To my knowledge yes, I believe MIDI can do that. The basis for my statement is Line 6 Variax guitars and the Fender Strat that comes with a Line 6-type pickup - I think it is the Strat VG or something. With both the Variax and the Strat, you can dial up alternate tunings without changing the tuning physically on the guitar. So you can go from Standard to Open G or DADGAD tuning at the flick of a setting or change the starting pitch of your standard-tuned guitar so the whole thing drops up or down a step or two. This is different from a Gibson Robot Guitar, which does physically change the strings’ pitch when you select an alternate tuning…
I have not lived with either guitar, but IMHO it seems like if you are playing at low volume, you would be distracted by the atonal sound coming from your standard-tuned strings while you are playing a song using Open G fingerings, or by hearing your strings in one pitch while the final sound is shifted up or down in pitch. Not sure how that would work - although I suppose you could wear headphones to block out the natural string sound.
I am not sure the Variax or Strat uses MIDI as part of their digital circuits, but have to assume that if a purpose-specific use can accomplish the task, MIDI should be able to…
Le Ministre The Godin you linked isn’t a stand alone midi device, you would also need a guitar synth that accepts the six-way output and converts that to a midi signal. Casio used to make a self-contained midi guitar and IIRC one option with the Roland guitar synth is (was?) a pickup which you could add to any (electric) guitar, it sits up against the bridge.
I had the Casio MG-500 model that was all the same electronics as the link but a different (weird) shape. One of the onboard controls was an octave transpose switch so I think transposing to a different interval must be possible - might feel a bit weird though. As a midi controller it worked quite well on the top four strings but there was a definite tracking delay on the bottom strings. A solution I though of but never got round to trying would be to use something like Nashville tuning and set up the midi converter to transpose the strings back to their ‘correct’ octave.
Meanwhile a more practical option, it looks like transposition is something the Variax could do.
Small Clanger, WordMan - Thanks for those responses, that’s very useful. I’d forgotten that I’d need something in between the Godin and the amp - its advantage is solely that the MIDI pickup and pins are built in. I focussed on the Godin because it’s the closest to being a true ‘classical’ guitar, so that when I did play this rep on a regular classical instrument, it wouldn’t ‘feel’ like a massive shift. And I wouldn’t have to be buried in an asbestos suit for retrofitting a MIDI rig on a Ramirez or Hauser.
(And yeah, I would have to be doing much of this rep on a classical - it’s one thing if John Adams wants to write me a piece and says “Play it on whatever guitar you feel like.” {In the sweatiest of my dreams…}, but if I’m doing Dowland or Schubert or Benjamin Britten, I don’t think it would sound ‘right’ on anything else.)
You’re absolutely right about how it would sound weird to have the physical instrument audible, even at an incredibly low level, while the amplified instrument played everything a semitone lower. I’d have to experiment - there’s every possibility that would be excruciating. Those Godins were all chambered, too - I’m not sure if they make a ‘Classical MIDI plank’ that makes no sound to the performer’s ear.
(Speaking of sounding weird… You may not think you have any kind of perfect pitch until you pick up an instrument that’s tuned down a third - play something that took you a lot of practice to learn, and see how fundamentally wrong it seems…)
Sounds like I need to gird my loins, hide my credit card and take a trip to the Twelfth Fret. If my wife kills me, you’ll all know why…
Back in the day when a friend had a MIDI guitar rig, I tried it and was really put off by how badly the tracking worked. You had to play only single notes, using a ridiculously consistent picking technique, or the tracking would fail spectacularly and odd atonal crap came out the other end. I assume this has gotten better in the last couple of decades? Can you actually play chords now or fast runs and hear something decent? My expectation is you’d get something that sounds like Jack White using a Whammy pedal, not something that sounds like an acoustic guitar.
No clue about MIDI - again, I am not sure if Line 6 Variaxes use MIDI circuitry or their own proprietary. But I can tell you that Variaxes have very reliable tracking and a decent acoustic setting - so you can be playing their solid-body guitar and have it sound like an acoustic - or, heck, a classical or a Dobro…very versatile if you need that. You don’t get the touch dynamics of a tube amp or the feel of the real instrument the Variax is mimicking, but if you need a Swiss Army Knife for a gig, I have heard good things…
I had a Casio MG-500 and it tracked really well, pretty much as fast as you could play including tapping and pulloffs if you weren’t too sloppy. You could certainly play convincing ‘keyboard’ parts with it.
The only drawback was the tracking delay on the lower strings, like I said you could get round that by using strings at an octave up from normal, trouble is then it doesn’t function as a normal guitar.
An earlier guitar synth I had was made by Korg. It was monophonic and was based on frequency to voltage converter (you simply plugged the guitar into it) even that one I don’t remember being that wayward in tracking.
