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#64420 03/08/10 12:26 PM
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Has anyone out there ever ran a guitar, using a guitar synthesizer, through BB via the midi inputs? I've been mixing songs, wih a friend of mine from church, using a Casio keyboard interfaced directly into BB via the midi input and I thought that my guitar synthesizer might do the same, but to my supprise, it did not work. The unit has midi out and midi through jacks. I was hoping to get some of the synthesizer's unique sounds with some of my arrangements in BB. The unit is a Digitech 1000 guitar workstation and is about 3 years or so old. Great stomp box. Thank you in advance for your responses.

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You have to record the audio out of the unit to get those sounds


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Unless you also have a hexaphonic MIDI pickup, such as the Roland GK-2 on your guitar, properly hooked up via a Roland synth, or some other MIDI guitar setup such as that, the MIDI Output on the synth cannot have any MIDI note data on it to process.

Tell us more about your guitar and setup, though.

The Digitech stuff is all about amplifier simulation, speaker cabinet simulation and effects simulation. That is an AUDIO device, using the electric audio signal from standard guitar pickups as input. The MIDI on the thing is designed for using MIDI commands to change patches, effects, and the like, not to derive MIDI data from played notes.


--Mac

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Thanks Mac,
You're probably right about the midi, although I have a USB port which connects to the computer to download recent patches from Digitech. The Digitech 1000 Workstation is just what you said, a multi-effects guitar workstation. I still haven't had time to look at my owners manual but since I couldn't record directly into BB via midi, I'll have to assume for the present you are right. I will read my manual and let you know shortly. As far as my guitar (gear) situation goes, I have several, as most guitarist do. I have a 2006 Telecaster, a 1995 Stratocaster, a 1964 Gibson 330, a 1965 Venture's Mosrite, and a 1976 Ovation accoustic. I tend to keep guitars a long time. None of them have the Roland midi pick-up you were talking about but I've been thinking hard about the newer Stratocaster with that pick-up. Might be a wise investment and work well with BB.

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if that's anything like the Digitech RPseries guitar effects pedals, the midi ports are to let your sequencer handle the patch changes for hands/feet free performing. You can't use them to drive any midi devices from your guitar.

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Forgive me for asking, but what would be the benefit to doing that?

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In a live show, your effects can be controlled from the sequencer, for one. The guitar player can walk around and focus on the show while his sounds change automaticly.. add delay for one chord, etc.

Many possibilities


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All these answers makes me want to find out what kind of box plugs into the Midi for the Digitech to make these patch changes on the fly.

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A USB-to-MIDI device would allow any computer to do it.
Realband would be the better option here, as BiaB only handles one midi device at a time, I believe.


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Quote:

All these answers makes me want to find out what kind of box plugs into the Midi for the Digitech to make these patch changes on the fly.




It's useful to have 2 Midi out ports if you are going to control your devices that way, because you can dedicate one port to your synthesizer and the other port to miscellaneous devices. One such device is M-audio Midiman series, which come with various numbers of ports. I used to have a 4x4, but that was overkill. Now I have a 2x2, which gives me 32 channels.. 16 channels on one port for the synth, and 16 channels to divide up among all other devices.

In the back of your digitech manual is a section on using MIDI commands to control pretty much every aspect of your pedal. ... from changing patches, to turning effects off and on, to changing amp simulations.. whatever the pedal can do with knobs and menus it can also be programmed to do from your sequencer.

At this point you should...
1) go read the section in the manual, and then
2) experiemnt, then
3) come back and ask specific questions.

There's too much to say to write a comprehensive "how to" in one post.

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Just a quick correction for all you who answered this post: I have a Digitech 3000 Workstation. Not a Digitech 1000 Workstation. It's similar to the GNX4 from Digitech but with a lot more capabilities. The unit came with software (a cheap sequencer) which allows me to play my guitar through the workstation into the software via the USB port. I think I will experiment with it this weekend to see what it actually does. The manual talks a lot about General Midi output to the software but I have no idea how that works. I do have midi ports on my soundcard, Audigy 2, wich I ran into bb, but that didn't work either, and we've already discussed that.
Thanks for all your responses. I will let you know if I have success.

Last edited by David Walker; 03/12/10 11:35 AM.
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Quote:

Just a quick correction for all you who answered this post: I have a Digitech 3000 Workstation. Not a Digitech 1000 Workstation. It's similar to the GNX4 from Digitech but with a lot more capabilities. The unit came with software (a cheap sequencer) which allows me to play my guitar through the workstation into the software via the USB port. I think I will experiment with it this weekend to see what it actually does. The manual talks a lot about General Midi output to the software but I have no idea how that works. I do have midi ports on my soundcard, Audigy 2, wich I ran into bb, but that didn't work either, and we've already discussed that.
Thanks for all your responses. I will let you know if I have success.




Nice piece of gear! Looking at the ad, I get the impression that in addition to being a modelling effects processor, it doubles as an audio-midi interface. That doesn't necessarily mean that you can record your guitar directly as midi (if it actually had that capability, the ad would have said a lot about it because that would be a big deal in the guitar world)

Rather, I got the impression from the ad that the device has MIDI in and out ports that can be used to record other instruments that are, in fact, midi controllers.

FWIW, you should be able to control all of this pedals features with midi, if that is something that interests you.

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