steve.

I assure you the GR-20 can play MIDI either from another keyboard or from a recorded MIDI track of a sequencer!
I know! I do it!
In fact it can do it from both simultaneously with different patches or from six different tracks when you know how.
Furthermore, check this out:
http://cms.rolandus.com/assets/media/pdf/GR20WS03.pdf :wink:

Thanks Brihar, I stand corrected (I never knew this was possible and I used to use a GR20) :blush:

Steve.

A quick review of the jamorigin software mentioned by the OP:

Tried it for two hours as a standalone and as a VST insert testing with two guitars (Strat and Tele) thru a clean pre. Various pickup combos used. 64 sample buffer.

Once you get it into a DAW, the thing falls apart…particularly if you are recording a MIDI track. Way too many false notes, regardless of UI settings. Note placement too far off from where it was played. Post quanting actually made it worse. No ability to reset the UI without trashing its Pref folder. No ability to quickly set note recognition range sensitivity to conform to the range of notes to be played…something that might improve the incredible amount of false triggering this thing generates.

An interesting toy for iPad user. A good initial first effort, but certainly not a $100 app at this stage of its development. $30 tops, in it’s present state…and only if you’re bored to tears.

10 years is a long time to wait to hear the note - talk about latency. :laughing:

No discussion about midi guitar woulod be complete however without checking out the MISA DIGITAL KITARA

Steve Fogal writes:
“So, with that…I’m not even sure I really NEED midi guitar per say…maybe I just have it as a want. Hard to say…I guess I would just have to experience using something for a while. I am afterall, far more comfortable on guitar than a keyboard.”

As a guitarist , I think you’ve pretty much come to the basic realization. I shelled out $600 a few years ago for the Axon set up for my strat and after awhile ,it became clear that ,even on a good attempt , midi guitar can’t substitute for decent keyboard comping because at best you’ll only get 4 note chords and the work involved is far more than just learning to play the parts on keyboard. The midi guitar does stand out for playing basslines and synth solos however.

You know Steve, I have just slightly better keyboard abilities than a 2 year beginner. I can pick stuff out but one thing that has been a big benefit to me is the way you can play a few notes and on replay, layer in a few more and keep on going til it sounds like a full sound. My parents had a player piano back in the 70’s and those paper rolls played back like there were two guys sitting at the piano.

One of the things I love about the iPad is the tremendous variety of midi GUIs available. Along with traditional keyboards one can tap, slide pinch with one two or all fingers on circles, squares, hexagons, guitar necks, blank surfaces and user defined interfaces. Control multiple instruments use the accelerometers to generate mod wheel CCs. Change the scales, tune in third’s fourths or fifths. (Many inventive ways to represent the circle of fifths and interval relationships come out on what seemsto be a daily basis). Remember, the D in MIDI stands for digital and it’s time to rethink the way we interact with music. And with Cubasis and Audiobus you can capture the midi and audio and edit away. Or use the 'pad as a controller to hardware midi devices and capture it in Cubase on a desk or lap top.

That’s true. I have about 5 songs on my piano repertoire that would make you think I was a accomplished pro. We sit, they listen and …Then. " I didn’t know you played like that… Play something else!" Duh…

I can only fumble thru the rest so …it’s time to get up, what’s worse, none of the other 5 are modern

Ave Maria The Entertainer ( from the sting) the theme from Exodus fur Elise and a medley of 1950’s doo wop C Am F and G crap

After that Its chopsticks

I wish I could come to embrace the Ipad as you have. I do use the Omnisphere app , The Maschine app and the Cubase remote control. Other than that ,for me mentally, it remains a closed device. Because there’s no real midi in or out or real usb, I see my self creating something only to have it reside forever in the Ipad. I’ve tried the drag and drop to Itunes and nothing ever works. Really wish they’d have just put a usb port on it. I understand a lot of this is laziness on my part for not looking for a “hack” but I guess I deeply resent having to find a work around for a $600 device to just do what it should.

Surfer I’m just ranting, not at you of course

I agree with both of you on that… I was lucky my wife and daughter gave me the iPad for a birthday gift. They actually bought me a Mac Pro laptop with retina display but I knew this was way too much money for them to part with so I returned it and made the swap, I would have loved to keep it , but . I love this freakin iPad but I use it for several things. Having the POTENTIAL to use the Cubasis app for a few live recordings that can be transferred to Cubase and worked on is my hope.