The MG-500s were fully* polyphonic.
*well, six notes. Tricky to play more than that on a guitar.
The sounds pretty cool. If I found a second hand Variax in the bargain bin, I’d get one in a second, but I can’t see paying $800-ish (and up) for a guitar that’s not a ‘real’ guitar, if only because my impression is that Variax’s have little residual resale value.
Thinking about this more, I don’t think the rig I tried was MIDI, as this would have been around 1983 and MIDI was just getting started. So, yeah, it was primitive at best, and I shouldn’t be surprised that things are better now. I just genuinely had no idea one way or the other.
Yep, Variaxes are use-specific - if you aren’t playing them as a Variax, they don’t havee normal pickups, etc. And, based on the few I have played, they feel and play like the cheap-ass Far East-made guitars that they are - kinda like so-so Squiers. I have read threads on line where guys move the Variax guts into a better guitar - I think some makers do that - but unless I was in clear, gigging need of a Swiss Army guitar that could swap between voices and tunings, I would not be interested…
Here you go - linkto Gibson site. They started off with a Blue/Silverburst as a first-run limited edition or something, but have started making them in more traditional colors.
Basically, they bought rights to a German-invented system that uses special tuning pegs and bridge/tailpiece. While the pegs are as light or lighter than normal tuners, they have little engines in them that can move them.
One of a Les Paul’s normal four controls becomes the Robot Guitar control - when you set it for Standard Tuning or an Open tuning, it works with the tuners to physically re-tune your guitar in a sec or two.
In concept, I love it as a gigging musician - it would be great if you could switch tunings on the fly on the same guitar between songs. As a homebody player, I could also see liking it because I rarely play in some Tunings (like DADGAD) and don’t want to have to leave a guitar in that tuning and don’t like the hassle of changing more than a string or two for an open tuning.
However -
Robots are not good for at-home tinkering. If you break it, it must go back to the shop. I prefer my guitars to be tinker-able, like a hot rod I can mess with vs. a computerized car of today that I couldn’t work on if I wanted to.
They have had issues - some guys reported fairly early that the Robot control (i.e., what used to be a Tone knob before) didn’t hold up to a lot of use. It came off in their hands - and the only way to fix it was back to the shop. I am rough on my guitars on the best of days, so a delicate flower is of no use to me. I bet with my corrosive sweat (eww) I would trash the circuitry, too…
So they seem cool in concept, but I wouldn’t feel good trusting it as my main gigging guitar…
Well, I had a touch of GAS today, so I stopped at Sam Ash after work today and picked up a new “box guitar”, a Takamine GS330S. It’s been a long time since I owned an acoustic
Is it possible to have a warm, rich, bright and responsive tone?
Strum over the sound hole and it is quite bright and responsive, make contact with the strings farther away from the bridge and you have a warmer tone…
I have only had this guitar for about 2 weeks, and I am in love…
First of all, very cool - glad you love it; that is the most important thing.
May I geek out for a minute about tone? If you all can’t stand this type of cork-sniffing, please let me know.
What you are describing is not the same as what I am describing. Well, they overlap, but aren’t the same. You are describing how responsive it is to changes in your pick location and attack. Some guitars have less variation and others have a lot - depending on what you need out of your guitar, you may prefer either. The fact that you have what you perceive as a responsive guitar - and you want one - is very cool.
What I was asking about was the guitar’s fundamental tone. Folks can argue about what factors are the biggest contributor’s to an acoustic guitar’s tone, but some logical candidates include:
basic design, including the design of the bracking glued to the underside of the top, neck scale length, sound hole size and location, etc.
materials used - type and quality
Build quality and set up
Builders try to strike balances between these characteristics to dial up certain types of tone with a certain build quality at a certain price point.
Cedar is known as a soft top wood - you can flake it with your fingernail more easily vs. some harder spruces. **Glen Hansard **(of the movie *Once *and the band the Frames) is known for his cedar-topped Tak that he has strummed massive holes into (link to pic).
But cedar is valued because it has a “warm” response - the relative softness tends to absorb more highs and leaving more mids present in the tone. So if you were to strum a cedar-topped guitar vs. a Euro spruce guitar, you would expect the spruce guitar to be brighter and “ring-ier” vs. a cedar, where the notes would sound more warm and round and not quite sustain/ring out as long (please note - that is NOT a bad thing at all - many players prefer cedar guitars for that very reason because the “sit in the mix” with other instruments better - same with mahogany-bodied guitars, which are warmer vs. rosewood…)
Okay - sorry for the geek out; just wondering about that guitar given the construction. Cork-sniffing done for now…
At first “glance”, I would say warm and rich (and full). But that may have a lot to do with my own “touch”. Which is cool, I like warm and rich anyway.
