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NorM

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I need to start thinking about a midi pickup for the Luke...seriously.
Was written by doctor_worm and it reminded me of something. I was in a music store and heard a midi setup out of an acoustic guitar. The attack was a lot cleaner than I had heard from regular midi pups before. The salesman told me it was because the midi output was the 13 pin connected to the piezo. Also, the piezo gave a direct connection to the string. Without doing any research I will just ask. Is it possible to take a piezo equiped MM and have the 13 pin output pin added to make it midi ready?
 

NorM

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Bump

Nobody has an answer for this? This has the potential to be really really cool. Imagine zero lag time for midi!
 

NorM

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Bump Again

Really! This has a lot of potential! My Blue Dawn Silo is going in the shop Thursday to have the EMG's installed. I spoke with the luthier today and he said he would try to find out. Before then, however I would like to know if anyone thinks it's possible or not.

Hello?! Is this thing on?
 

NorM

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So I found the pin out conversions for the Roland G2 pup

1 = string 1
2 = string 2
3 = string 3
4 = string 4
5 = string 5
6 = string 6
7 = mono guitar signal
8 = synth volume (0-5VDC)
9 = n.c.
10 = SW 1
11 = SW 2
12 = +7VDC
13 = -7VDC
Shell = Gnd

I think I can do this except I don't know what #'s 10 &11 are. What is SW1 and SW2?
 

zabba

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Jan 1, 2004
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Las Vegas
Re-designing
And staying on the cutting edge of guitar electronics.

That is great and you are willing to share your ideas.


The midi devices I have seen are rather simple and crude when compared to a piezo .
But there is on the market some sophisticated pups for midi.

the information is available
Last month in alt.guitar , several musicians were discussing which midi systems were best, the names of the pups were not the common manufactures that we always see, but a new brand

I should have paid more attention,
I hope you will continue writing up your findings
in the forim , because we are reading your articles,
You tend to be a few years ahead on these things ,
The best I can do is follow your adventures, which is not much help.

This will be the way to write music on the near future.
Companies like Guitar Pro are cleaning up with midi software
So you are looking at a potentially highly marketable technology here.
 

Mincer

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Mar 11, 2003
Messages
132
Location
Tampa Bay area, FL USA
I got on this thread rather late...just saw it.
I use RMC pickups on my Brian Moore to give me piezo-to-midi conversion. RMC make probably the best sounding piezos out there, and they really know how interface it with midi conversion. I am thinking of putting it on my Silo.. you can read about the pickups here : http://www.rmcpickup.com
 

zabba

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Messages
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Location
Las Vegas
Excellant link
thx



It seems that the piezo's 13 pin plug fits into an interface card
, in the PC
Then using Cakewalk and the PC card's software s
you can produce a midi.

to get midi on demand directly from the guitar , creates a problem
in that the conversion may be slow and a fast guitarist , will
require that the sounds be stored first then compiled into the midi format.

cost for top of the line equipment new is over $ 1000.00
Is that correct??
 

Mincer

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Messages
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Location
Tampa Bay area, FL USA
zabba said:
Excellant link
thx


cost for top of the line equipment new is over $ 1000.00
Is that correct??

Well, not exactly. The 13 pin output plugs into an external midi interface (like the Roland GI-10/20, or Axon unit), which then goes to something like a USB midi interface on your computer. Conversion is very fast if you have good technique.
There has been attemps at having midi conversion in the guitar itself- a few years ago a company called MidiAxe sold its designs to Parker and Brian Moore, but it had problems. You *needed* a computer to edit the parameters of the converter, and you had to plug your guitar into AC power to power the converter. That company went out of business.

The cheapest way to get midi conversion is the ROland GI-20, which is about $350US. It works great, and has a USB output so you don't have to buy a separate USB midi interface with the computer.
 

Mincer

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Messages
132
Location
Tampa Bay area, FL USA
NorM said:

this kinda thing is essentially what i have, but since it is a custom, i designed the elctronics to be a little more intuitive, like having a magnetic/both/piezo switch instead of the synth/both/magnetic switch, and no synth volume control (i use a midi volume pedal for this).

i honestly was thinking about putting a system like this into my Silo Sp, but I might buy a SUB1 to mess around with. To retrofit a guitar with piezos and midi can cost about $600. It sounds great, but too bad it is so expensive.
 
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