midi midi midi. and arduino... aaaand my rig.. n'stuff

[Volitions Advocate]

first .. pics:

Alright then...

I just got my foot controller and synthesizer in the mail so i'm excited to start experimenting with this stuff I've been dreaming about the last 2 years.

The Midi part is pretty straight forward.  I use the GK pickup + 13 pin midi cable to plug into the GI-20 (pictured sitting on top of my rack case because I haven't got a shelf for it yet), then midi out of the GI 20 into the Blofeld, and Guitar out (as in the normal signal carried in one of the pins of the 13 pin cable, unaltered) into the input of the GT-10.  the rest follows as normal guitar. (the stompboxes in the pictuers are just place holders, I'm not actually using those specific ones in that specifc order).  Then I'm going to have to patch the FC 300 into the GI-20 and figure out how to make sure the through messages get to the blofeld.  I'm a little newb at midi routing.  and the problem is that the blofled only has a midi in, there is no out or thru. (the only thing I don't like about it)

Then I'm going to build an Arduino interface to rack with the GI-20 for use with any other kind of sensor I can think of for more and more interesting effects both aurally and visually.  http://www.arduino.cc www.sensorwiki.org

I think I'l have to get some sort of a midi bridge or splitter or whatever to just plug everything into one device and route it from there.  especially because I need to use the FC 300 for controlling video and parameters inside MaxMSP as well.

then hopefully I can get something going like the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqZNeDGmgVY

except without the pretension that seems to accompany many of the university professors I've met that are into this kind of stuff.  I don't understand why it can't be considered art if it makes any sense.

anyway.. picture that video above, but with a full rock band playing actual music you want to listen to.  Assuming you like my particular brand of rock musick

 

[bpmorton777]

Hey

I hope what was on that video is not your goal.

what was on that video was utter crap that could have been done by a 4 year old banging on a sampler.  Please tell me you will learn how to play midi devices from your guitar that really sound like music and not noise.

The GK pickup is a very useful tool. I use it for recording double bass parts for stuff (dont have a double bass) and other stuff more synth related.

Frip and Holdsworth are the guys you should be listening too for guitar-synth inspiration.

Brian

 

[Volitions Advocate]

I hope what was on that video is not your goal.

what was on that video was utter crap that could have been done by a 4 year old banging on a sampler.  Please tell me you will learn how to play midi devices from your guitar that really sound like music and not noise.

[quote author=me]except without the pretension that seems to accompany many of the university professors I've met that are into this kind of stuff.  I don't understand why it can't be considered art if it makes any sense.[/quote]

as in... stuff that sounds like... nothing.  This guy came to give a guest lecture on what he calls "creating instruments"  and it is very pretentious.  I"m not talking about making squeals and ambient echoes and calling it "music" or "art".  That youtube clip was mostly just demonstrating what I could do with MaxMSP, on the video side.  I asked this professor guy if he had any real applications for his research into this kind of stuff and he just looked at me like "what are you talking about? its art!"  which I think is BS.  I don't want to sit in an auditorium at a university and listen to a "freely composed piece of sound art" that lasts for 45 minutes.  its...  ...  well its kind of like abandoning all that work he put into learning about MUSIC.  because its completely devoid of all tonality or even modality, in any system whether its western or asian or middle eastern or whatever.  Putting microphones on a piano, routing them through MaxMSP to make cool effects and then throwing dinner plates on the piano strings does not constitute an instrument.  That's my take on it anyway.

The guy was nice, and he is helping me figure out how to do this stuff.  but I just think that the pretense of it all its a little easy to choke on.

