Anyone here ever play a MIDI guitar?

[diggy_dude]

As many of you know, I'm an avid collector of vintage Casio instruments. So when I decided to take up guitar again, there was really only one choice: the Casio DG-20 digital guitar. My Casio VZ-8M rackmount synth has special modes for string and wind controllers, so the DG-20 will let me leverage existing gear.

I had been dicking around with the Oberheim Strummer trying to get a somewhat realistic guitar sound from a keyboard and not having any luck with it. The presets include some neat arpeggios, and some fixed chord structures that are triggered by playing the root note of the chord, but I can only get the device to do down strokes, not up-and-down like strumming a guitar. They say there's a certain keyboard playing technique that will make it work, but I'll be hanged if I can figure it out. Sometimes I do get a random upstroke through no fault of my own. It's not consistent enough to be relied upon.

Anyway, I played guitar for a few years in the early 90s and got fairly good at it. Not great, but I could play scale runs pretty fast and come up with some interesting phrases and power chords. Keyboards don't really inspire me that much. I like the sounds they make, but I want more of a guitar feel. So I'm getting a guitar that can drive my MIDI synths.

Okay, enough backstory. Here's my question. I've always heard MIDI guitars suck at tracking string bends (that can be fixed with a Whammy pedal), but how well do they track hammer-ons and pull-offs?

 

[Xdrummer]

I've played MIDI guitars and guitars equipped with both the Roland converter and one other guitar -> MIDI converter (the manufacturer escapes me).

I have yet to find a system that does an effective job of tracking bends, or tracking without latency, false triggering or missed notes.

Using a guitar to trigger pads (like orchestral violin pads) or perhaps relatively slow single string arpeggios can produce decent results - but some very basic keyboard skills can achieve the same.

For many years I tried to reproduce realistic guitar sounds/technique useing a keyboard (includding the Oberhiem "Strummer") - I finally determined that I would be much better off spending my time and money improving my guitar chops - and after several years, I'm a "decent" guitar player.

And many times, I've tried to use MIDI guitars to simulate violin slides, trombone slides, etc - and finally decided I would be better off improving my keyboard technique to reproduce the proper slides and bends to play horn and string lines.

If you have guitar chops - use them to play guitar - if you have keyboard chops - use them to cover the other sounds.

 

[diggy_dude]

The DG-20 has switches in the fretboard to track pitch. That should presumably alleviate latency. I think the bridge sensors only determine whether or not the strings are vibrating. I would think hammer-ons would work all right. Not sure about pull-offs. It depends on how the device reacts to more than one switch under the same string being depressed. I would guess Casio thought of all of that. They came up with some clever stuff in the early 80s.

I don't have any keyboard chops at all. It's been probably 15 years since I picked up a guitar, but I seemed to gain proficiency with it more quickly than with a keyboard. Maybe it's just a matter of interest. A guitar feels good in my hands. A keyboard isn't much different than typing on a computer, which I spend too much time doing to get excited about it.

 

[stevieb]

Oh, man, only about 5 or 6 years ago, I saw a Casio MIDI guitar in a pawn shop for TWENTY BUCKS! Of course, I thought it over too long and it was gone when i went back.

 

[diggy_dude]

Oh, man, only about 5 or 6 years ago, I saw a Casio MIDI guitar in a pawn shop for TWENTY BUCKS! Of course, I thought it over too long and it was gone when i went back.

Yeah, that was a little before they got hyped all to hell and started selling for an arm and a leg. Mine wasn't terribly expensive, but the shipping charges from Japan were.

Was the one you saw a regular steel string electric guitar with MIDI sensor or the plastic one with nylon strings in the Flight of the Conchords video?

 

[stevieb]

Gee, I have no idea. Don't remember it that well. I think it was a steel string-er.

 

[TetraFish]

I have a Godin with a built in synth PU and I haven't had a lot of problems, or at least as many as some people out there. Slides on strings are still an issue though. I found things like violins sound really shaky and then if I record some MIDI data and take a look there will be 40 pitch bends for every note. So every time I record something like that I usually record the MIDI from the guitar and fix the MIDI data from there.

 

[diggy_dude]

Gee, I have no idea. Don't remember it that well. I think it was a steel string-er.

That one was made specifically for use with the VZ-8M rackmount synth I have. I might look for one someday.

 

[diggy_dude]

I have a Godin with a built in synth PU and I haven't had a lot of problems, or at least as many as some people out there. Slides on strings are still an issue though. I found things like violins sound really shaky and then if I record some MIDI data and take a look there will be 40 pitch bends for every note. So every time I record something like that I usually record the MIDI from the guitar and fix the MIDI data from there.

Guitar slides and string bends are notorious for generating excessive pitch wheel data. The low-tech implementation of the DG-20 does slides without pitch bend because you're moving over six rows of switches. It doesn't do string bends at all. But then the fancy pitch-detection pickups don't do a stellar job of it either.

 

[TRIVAL]

Yrg

I picked up the You Rock Guitar midi guitar controller a couple of months ago and its been one of the best midi guitars that I've tried. It has barely any latency and has a much better feel than the casio. In the same way, you can't do string bends, but you can adjust the pitch bend up to an octave to achieve the same result. Also, sensitivity, tunings, etc. are all customizable.

 

[diggy_dude]

That looks pretty cool. Casio should've thought of putting a whammy bar on a pitch bend wheel like that. It's a no-brainer, really. I still had to have a DG-20 for the vintage Casio collection if nothing else.

Are the strings tuned on the YRG like a regular guitar? Do pull-offs re-trigger notes like on the Casio?

 

[acidrock]

I picked up the You Rock Guitar midi guitar controller a couple of months ago and its been one of the best midi guitars that I've tried. It has barely any latency and has a much better feel than the casio. In the same way, you can't do string bends, but you can adjust the pitch bend up to an octave to achieve the same result. Also, sensitivity, tunings, etc. are all customizable.

You Rock Guitar from audioMIDI.com

I've read lots of good stuff about this controller and for the price you can't go wrong.I'm seriously considering getting one because the kids can use it too.

 

[CrowsofFritz]

I was given the You Rock Guitar to write a review. I didn't like it at all! The ONLY thing i found it good for, is if someone who didn't know chords on the piano, can strum SOME (mostly open) chords on the controller and have synth sounds. But that's it! Individual notes were very hard to play, you certainly can't play what you can normally play on guitar. Only very simple stuff. I did like how easy it was to plug and play though.