Re: Yamaha G10 (was RE: midi'd bass)

[mech <mech@m3ch.net>]

At 11:58 AM -0500 2/1/06, Tony Douglas wrote:
>
>All interesting stuff in your post though - I haven't bumped into 
>the Midibase/Cyberbass anywhere. Did Yamaha try something similar to 
>this with the G10 ? Pitch extraction on a guitar is bad enough, but 
>I shudder to think how it would work with a bass ...

I don't know enough about the Cyberbass to make an informed 
comparison.  However, I still use the G10 as one of my main MIDI 
controllers.

The G10 doesn't do any pitch extraction whatsoever.  In fact all 6 
strings are the same gauge -- usually .015-.017 "G" strings -- and 
tuned to the same note (which can get a little disorienting 
occasionally, since all the strings feel exactly the same).  It's 
main method of pitch derivation is rather to use ultrasonics to sense 
the position of the finger on each string as it is being fretted. 
This is combined with a vibrational sensor that tells the unit when 
the string is plucked as well as measuring the amount of pitch bend.

If I remember correctly, Yamaha's promotional literature always 
touted a third method: that the frets were wired and contact sensing. 
However, I've had the neck off of it a bunch several times doing 
setups, and it looks like just a plain old fretboard to me.

The G10's tracking logic is pretty close to the same methods you find 
on the SynthAxe, as well as some of the early Axon controllers.  Not 
sure exactly how that stacks up against the Cyberbass, though.

        --m.

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