Anyone here do midi bass?

[BigRedX]

[quote name='Ziphoblat' timestamp='1381265310' post='2236802']

Right, but that's just with technology where it as at the moment. Things like the Industrial Radio Midi Bass seek to change that, and the technology can only get better. Sooner or later someone will manage to do it in a neat package that most players will feel at home on with little adjustment (and by all accounts the Industrial Radio Midi Bass isn't far off). At the end of the day, MIDI is just a string of numbers generated by a controller, which is conventionally a keyboard purely because tracking the notes being played on a piano is far easier than on most other instruments. The notion that controlling MIDI with a bass guitar is redundant is no more valid than the idea that notion that controlling MIDI with a drum kit is redundant; and if a drummer wanted to control MIDI to play drum samples, I doubt that many people would be recommending a MIDI keyboard over an electronic drum kit.
[/quote]

Steve Chick's fret-sensing and string triggering method of deriving MIDI data from a stringed instrument has been available for around 25 years now, and it's still only a niche solution in a niche market.

Yes the current Industrial Radio MIDI bass is an improvement over the original systems he was selling in the late 80s, but it's a step-change not a revolution. It's a better solution then straight pitch to MIDI because that will always have the laws of physics against it. Whether it is the right solution that just needs some more development, or yet another evolutionary dead end, only time will tell.

Right now if you must use a bass guitar as your controller then it is without doubt for most musicians the best solution there is. However it still requires a good deal of modification to your playing technique. Every time you touch a string you are potentially triggering a new note. Clean and accurate playing is still the order of the day. My playing is full of ghost notes and other rhythmic noises that work on the electric bass guitar because years of playing have shown me which ones I can get away with and how to make them sound musical in the overall context of the music.

Trying to make that work in the context of MIDI data is fraught with difficulties. It would be simple to use the sensitivity settings to ignore these as false triggers, but then you reduce dynamic range and run the risk of ignoring quietly played notes that should be sounding. You can reprogram the sounds you are using to make these work in the same way that they work on the normal bass guitar sound. But guess what? The more you get them to blend in the more you start to lose the original character of the synth sound and the more it becomes like a bass or guitar, which IMO pretty much defeats the object of using a synth sound in the first place.

Don't get me wrong I love the possibilities that are available with technology like this. I've been dreaming about it since I was a naive teenager in the mid 70s. However reality even now is still a rude awakening. Maybe I was lucky in that when I most needed the technology it was still far to primitive and expensive to be feasible for me, so it was far simpler, quicker and cheaper to learn how to play an instrument that was far more suited to controlling synthesisers - the keyboard.

[BigRedX]

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1381305470' post='2237106']
If it's just a matter of playing unbent notes, then playing a keyboard is an option. But, if it's a matter of bending notes, trills, etc., then learning to use pitch-bend on a keyboard controller is a whole new learning curve in itself.
[/quote]

It depends whether you are playing in real time or simply programming. For programming all you need to do is think like a bassist and then use the tools available on your MIDI sequencer of choice.

If you need to play live then it makes sense to have a keyboard with the right performance controls on it. For guitarists I would always recommend one with polyphonic after-touch and a ribbon controller. These work in a way that I find is more transferable to the techniques that guitarists (and bassists) already have and require the least amount of new skill learning.

From my experience, my keyboard skills are rudimentary to say the least, but I can still get results far quicker, more accurately and with more expression on the right keyboard controller than I can out of a strung MIDI device.

[krysh]

I tried to use the GR-55 with my bass:


once you find the right pickup setup it works well with most sounds but not well enough for me to use it live.
as the others have mentioned you really have to watch your playing technique and in the lower register (A on e-string to low the tracking latency is too much. BUT if you only use midi sounds without mixing them with the original signal you will get along. I stopped experimenting with this setup because the mixing of synth sounds and the original bass sound doesn't work too well with most sounds and it is more easy for me to work with chords on guitar plus the bass sounds (synth and emulated) of the gr55 sound really good through a bass amp.

since I also play guitar I'm just working on an originals project with a drummer where I'll mix sounds and use a bass amp for the synth and a guitaramp with fx for guitar through a stereo jamman. didn't try it live with the drummer (should happen within the next weeks) yet but I believe it'll work out fine since I really enjoy the endless possibilities and fantastic soundscapes when jammin' at home.

[pete.young]

I use a VB-99 live. For many of the gigs we play, there simply isn't room for another keyboard on stage. It would actually make a lot more sense to ditch the bass guitar and use a keyboard - the ideal size and shape for a midi controller is a piano accordion IMHO.

[BigRedX]

I still haven't come across a performance MIDI controller that's much better than the Yamaha KX5:

[IMG]http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n249/BigRedX/Mike-RR.jpg[/IMG]

[TimR]

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1381293657' post='2237008']


Fret sensing still has problems, e.g. a note that is bent before it is plucked. The industrial radio bass has string tension sensors which may help here, but we're talking about a controller that costs thousands. If a bass is being played monophonically, then I still believe that it is feasible to have much better bass synth response by ditching the MIDI conversion and integrating the pitch/note detection much more deeply into the actual synth. And it should be possible in a small digital box into which you could plug in any bass, and which would cost £100-200. The downside is that without MIDI, you wouldn't be able to use the bass to control just any synth lying around, it'd just be the synth in the box, or synths with OSC.
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That's what the Sonnus B2M, that the others above allude to, is.

http://www.sonuus.com/products_b2m.html

[ratman]

I have a GK3B, and it doesn't track well down the low end. Those low notes are long frequencies and they are harder for the pick up to pitch. I always play an octave up and assign the MIDI to an octave down. It does the job, but the hassle of an extra cable on the bass and the fact that you can't easily swap it to another instrument is a drawback. Although when I bought it 10 years ago it was that or nothing and it has served its purpose well. I'd love to try a Sonnus at some point.

[tayste_2000]

You guys need to check out the fender mustang rock band 3 controller

Seriously general midi out, button per note and strumable strings and a steal at like £25 or so off eBay