Quote:

Hi,

I will be buying BIAB/RB soon. I am also buying a used Roland GK-3 pickup system to feed my guitar to a Roland GR-1 Synth to do the Midi Interface conversion (I am buying these because I am getting a great deal and I am only interested in getting my notes into BIAB rather than having a great synth). I have a 5 year old computer running XP that has USB 2.0 capable ports. It is running a "RealTek HD Audio Manager software and it shows MSI on the top because the mother board is MSI". I do not see any mention of MIDI on the Audio Manager. The seller of the GR-1 says I can simply buy a Midi-to-USB converter since the GR-1 output is only 5-pin midi. At the same time I am aware there are PCI boards or sound cards that have Midi input. So I am not sure if BIAB running on my computer will pick up the Midi signal from the GR-1. To deal with this and make the final GR-1 purchase decision, I am thinking of downloading BIAB (I assume there is a trial period), taking my computer to the sellers place, firing it up and seeing if I can get all 6 guitar strings to feed into BIAB on my computer. I am wondering what is the simplest thing I can do to test the Midi signal is coming in to BIAB.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
John



Roland GK with GR-1 is the setup I have used for years with Band in a Box.

The only other thing you would need other than the BiaB program and the Windows computer would be a MIDI to computer device such as the USB device type already mentioned here. There are two types of these devices available, one type uses its own driver software which must be installed first, no big deal, and the other type is "class compliant" -- meaning no drivers need be installed by you as the Windows Operating System will detect that device automaically upon plug in. Either works about as well as the other, no gain by picking one over the other as far as performance goes. PGMusic sells a class compliant USB MIDI adaptor on this website, see the sales pages, hardware for more info.

The Roland GK pickup is fairly nice, a few tips are in order though.

*Most guitar players initially try to play the MIDI pickup as if it were the acoustic guitar. My advice is not to expect it to perform like that, after all, if we needed to record a guitar, it would be far simpler to use Audio and record from the guitar pickup. Instead, concentrate on the pickup's ability to fire MIDI patches of the instruments that are NOT guitars in the MIDI lineup: Pianos, Electric Pianos, Organs, Horns, etc.

*However, when using the MIDI pickup to enter notation for such purposes as guitar teaching or creating guitar parts for sessions, I find that using a clean MIDI guitar patch such as the "Jazz Guitar" patch from the GM bank is a good way to go.

*HAMMER-ONS AND PULLOFFS may not track well with the GK pickup system. While I have found that the thicker the strings on the guitar, the better the MIDI pickup system will track (my old jap strat that ha the GK on it is running 12 or 13 on top...) there is still a slight limitation as to what the MIDI pickup can reasonably handle. Not a big deal to me after beconming familiar with the setup, sometimes I simply pick every note from a passage and then manually Edit the results to indicate hammerons, pulloffs, the slur indicator, etc.

*There are MIDI pickup systems that can track much better and faster than the Roland syzstem, but they tend to cost ten times the entry price of the Roland. So to record fast passages and such with the Roland GK system, I find it better to temporarily set the MIDI host program (such as Band in a Box, Realband, Powertracks, Sonar, etc. ) Tempo to a slower BPM setting than the target and record the whole thing at a speed slow enough to allow for good MIDI note tracking. You can find out what that would be for your setup with a bit of experimentation. After the recording is done, just reset the Tempo where it is supposed to be for a good playback.


*DON'T EXPECT TO FIND ULTIMATE JOY IN THE FIRST HOUR OR EVEN THE FIRST DAY. I found that it was necessary to treat the MIDI guitar setup as if it were a brand new instrument (to me) that happened to be controlled in much the same fashion as my guitar, but with a slightly different set of parameters that I had to become used to. There will be a bit of the unfamiliar there, easily concquered via the repetition of practice with the MIDI system. So I do recommend that you look forward to a certain amount of time for you to go through what I like to call a "ahakedown" period with the new equipment and software. The end result is well worth it, but perhaps far too many, expecting instant and stellar results, perhaps expecting the setup to perform pretty much like an audio pickup would, try the thing for too short a time and then become disgruntled. Practicing with the thing in order to become accustomed to the differences in playing style needed to get good MIDI tracking, plus a few other things that have to happen there, is the way to go.


--Mac

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