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For your amusement: Return of the Miku Stomp!


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This guy posted an amusing video about

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP5d9FdUiMs

 

Today, I found he did a SECOND video with the Miku with a wider variety of pedals. Even more fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO6bBrgcqe0

Sturgeon's 2nd Law, a.k.a. Sturgeon's Revelation: âNinety percent of everything is crapâ

 

My FLMS- Murphy's Music in Irving, Tx

 

http://murphysmusictx.com/

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I think we'd seen that one a while back? Someone else did a weird Klon Centaur vs MIKU Stomp video, as well, just for the sheer pointlessness of comparing them.

 

I just recorded a new piece with mine, about a week ago. I'll put up a link when the rest of the album is done.

 

Funny thing, Korg never meant to release the MIKU Stomp in the U.S., from what I know of the backstory. My main gear guy at Chuck Levin's Washington Music Center heard about them, and asked his Korg rep how to get them over here. The Korg rep thought my buddy was joking, until my buddy pulled up a video of it. The U.S. East Coast Korg rep didn't even know the MIKU Stomp existed, until then.

 

After some back-and-forth with Korg, Korg agreed to ship a limited number of units to the U.S. - 150 units is the number stuck in my head, for some reason. My gear guy ordered 3, one for himself, one for me, and one for stock. FWIW, he ordered the one for me, even before telling me he'd done it - he knew . . . I don't know how many MIKU Stomp units finally made it to the U.S. but it wasn't many.

 

Korg, and to a lesser degree, Apple, kind of shot themselves in the foot because there was an iPhone editor app that would allow you to construct "phrases" within the MIKU Stomp, thus allowing it to really 'sing' somewhat coherent phrases, even phonetic English words. The big problem - you could only get the app through the Japanese iTunes stores. I read of some folks' efforts to download or hijack the app, but it was too much for most folks to deal with - it was also a situation where you were technically breaking some part of your contract with Apple/iTunes.

 

If you want a bad case of sticker shock, go look for a MIKU on Ebay or Reverb, right now. Used ones are selling for $400+, NOS units shipped from Japan are asking $600+. If I were working at Korg, I'd be pushing them to bring it back, the way Ibanez saw all those ancient TS9's going for absurd Vintage money, and decided to cash in by bringing them back.

"Monsters are real, and Ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." Stephen King

 

http://www.novparolo.com

 

https://thewinstonpsmithproject.bandcamp.com

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I"m the one who originally posted that first vid here, waaaay back. I included it for reference.

 

But the second I hadn"t seen before yesterday.

Sturgeon's 2nd Law, a.k.a. Sturgeon's Revelation: âNinety percent of everything is crapâ

 

My FLMS- Murphy's Music in Irving, Tx

 

http://murphysmusictx.com/

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OMG, it's the Pedal of the Gods! If I could have 1/10th as much fun as this guy I would buy a Miku & never ever turn it off. But I take his recommendation of using the Miku for doing traditional standards very seriously.

He does, however, need to work on his signal routing a bit. Any device into the Miku, except the Whammy, just gives you the Miku with some pitch recognition difficulties. Should have added the Wah AFTER the Miku. Anyway, I want one.

Scott Fraser
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OMG, it's the Pedal of the Gods! If I could have 1/10th as much fun as this guy I would buy a Miku & never ever turn it off. But I take his recommendation of using the Miku for doing traditional standards very seriously.

He does, however, need to work on his signal routing a bit. Any device into the Miku, except the Whammy, just gives you the Miku with some pitch recognition difficulties. Should have added the Wah AFTER the Miku. Anyway, I want one.

 

@Scott Fraser - If you find one that isn't exorbitantly priced, here are a few quick tricks.

 

#1 - String Dampers. Open ringing strings are NOT your friends with the MIKU. I have a short length of silk scarf that I tie around the 1st Fret position, you can even see it in one of the old live Android Nectarine videos.

 

#2 - Dig into your GT-10, and other MFX for Harmonies. One of the issues with the MIKU is that it will almost never repeat the same series of syllables twice, even if you're playing a repeating riff or phrase, unless you're using one of the "AH"-type sounds. Dial up either of the Random sound banks, and that's what you'll get. Makes it impossible to re-do a missed take, or to multi-track in different Keys to harmonize. I run the MIKU through the GT-10's Pitch Shift or Harmonist effect, for dual harmonies, then send the processed voices to different tracks. I used that trick forUntouched By Human Hands. In that case, I was trying to emphasize the non-human quality of the tone.

 

#3 - Time stretching & smoothing - I find that a little Reverb or Delay after MIKU lets the sound trail off nicely. You can also have fun with cascading Echoes, try to get it to sing a Round. Using some kind of Attack Delay in front of it also helps "humanize" the sound, for lack of a better word. Again, your GT-10 will let you do all of those things, and run the MIKU in the S/R Loop of one virtual Amp Channel, so you can have parallel tracks of Guitar & MIKU, side by side, panned hard L&R.

