midi guitar pickup to notational software

[davidb3282]

OK, the first try didn't go through.

For my own hobbiest information and for a research project for school, I'm exploring the world of guitar midi interfaces with music notation software. Would you help a newcomer with respect to the following topics/questions.

 

1) Goal: Play an acoustic guitar, including complex and fast strumming & picking while capturing the information with music notation software, all as a means of documenting my own creations in both standard notation and tabular format.

 

2) I've been told that I need a midi device, while others have said it is not necessary. My belief is that a midi pick-up is necessary to capture information resulting from simultaneous string soundings, i.e. 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 note chords in either a complex picking or strumming stream. Would you elaborate on this.

 

3) I have been able to locate a couple of midi pickups marketed on the internet, and there seems to be a bunch of controller type devices. Being a newcomer to this field of information, I can't seem to determine exactly what equipment is needed to simply capture the information from the guitar and then input it to the computer software (i.e. Finale, Sibelius, etc.). Would you elaborate on the set-up and equipment that is necessary. I don't necessarily need to synthesize the data (that might be fun) but I'm primarily interested in a straight forward system to capture the music in both standard and tabulature notation.

 

I may not be asking the right kind of questions, so an information on the above is sincerely appreciated. What kind of system setup could provide a good performance for a reasonable budget...under $750.

 

Dave

[dot-dot-dot]

OK... First off, you have to have some sort of hex-pickup on the guitar. Your options are basically dependant on the guitar you're using. You mentioned that it's an acoustic - if it has steel strings you can look at the Roland GK-2A and Yamaha G1-D, which are hex magnetic pickups. If it's a nylon stringer, you'll have to go for some sort of piezo pickup, probably the RMC ones. They're very good, especially for MIDI work, but they're not at all cheap.

 

Either of these solutions will give you a 13-pin output. This will then have to go to a guitar-MIDI converter. The best are the Axons, but they're not cheap at all. Yamaha make or made the G50 (I think) which was less expensive but based on the Axon technology. Roland have the GI-10 which works pretty well if it's set up properly.

 

If you're trying to get the MIDI information into a PC, I would strongly advise against the Roland GR series synths. While they offer guitar-MIDI conversion, they are much slower than the competition.

 

Any one of these converters will output a standard MIDI feed to your PC. Bear in mind that they're all sensitive to how cleanly you play.

 

The top solution would be an RMC piezo setup into an Axon converter; the budget choice would be a GK2A or G1-D into a GI-10.

[davidb3282]

dot-dot-dot

 

Thanks for the quick response...but there is more to my newness on the topic:

 

I take it you mean a hex-pickup as opposed to a poly which I've seen advertised. I have a steel string acoustic...the goal is to play complex and often fast strumming or picking that will get input to the pc to a notational software program to document the creation. My understanding is that unless I use something like a Ztar, which I'm told are very accurate, I'll likely have to do some manual manipulation on the score to correct errors. A few people have said that with complex and fast strumming, the technology is not up to par for accurate tracking...???

 

Supposing the setup you mentioned, an RMC piezo setup into an Axon converter (do I want the RMC piezo instead of a hex pickup?):

 

My take is the system setup will be:

Guitar pick-up (13 pin) --> Axon converter --> the USB of the PC --> notation software. With such a setup, there will be no actual synth changes to the midi signal, which I'm not interested in at this point. The main goal is to get the music in composition format, both standard notation and tabular format.

 

Are we there yet technologically, or am I headed for disappointment and lots of manual corrections to the notation? Also, what will a sequencer do for me and where does it fit into the system?

 

The top solution would be an RMC piezo setup into an Axon converter; the budget choice would be a GK2A or G1-D into a GI-10.

[AlChuck]

Not only will you have a hard time getting complex and fast strumming & picking captured accurately with any MIDI guitar, many of those sorts of things are not really capture-able in standard notation anyway, at least not in any generally useful sort of way. Usually a transcriber has to judiciously simplify what's played in order to effectively capture it. Even if the technology was able to capture the notes precisely, it's the "judicious" part that would still be lacking in the software that would convert the MID data into notation.

[dot-dot-dot]

Originally posted by davidb3282:

I take it you mean a hex-pickup as opposed to a poly which I've seen advertised.

Same thing, sorry. I tend to call them hex pickups because they pick up each of the 6 strings individually.

 

A few people have said that with complex and fast strumming, the technology is not up to par for accurate tracking...???

Probably not. The Axons are meant to be a world apart from the GI-10, which isn't bad. If you play fast but very cleanly, in terms of your picking and fretting and so on, it might do OK.

 

Supposing the setup you mentioned, an RMC piezo setup into an Axon converter (do I want the RMC piezo instead of a hex pickup?):

 

My take is the system setup will be:

Guitar pick-up (13 pin) --> Axon converter --> the USB of the PC --> notation software.

The RMC pickups are individual piezo elements. They go to a hex preamp and then out to a 13-pin socket. They're functionally equivalent to the magnetic hex pickups, but are supposed to be far superior for MIDI conversion (the magnetic ones are, in my experience, better with the Roland VG units).

 

The Axon converter can't, to my knowledge, feed the USB port directly. It outputs MIDI, so you'll also need a MIDI port on the PC. Most soundcards have in-built MIDI, but may need an additional cable. Alternatively you can get MIDI ports that link into the USB port.

 

A sequencer would let you edit the notes you recorded in, clean up the playing if needed, remove any ghost notes and so on. The process is not perfect, and I would expect that you'll have to do some editing.

 

The Ztar might be a better option; because it uses (from what I've seen) switches, there's no need to do a pitch->MIDI conversion, and hence it would be faster and more accurate. Whether it'll feel good enough is another matter.