midi stuff

[Harry]

Thinking about getting midi put on one of my basses,i'm really looking to get it instaled internally rather than using the external midi pick up you can buy...Anyone had any experiance with this or any ideas and thoughts please... I'm after what systems are out there and if anyone has had any experiance with midi stuff, i have heard midi for bass has progressed a lot recently, any help or advice would be greatly appreciated

cheers

[BigRedX]

Firstly, none of the current systems actually add MIDI capabilities directly to the bass. What they do is provide individual string outputs and some control functions which are then processed by an external unit to provide the MIDI data to drive your synths, samplers etc.

I've been playing with using stringed instruments to control synthesisers for over 25 years now and on the whole I'm still pretty unimpressed by the results. All the systems I've tried require you to modify your playing to some degree to get the best out of them, and I've found it far more efficient to spend some time practising my keyboard technique instead.

The things you need to overcome in order to derive MIDI from a pitched sound source are: accuracy of tracking the pitch, how to handle variations in pitch (bends, vibrato etc.) how to filter out unwanted triggers, deal with string damping, and latency.

For me the biggest problem is latency - this is the delay between you playing the note and the synthesiser actually producing a sound. The latest pitch to MIDI systems are much better at working out what the note is going to be from the waveform, but there is still some delay and it gets longer the lower the frequency of the note - not a good thing on an instrument dedicated to producing low notes. Add to that a slight delay in converting the detected pitch to MIDI data and then another delay in the synthesiser converting the MIDI back into a sound. Each on their own is fairly negligible, but all together they give a distinct lag to the note formation. Some long-time users like Tony James have developed to ability to play just ahead of the beat so that the synthesised note appears in the right place, but of course you can't do this if you want to keep the sound of the bass in the mix as well, as that will now be too far ahead of the beat. It's no wonder that the majority of guitar synth demos either feature pure synthesiser sounds or mix the instrument in with legato sounds so you don't notice the delay.

Since the worst of these latencies (and the one that isn't of fixed duration) is the initial detection of the pitch, it makes sense to try and find other ways of doing this instead of using waveform analysis. The Peavey Cyber Bass system used the frets as contacts to detect the notes. This has been discontinued, but the original inventor of the system is now continuing this development under the name [url="http://www.industrialradio.com.au/index.php"]Industrial Radio[/url]. If you want to mix actual bass guitar sounds with existing MIDI synthesisers, this is the system I'd recommend. It's only drawback is that at the moment they don't appear to be licensing the technology to other manufacturers so you have to make do with the bass that they build which may not suit every player.

The alternative is to use a bit of lateral thinking. You could use a bass with individual string pickups to run a system like the Roland V-Bass which allows you to apply signal processing to each string separately. Since you're using the bass sound as your "oscillator" there's no pitch conversion required. However what you can do is limited by the internal architecture of the V-Bass module, so if you have a favourite synth you like you'll need to try and duplicate the sound using the facilities of the V-Bass. Otherwise you're back to pitch to MIDI conversion and the delays associated with it.

Alternatively you could look at using a guitar-style MIDI controller. The generally regarded leader in this field is Starr Labs and they produce a bass specific controller - [url="http://www.starrlabs.com/products/ztars/zbass"]the ZBass[/url]. However it's not a bass guitar and will require a rethink of technique and you've got no standard bass guitar sound just MIDI to control your synths and the image may not suit. You do however have a lot more control options and the latency is the same as any other MIDI controller keyboard. There are cheaper options with less control but useful if you simply want to play a guitar style instrument and get MIDI data into a DAW or sequencer. I use the now discontinued Yamaha EZ-EG, which like most of these cheaper options provides MIDI connectivity as secondary feature, but is effective nevertheless.

In the end it all boils down to how much you want to spend and what compromises you want to make. None of these systems IMO are perfect and all require you to make adjustments to your playing or image. For me if Industrial Radio would consider selling the technology separately so I could have my favourite luthier build it into a bass of my choosing then that would be the one for me.

There are several other people here on BassChat how are using pitch to MIDI systems far more effectively that I've ever been able to manage and they should be along to offer their options.

Alternatively you always spend some time learning to play the keyboard.

[Harry]

[quote name='BigRedX' post='1143376' date='Feb 27 2011, 02:58 PM']Firstly, none of the current systems actually add MIDI capabilities directly to the bass. What they do is provide individual string outputs and some control functions which are then processed by an external unit to provide the MIDI data to drive your synths, samplers etc.