 

I really hope you find one. It's not a Plug-&-Play device, by any means, there are a lot of tweaks and compromises to get the best possible sound out of one, but still, there's nothing else that sounds remotely like it.

"Monsters are real, and Ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." Stephen King

 

http://www.novparolo.com

 

https://thewinstonpsmithproject.bandcamp.com

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One of the things I found most interesting (not amusing) about the second video was when the Miku was producing its own sound after the guitar signal was turned off. My guess is that knowing how to trigger that intentionally could lead to some interesting sonic explorations.

Sturgeon's 2nd Law, a.k.a. Sturgeon's Revelation: âNinety percent of everything is crapâ

 

My FLMS- Murphy's Music in Irving, Tx

 

http://murphysmusictx.com/

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I'm guessing what it does is to completely replace the input signal with the synthesized output, rather like the EHX B9, C9, & Mel9 pedals. Beyond the humorous gimmickry, if the Miku were just added slightly under the dry guitar it would function more like an extremely warped cocked wah, adding those insane vowelesque resonances to an otherwise normal guitar tone. But, they're averaging around $400 on Reverb, so, not happening until I win the lottery.
Scott Fraser
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Goofy widget.

 

I'd probably play it a bit every now and then and laugh. Not worth the $$$ to me. Others may find a use for it, kudos!

 

I'll give Korg points for creating a new pedal that does not sound like anything else, pretty hard to do at this point.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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A clean blend mod could be cool. Then run about 80% straight clean with 20% Miku voice like a background twined scat tone. .... and maybe not.

"It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne

 

"A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!!

So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt

 

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It's a lot of fun, if you're willing to work with it, definitely more than a gimmick box.

 

Scott is right, it uses your Guitar signal more like a "trigger" than anything else, although it's less forgiving than the EHX -9 series pedals, which are polyphonic; the MIKU is Mono. The MIKU tracks more like the original Boss SYB-3 Bass Synth pedal. If you watch the videos carefully, you'll see that when he's playing through the MIKU, his playing is very deliberate, no slurs, no slop.

 

I run mine into my Boss GT-10, which allows me to add Attack Delay, Pitch Shifting & Harmonization, Delay & Reverb effects, and I can run it on it's own virtual Amp Channel, so I can have MIKU in one channel and Guitar in another. Next step is running it through the Audio In on my Analog MonoSynths, or having it sing through the Vocoder on my MicroKorg.

 

There's a Keytar version, again only available from Japan, for around $450?!?!

"Monsters are real, and Ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." Stephen King

 

http://www.novparolo.com

 

https://thewinstonpsmithproject.bandcamp.com

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I'm seeing new ones on Amazon Japan for a little over $500. There's a used one in 'like new' condition for around $400.

 

I'm seeing new ones from Japan being offered on Amazon here in the U.S., for $400-500US plus around $35 for shipping. I suppose if someone desperately wanted one, and they had the money to burn . . .

"Monsters are real, and Ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." Stephen King

 

http://www.novparolo.com

 

https://thewinstonpsmithproject.bandcamp.com

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Somewhere out there, someone is using the Miku as part of what will be a Grammy-nominated album, and we will be flabbergasted.

 

How? Why? But...

Sturgeon's 2nd Law, a.k.a. Sturgeon's Revelation: âNinety percent of everything is crapâ

 

My FLMS- Murphy's Music in Irving, Tx

 

http://murphysmusictx.com/

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That is totally possible. But to achieve total flabbergastocity, the story would have to go something like...

"I was going to just go back to my home town and be an uber driver. I made a last visit to my favorite music store,

and saw this pedal..."

Same old surprises, brand new cliches-

 

Skipsounds on Soundclick:

www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandid=602491

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Ya I don't know-to me it looks like something that would be fun as hell

for a few months. Then it would sit on a shelf forever.

 

I can see that for many players, it would be a fun toy that would eventually wear out its interest. For me, one of the Holy Grails of sound design is getting my Guitar to imitate a human voice; I have a "Stereolab" patch in pretty much every Synth I own. The MIKU let me get close, without a Hex Pickup or MIDI rig.

"Monsters are real, and Ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." Stephen King

 

http://www.novparolo.com

 

https://thewinstonpsmithproject.bandcamp.com

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Plug Miku into reverse delay, plug reverse delay into another Miku.

Split signal to stereo, add octave down on one side, slightly de-tuned octave up on the other.

 

Then play slide guitar. Magic (I just made it up, too early need more coffee!!!).

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Plug Miku into reverse delay, plug reverse delay into another Miku.

Split signal to stereo, add octave down on one side, slightly de-tuned octave up on the other.

 

Then play slide guitar. Magic (I just made it up, too early need more coffee!!!).

 

You may wish you hadn't thought of that . . .

