PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Fishman Triple Play Guitar Synth

I think Richard said it all (but since I am an actual hands-on owner/user I thought I'd put in my 2 cents - took all day becasue my consultation job kept interrupting)

But before we begin:

Yes, I have a Triple Play. The bundled SW is (or was last year): SampleTank 2.5 XT, NI Komplete Elements, PreSonus Progression and Studio One (the "light" or free versions of those PreSonus apps) and the actual Fishman PC interface SW (which is obviously needed for pickup setup & calibration, and interface to VSTi's, PC audio devices, and external MIDI HW). For me the bundled free SW, other than the Fishman interface SW, was redundant.

besides, you are not locked into using just the supplied Sampletank 2.5 XT or Komplete elements, etc. Triple Play can be used with ANY VSTi synth (and actually up to 4 VSTi synths at once!) and can trigger any EXTERNAL MIDI HW synth [as long as you have a MIDI interface and external HW ]

Look at user manual

http://www.fishman.com/software/tripleplay/download/tripleplay_user_guide.pdf


The only "short coming," as mentioned, is the fact it runs ONLY via a computer. Means I can't just plug the USB device (which is just a receiver anyway) into say my XS7 and start playing (it would probably ruin both XS7 and the Fishman USB receiver device ) Because you need the interface SW running to actually do anything. Even the maligned You Rock Guitar (which I also have) requires its own interface SW to use it with a PC (but then again the YRG DOES have a dedicated 5-pin MIDI out connection and CAN be used without a PC)


Now to where numbers and advertisements get tricky - you need to pay attention to what is actually said and what it actually MEANS. PLEASE, REMEMBER I LOVE MY TRIPLE PLAY (I ALSO LOVE MY GK3 to GR50 to PC & HW racks set up)


The 3 MS "latency" is from the time you pick a note until the Fishman SW knows which MIDI note was just played, you can watch it on the Fishman interface SW you can see IT IS VERY FAST and tracks VERY well also (tracking and latency are tightly correlated but not same thing) - I love the Triple Play's ability to track almost flawlessly CLEAN hammer-ons/pull offs.

HOWEVER, that is not whole story of "latency" when it comes to VSTi's as we know.

ONE MORE TIME I LOVE MY FISHMAN TRIPLE PLAY. But once the MIDI note is in the Fishman SW it NOW needs to get out to a VSTi synth (or external HW synth) - JUST LIKE ANY OTHER device triggering any other VSTi - so whatever your current latency's are - it is NO BETTER (or worse) with Fishman Triple Play.

Yes it will be your PC, audio HW and ASIO drivers that become the "bottle neck" (real or perceived due to bad set up) and probably where the folks mentioned in OP had issues with the Triple Play. I've done a lot of business with Grandma's (over 28 years and 3 store moves) - next time I'm in there I will talk to the guitar dept, as well as Ryan, about this.



- Look at my PC specs, while no longer bleeding edge, like it was 4 years ago when I built it, it still runs any and all SW and games at very high rates.

- I use an M-Audio FW410 with native ASIO driver set at 44.1K with 256 buffers for audio. I can run faster (44.8K and 64 buffers) but too many issues with some SW (and it is individual SW items not the FW410 or the PC) and in the middle of a project I forget which SW apps are good or bad actors so I just run it all at 44.1k with 256 buffers. Frankly, 44.1k and 256 is just fine for MY day to day work.

Next and this is a LIMFAC (limiting factor) you want to remember: I have a built-in/structural 10 ms (millisec) delay in all external MIDI triggers to internal VSTi/DXi sound generation. That is, using a HW MIDI keyboard like XS7 or Fusion 8HD from the time that the audio of the HW keyboard is recorded on the left channel until an internal VSTi synth, like SampleTank 3 or Kontakt 5, is recorded in right channel (using Audacity to record audio and measure time delta's) is ~10 ms.

I didn't want to rewire things just for this little test but all my external MIDI controllers (GR50, XS7, Fusion 8HD, etc.) go first into a JL Copper MSB Rev 2 MIDI 8x8 patch bay, then into a Digital Music Corp MX-8 8x6 MIDI patch bay (for additional distribution to other synths and HW), from there to a MIDI Man USB 2x2 MIDI I/O box to PC, finally from PC MIDI Man USB PC driver to internal VSTi which produces a sound. That ~10 ms is unnoticeable IN MY day to day use but is fixed.


Summary: the fastest I can trigger an internal VSTi using straight MIDI (no "audio to MIDI" just a straight MIDI trigger) is 10 ms. So with that floor here is what I get using both a Fishman Triple Play (audio to MIDI) and a GK3 guitar into a GR-50 (audio to MIDI set-up. Yes, the GR-50 is long in the tooth but works fine):


1. Fishman Triple Play audio to MIDI SW (using the 64 bit version of the Fishman app "just because," it comes with both 64 and 32 bit). Triple Play Synth 1 slot was set to a fast attack piano in SampleTank 3. (Triple Play can be used with ANY VSTi synth and you can insert up to 4 synths simultaneously, each synth can be set to mono or poly, blah, blah, blah, - you can read manual yourself - see above)

Audio from guitar went direct (i.e., without going through Triple Play) to left side of M-Audio FW410 and audio from ST3 panned to right into FW 410. Again, I used native FW410 ASIO driver and set sample rate at 44.1K and buffers 256. ( I can run down to 64 buffer but makes no real difference for this.)
Again: guitar audio is right side and ST 3 audio is left side - recorded into Audacity.

The delta time from guitar AUDIO start (start of discernible sin wave) to ST 3 audio start (again start of discernible sin wave) was APPROX 28 ms. (as a quick test I set buffers to 64 no real difference).


2. Now same sort of test using a GK to GR to VSTi. Using GK3 guitar (a Roland Ready Strat), and remember MIDI signal went from GR-50 -> JL Cooper MSB Rev 2 -> Digital Music Corp MX-8 - > MIDI Man USB Midi I/O -> PC USB driver -> to Sampletank 3 (same fast attack sampled piano) .

Like Fishman setup - MIDI in from GR50 went to ST3, using FW410 native ASIO drive set at 44.1k and 256 buffer and ST3 audio was panned hard right. Guitar audio ran direct to FW-410 left side - direct from guitar not through GR-50. Again I used Audacity to record - again guitar was on left and ST3 was on right

From start of guitar audio sin wave to start of ST3 audio sin wave was drum roll ……. ~28ms.

For my setup, for all practical purposes, there is NO DIFFERENCE between Triple Play and GK3-GR50 synth combo. Actually the GR50 has about the same 28 ms delay from audio directly recorded out of guitar until the GR 50 generates a sound so ....


Larry