Re: $280 Midi Guitar Coming from Fender

[Bill Fox <billyfox@soundscapes.us>]

On 11/7/10 10:26 AM, Mark Showalter wrote:
> Hello Andy,
>
> I was referring to the use of a whammy bar, if I understood the post I 
>was responding to. The GR-30 can be set per patch to use either fixed 
>pitches or to respond to bends,&  it does a fairly good job of it. The 
>problem with using a whammy bar would be that all of the strings would be 
>varying in pitch&  that would be a lot of info to try to track. I also 
>think that there would be no way for the MIDI synth to know which string 
>was actually being played&  it would probably generate a lot of false or 
>ghost notes that the player would not want. Or just simply give up the 
>ghost entirely........
I suppose that depends upon how certain parameters are set.  If each 
string's info is sent all on one MIDI channel, then, yes, that would be 
a total cluster-frell.  However, setting each string to transmit on it's 
own MIDI channel, then any pitch bend on any or all strings can be 
handled... within reason, I'm sure.  A synth receiving on six channels 
ought to track.  If pitch bend is due to fingers bending a few strings a 
little bit, then Andy's reply is in full force.  I'd wager that a slight 
vibrato from a whammy bar could also be tracked well enough.  However, I 
suspect (but have no empirical data) that a total dive bomb would cause 
at least a little havoc.  Does anyone have the hardware to try out such 
a thing?  :)  I'd like to hear your test results...

Cheers,

Bill