 

I don't have 2 MIKU's - that would be a bit extreme - but I can run the one I have into my main Looper, record & reverse the Loop, run that out through the MIKU once more, into a Dual Pitch Shift patch within my GT-10.

 

Now, if I only had a Rainbow Machine to play Slide through . . .

"Monsters are real, and Ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." Stephen King

 

http://www.novparolo.com

 

https://thewinstonpsmithproject.bandcamp.com

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Plug Miku into reverse delay, plug reverse delay into another Miku.

Split signal to stereo, add octave down on one side, slightly de-tuned octave up on the other.

 

Then play slide guitar. Magic (I just made it up, too early need more coffee!!!).

 

You may wish you hadn't thought of that . . .

 

I don't have 2 MIKU's - that would be a bit extreme - but I can run the one I have into my main Looper, record & reverse the Loop, run that out through the MIKU once more, into a Dual Pitch Shift patch within my GT-10.

 

Now, if I only had a Rainbow Machine to play Slide through . . .

 

I'd love to hear it!!!! I ain't skeered of no sounds, nohow. I am sort of gear phobic where pedals are concerned but it's the form factor not the sound.

 

Maybe somebody will make a plugin! If I buy pedals for guitar I end up ignoring them until sell them again.

Exceptions are few and far between.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Ya I don't know-to me it looks like something that would be fun as hell

for a few months. Then it would sit on a shelf forever.

 

I can see that for many players, it would be a fun toy that would eventually wear out its interest. For me, one of the Holy Grails of sound design is getting my Guitar to imitate a human voice; I have a "Stereolab" patch in pretty much every Synth I own. The MIKU let me get close, without a Hex Pickup or MIDI rig.

 

Well there's that but, I think the Miku is kind of limited to the voice of a Japanese pop idol.

I always wondered why something like a vocorder for guitar never came along. Then it would be your individual voice.

With that kind of processing, you wouldn't necessarily have to be a real singer to do some interesting things.

Same old surprises, brand new cliches-

 

Skipsounds on Soundclick:

www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandid=602491

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I always wondered why something like a vocorder for guitar never came along. Then it would be your individual voice.

With that kind of processing, you wouldn't necessarily have to be a real singer to do some interesting things.

 

There's this, which seems to do vocoder as well as talk box effects: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/VO1--boss-vo-1-vocoder-pedal

Scott Fraser
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I always wondered why something like a vocorder for guitar never came along. Then it would be your individual voice.

With that kind of processing, you wouldn't necessarily have to be a real singer to do some interesting things.

 

There's this, which seems to do vocoder as well as talk box effects: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/VO1--boss-vo-1-vocoder-pedal

 

Korg's MicroKorg has a decent built-in Vocoder, and with a good bit of tweaking & cabling, I can drive it with a Hex Pickup-equipped Guitar. I've thought about combining Miku with the MK Vocoder.

 

You're right about the initial limitations of the MIKU's sound (". . . Japanese pop idol . . ."), but pushing through those limits is part of the fun of experimenting. I'll admit, there's no way I'd buy one at the current collector's prices, but I'm glad I have it.

"Monsters are real, and Ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." Stephen King

 

http://www.novparolo.com

 

https://thewinstonpsmithproject.bandcamp.com

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I always wondered why something like a vocorder for guitar never came along. Then it would be your individual voice.

With that kind of processing, you wouldn't necessarily have to be a real singer to do some interesting things.

 

There's this, which seems to do vocoder as well as talk box effects: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/VO1--boss-vo-1-vocoder-pedal

 

That's an interesting pedal, I may see if I can hunt one down.

I think my initial impressions of the MIKU pedal are partly a matter of perspective-

I can go to a local convenience store right now and hear a similar voice on the instore sound system.

When you had enough, you had enough. Travel; restrictions do not help.

It was a breath of fresh air recently when a few chains switched over to a version of Spyro Gyra's

''Morning Dance'-perfect tune for grabbing a first cup of coffee.

 

I hate to admit it but, I'm not sure what was going on with that demo vid. First it sounds like she's running her guitar through it and then

it sounds like she ran a mic cable through it. Or both.

Same old surprises, brand new cliches-

 

Skipsounds on Soundclick:

www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandid=602491

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I hate to admit it but, I'm not sure what was going on with that demo vid. First it sounds like she's running her guitar through it and then

it sounds like she ran a mic cable through it. Or both.

 

@Skipclone - Both, sort of . . . The VO-1 will process Voice + Guitar, or just Guitar.

 

If you want a more comedic kind of sound, look for the Boss AW-3, with the Humanizer effect; one of those "vocal formant" Filters that makes Vowel-like sounds in place of the traditional Filter sweeps. To my ears, it's always sounded like something from an old Spike Jones recording, where someone would "sing" in burps.

"Monsters are real, and Ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." Stephen King

 

http://www.novparolo.com

 

https://thewinstonpsmithproject.bandcamp.com

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