This Arduino stuff is basically just a way to get any kind of sensor data into your computer.  and If I can get it into the computer I can use it in MaxMSP to alter my sounds.  You basically use any kind of sensor you can find.  Like magnetic proximity sensors used in industrial machines or airplanes, or even biometeric sensors that measure electric signals in your muscles or your heart beat.  Just interesting stuff.  I know there is a standard type of infrared sensor that functions exactly like a D-Beam in everyway that is used for some industrial application. and they cost about 15 dollars.  so you buy one, wire it up to your arduino interface which goes USB into your computer. then make a patch in MaxMSP that makes the data it receives turn into a pitch bend or something.. you just wave your hand infront of this thing and now you dont need to spend $1K on a Roland synth or $200 on an alesis air FX (which I already did anyway but you get my point)

I want to use this technology to enhance my music... not for "research" into "free composition" and "instrument creation".  I just think it would be wicked cool to put biometric sensors on the arms of a drummer and have the video output somehow messed around by the signals from them and displayed on a 30 foot screen behind him while he's playing a drum solo.. Thats some cool stuff!

and then of course there is the vanilla guitar-midi stuff.. which excites me as equally.

I have a plan to get some pre-rendered video to go along with our live show.  And with the midi guitar I could use max MSP to program a tap tempo for the video. so if the band gets going a little faster and ends up out of sync I can have the Ab on the high e string be the tap tempo or something.. so that I'd never have to go somewhere other than my guitar to make sure its always in sync.

Thats idealized of course but ideas are what gets this kind of thing flowing.

It's exciting.

Which is another reason I'm getting into this Arduino stuff.

 

[bpmorton777]

ok, I get you now.

reminds my of this art show I saw on TV once. the artist is sitting on the side of this giant ash tray he made...the thing was full of butts and garbage. he was just sitting there acting all cool, flicking his ashes into this giant ashtray while they interviewed him. total BS and not art in IMO in any way.

Brian

 

[jackthehack]

Can't remember, think it might have been Warhol whom once said something along the lines of: "Art is whatever you can get somebody to pay for...."

 

[Volitions Advocate]

and yet a lot of these guys I've been talking to figure that if somebody will pay for  it, it must not be art.  :doh:

 

[kboman]

Art is what you want it to be I think.

I'm much more interested in this rig! What does the Bloefeld do?

"as in the normal signal carried in one of the pins of the 13 pin cable, unaltered" - I didn't know that's how that works, so thanks for that. Hehe just wait 'til the George L die hards hear about it

 

[Volitions Advocate]

Brian is a little more experienced with it than I am so he would be able to answer questions more easily than I could maybe.

but with the 13 pin cable.. there are 6 pins, one for each string, then 6 more are for the controls. like the midi volume, the patch up/down buttons and the switch that lets you choose between, midi, normal guitar, or both.  then the 13th pin is the one that is connected to your regular guitar pickups.  In the case of a roland GK pickup you actually physically plug your guitar into the pickup itself.  so the normal guitar signal kind of piggybacks on the 13 pin cable, and when it reaches the interface that converts the audio into midi, that 13th pin is routed away from all that to an output jack that just outputs your regular pickups without any sound alteration.  So you can plug that into your regular guitar signal chain.

The blofeld is nothing super fancy or new.  It's just a desktop synthesizer.  If you look at any of these big famous synths you'll find that many of them have a version without the keyboard.  Since even when we're talking about a keyboard synth, interally it's only midi.  the keys are sending midi information to the synth module,  its' just all contained within the same housing.  So some companies build a module w/o the keyboard that you just have to plug a midi cable into.  This thing is designed for a midi keyboard or another synth that has midi out.  It's just instead of plugging it into a keyboard I'm plugging it into my GI-20, which converts the audio from my guitars divided pickup into midi for a normal 5 pin midi cable.

I went with the blofeld because it had the best price/feature ratio, and it sounded great.  it has 25 voices, which is important because for proper guitar midi you need a separate channel for each string, otherwise you'll never get to do things like pitch bending properly if all 6 strings are on the same channel.  so each channel goes to a separate voice,  for the moment I've just got all the voices playing the same sound.  I haven' t played around with the blofeld much yet,  but so far it sounds pretty awesome.  It'll sound pretty neat to slam a chord with a nice thick and warm distortion on it, and at the same time have the synthesizer arpeggiate that chord.