I've been playing with using stringed instruments to control synthesisers for over 25 years now and on the whole I'm still pretty unimpressed by the results. All the systems I've tried require you to modify your playing to some degree to get the best out of them, and I've found it far more efficient to spend some time practising my keyboard technique instead.

The things you need to overcome in order to derive MIDI from a pitched sound source are: accuracy of tracking the pitch, how to handle variations in pitch (bends, vibrato etc.) how to filter out unwanted triggers, deal with string damping, and latency.

For me the biggest problem is latency - this is the delay between you playing the note and the synthesiser actually producing a sound. The latest pitch to MIDI systems are much better at working out what the note is going to be from the waveform, but there is still some delay and it gets longer the lower the frequency of the note - not a good thing on an instrument dedicated to producing low notes. Add to that a slight delay in converting the detected pitch to MIDI data and then another delay in the synthesiser converting the MIDI back into a sound. Each on their own is fairly negligible, but all together they give a distinct lag to the note formation. Some long-time users like Tony James have developed to ability to play just ahead of the beat so that the synthesised note appears in the right place, but of course you can't do this if you want to keep the sound of the bass in the mix as well, as that will now be too far ahead of the beat. It's no wonder that the majority of guitar synth demos either feature pure synthesiser sounds or mix the instrument in with legato sounds so you don't notice the delay.

Since the worst of these latencies (and the one that isn't of fixed duration) is the initial detection of the pitch, it makes sense to try and find other ways of doing this instead of using waveform analysis. The Peavey Cyber Bass system used the frets as contacts to detect the notes. This has been discontinued, but the original inventor of the system is now continuing this development under the name [url="http://www.industrialradio.com.au/index.php"]Industrial Radio[/url]. If you want to mix actual bass guitar sounds with existing MIDI synthesisers, this is the system I'd recommend. It's only drawback is that at the moment they don't appear to be licensing the technology to other manufacturers so you have to make do with the bass that they build which may not suit every player.

The alternative is to use a bit of lateral thinking. You could use a bass with individual string pickups to run a system like the Roland V-Bass which allows you to apply signal processing to each string separately. Since you're using the bass sound as your "oscillator" there's no pitch conversion required. However what you can do is limited by the internal architecture of the V-Bass module, so if you have a favourite synth you like you'll need to try and duplicate the sound using the facilities of the V-Bass. Otherwise you're back to pitch to MIDI conversion and the delays associated with it.

Alternatively you could look at using a guitar-style MIDI controller. The generally regarded leader in this field is Starr Labs and they produce a bass specific controller - [url="http://www.starrlabs.com/products/ztars/zbass"]the ZBass[/url]. However it's not a bass guitar and will require a rethink of technique and you've got no standard bass guitar sound just MIDI to control your synths and the image may not suit. You do however have a lot more control options and the latency is the same as any other MIDI controller keyboard. There are cheaper options with less control but useful if you simply want to play a guitar style instrument and get MIDI data into a DAW or sequencer. I use the now discontinued Yamaha EZ-EG, which like most of these cheaper options provides MIDI connectivity as secondary feature, but is effective nevertheless.

In the end it all boils down to how much you want to spend and what compromises you want to make. None of these systems IMO are perfect and all require you to make adjustments to your playing or image. For me if Industrial Radio would consider selling the technology separately so I could have my favourite luthier build it into a bass of my choosing then that would be the one for me.

There are several other people here on BassChat how are using pitch to MIDI systems far more effectively that I've ever been able to manage and they should be along to offer their options.

Alternatively you always spend some time learning to play the keyboard.[/quote]

Ok thanks for that, it has got me thinking, i have a v bass system at the momen and also a gr-20 with the new updated software for the bass they are waiting to be used so i'm looking to go down that road, it's mainly for messing around with at home, getting ideas etc, saying that though looks like there will be some duo work coming up ( vocals and bass, chords etc) so was looking at a way to maybe make that a little more interesting. i will have a read and look over the stuff you said, please feel free to add anything else and will wait for the others to add...
once again thanks for your time, very informative

regards

harry

[BigRedX]

In the light of your second post what do you want to be able to do with your MIDI bass system that you can't already do with the V-Bass.

I'll have to admit that my experience of the V-Bass is limited to a couple of trade show demos, but I do recall that it was capable of some pretty decent synth sounds just by processing the bass signal without needing to go through the hassle of pitch to MIDI conversion. I'd be looking at exploring the capabilities of this system first. If you've already done this and need more, it would be useful if you could post more details about how far the V-Bass lets you go as regards synth type sound shaping, and then how much further you want to go.