I have considered as Mr M said…will it be locked in the iPad forever? Man I hope not. But I am taking the bet that it will become an integral part of Cubase and that all will work out for me with it as intended.

I m will to invest a bit of time and a little money to get a compact interface and take it along for a few live recordings, eventually.

On the other hand, I have listened to a lot of stuff people have done on the iPad just by scratching their fingers on the glass and a lot of it is really good. I have a few simple apps and Audiobus to tie a lot of it together but it ain’t my thing yet. Needs more time. Working Midi and the GR33 again have become more of a focus and time eater.

I do feel that in a short time, all of these other things for iPad will be addressed and it can be a real power tool. As a ham radio operator many years back I remember how there was huge discussions about using a specific bandwidth for this new service about to be approved called…cell phones. Who would have thought? Imagine in a few years when the technology advances again for recording techniques.

Nice to see you have made your decision . Spent about two hours from scratch today from a complete reset and setup of the GR33 . Started to be fun but I do remember the limitations or design changes I might have made after getting into it. Regardless , she performed beautifully. Rediscovered that the timbre of some instruments rings much truer when played to reproduce them as intended. Meaning time to abandon the guitar style and listen for the sweet spot for where on the guitar a breathy sax really sound authentic.

Several sounds just seem so nice. I was able to get the midi tracks laid down in Cubase and my next attempt will be to voice them accordingly and assign sounds. Exciting stages at this point should this all pan out properly. Found out that a high quality guitar cord went bad from sitting a few years that I would have thought would hold up for a long time. Major weak link on that one .

The CCK is $30 and gives you a USB port. There are many midi interfaces available and multiple audio and combo ones also. Dropbox and iFunBox make transferring files easy. What I enjoy are the many high quality synths at give away prices that are availbable. Check out Animoog or Addictive definitely read up on Audiobus and Audioshare utility apps. Desktop music while not dead is on the endangered species list. Probably will be the final mix and master platform of choice for a few more years but for music creation it’s joining the typewriter.

I not sure that it will work out that way , I think you may be quite surprised in a good way. I’ve had that GR33 sitting on the floor for the last 3 years untouched and once it was wired up again…it was pretty cool. I think you have a nice surprise coming

I did a track of Dave Brubecks “take five”, the repetitive piano part I can play …so it got midi’ed into Cubase …then took the GR and played the sax part on the guitar. It came out very nice for something stuck together in about 7 minutes. I experimented just using the audio track from the amp, mic’ed. I will try adding the midi out from the GR33 and use that input to play thru the MT32 or the GR( maybe )

But I’m just giving you a heads up…you’re gonna have fun with it.

I’ve alread mentioned that I use a GR-20, and am quite happy with it, but, one of the failings of these guitar controllers be it a Roland GR type synth or a ZTar or even the YRG Midi guitar, is that they continue to constrain the guitarist to the strumming and plucking of six virtual strings paradigm. One of the main criticisms of synth technology is in regard to the dynamics or articulation control - a keyboard is not ideal for creating strumming or bowing or breath, so we create other, specialty controllers for these, and the midi guitar is just such a controller, but here again the same is true - strumming is not the same as striking a piano chord, not to mention breath and bowing techniques.
The important thing for a guitarist is a familiar noting and chording interface i.e. the neck, strings and frets; if he’s got that then he can make music, and how these are articulated can be changed - new techniques of articulation can be learned quickly.
I mentioned the MISA Digital KITARA back a few posts, and I don’t know whether anyone took this seriously, but the more I look into it, the more I realize that it is really the only midi guitar type instrument which truly frees the guitarist from the contraints of his instrument and will allow a new freedom of control and open new directions in creativity. There is also the Korg Kaoss Pad and the Manson M1D1 but a bit pricey.
Seriously don’t just dismiss it out of hand.

You folks that are working with a midi guitar may already know this but, the biggest issue is to make sure you’re playing in the correct mode. Generally you’ll want to set the guitar so it transmits each string on a separate midi channel ,1-6. You’ll then need to set your midi sound module to have the same sound on each channel. This way retriggered notes on different channels aren’t cutting others off, giving a more realistic sound. If you have Kontat there is a great app called GTAK that will do this for you ($50). If you have Omnisphere of Trilian ,they each have a "live"mode that also does this.