USB Guitar compatiblity


Re: Gah!

sold said:
Pleng said:
Not sure exactly what the i-Axe is but if you want to fit a system to your own guitar then you might want to take a look a the Roland GK3 split pickup. It adds a 13-pin output to your guitar which sends the signal from e...<snip>...-channel USB soundcard which works with Pandora. THEN you'd need to write the amp and pedal modeling. It for sure won't be an easy task, or cheap to accomplish! Even when you've spent all that money on equipment and time developing it, you are going to have something that just doesn't do the job as well as the system you are trying to emulate.

Firstly, the iAxe is NOT a midi instrument, it is basically a cheap guitar with a usb audio interface built in. For a simple and imo better alternative that can be used with any guitar or bass, Google stealthplug. There are also other guitar to usb solutions.

Secondly, if you wanna use a gk3 split pickup, you need either a gi20 or a similar midi converter for guitar to convert the pitch to midi. AFAIK the roland GI20 connects to hardware synths or to pc via usb to control software synths so you don't even need a pc midi interface. It should even work with pandora to some extent as long as pandora can accept midi signals from usb, and if there are software synths available to run on it.

the GK Pickup must be one of the least understood things around! The carries 6 individual sound channels (one for each string) down a 13-pin cable. It is often used for pitch-to-midi conversion but that is not it's only use. It is perfectly feasible to make a breakout box which features 6 individual channels. As I had (incorrectly) presumed that the iAxe was a VariAXE-alike I had also assumed it used some kind of split-pickup in order to generate 12-string and alternate tunings. Hence advising to investigate the GK pickup as it's the only system I know of which *could* be used without custom drivers (though you would of course need a 6-channel sound card to go with it, and appropriate drivers). As the I-Axe is essentially a guitar with a built in usb soundcard, the advice I gave was invalid. But the GK is NOT just for midi-guitar!
 
I don't understand. Why you would want to use a divided pickup like a normal electromagnetic pickup which would just work on a single channel?
There is no point in using a divided pickup for any purpose other than midi.
 
>There is no point in using a divided pickup for any purpose other than midi.

You could, for example, use different effects for each string. E.g. pitch-shift one of them, or use a set of strings to drive a synth, for example. Off the top of my head.

Not that I would go that route, or that I even know much about it, I prefer to simply plug a normal guitar straight into an amp! :D
 
sold said:
I don't understand. Why you would want to use a divided pickup like a normal electromagnetic pickup which would just work on a single channel?

12-String simulation, electronic alternative tunings, 'virtual cappo' and guitar modeling are all impossible without a split pickup.
Acoustic/nylon simulation, bass simulation, and analogue-style synthesis are all served much, much better with a split pickup.

The power of processing each string individually is something that is amazingly underestimated.

There is no point in using a divided pickup for any purpose other than midi.

That's interesting. I've had split-pickups on my guitars for years now. I even got one built-in to my latest guitar. About 2% of its total use is for MIDI. MIDI guitar is a pain, but occasionally a necessary evil. Working with a split-pickup in audio mode is a pure pleasure.

ps sorry for the off-topic!
 
Sorry to reply off topic :P

I never thought of a practical use for a divided pickup other than guitar synth. Still sounds odd to me, but interesting as well.
 
This whole topic is off topic anyways. honestly, I just want to push the Pandoras' limits. rocking out around the house, using it as a KAOSS pad,recording riffs in moments of inspiration. There are possibilities here but at the end it all comes down to a moment of "can't do that?...well, why not? ... Do it anyways!"
I think that this system will create a land mark in the history of computing if we can just teach people how to work with it. at the very least it is going to open the door of open source to new people. And all that needs to happen is they need to be shown that you can do cool things with computers.

Fuck it, lets talk about Marie Phytoplankton.
 
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