Midi pickups for steel

Joel Meginsky · Post by **Joel Meginsky** » 10 Jan 2012 7:12 am

Does anyone know of the existence of currently made midi pickups and modules for the 10 or 12 string steel? I know of Steel Rider in the past, and I know Ro;and makes them now for the 6 string guitar.

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 10 Jan 2012 8:00 am

There is the Sonuus G2M guitar to MIDI converter.
You plug your guitar in one end and the other end has MIDI out and thru.
However it is monophonic, not polyphonic. It can handle only one note at a time.
I picked mine up for less than $100.

Ernie Dunlap · Post by **Ernie Dunlap** » 11 Jan 2012 11:17 am

How fast will it track is there a time delay?

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 11 Jan 2012 11:25 am

The specifications state:
MIDI Latency: 16ms to 30ms depending on note and characteristics of input signal

Ernie Dunlap · Post by **Ernie Dunlap** » 11 Jan 2012 12:09 pm

Would you please tell me in english,before I go buy one.

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 11 Jan 2012 12:13 pm

If you can't decifer what I wrote, I don't think you need one.

Ernie Dunlap · Post by **Ernie Dunlap** » 11 Jan 2012 12:27 pm

Well I don't want to build one I want to buy a product that will Produce I have tried others in the past with Midi pickup but could not keep up with fast notes (Does it work or Not)

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 11 Jan 2012 12:52 pm

From the spec. sheet:
"The G2M is great for sequencing natural sounding bass lines but if you try to perform very fast notes on the lowest string, you may have some tracking issues. To avoid this, play the notes on higher octaves where tracking is faster and latency is the lowest."

Joel Meginsky · Post by **Joel Meginsky** » 11 Jan 2012 6:40 pm

I was talking about something similar to Steel Rider with a sound module, which would be polyphonic and could track the sliding sound as well as "jumping" to the nearest half step. I've tried contacting Roland about the possibility of modifying their 6 string midi system, with no success. It seems possible, and marketable.

Ernie Dunlap · Post by **Ernie Dunlap** » 11 Jan 2012 6:55 pm

I am waiting for the perfected model. I guess we still dont have it. It would be nice to play an instrument with sampled sounds.Thanks for you help.

Dave Grafe · Post by **Dave Grafe** » 11 Jan 2012 6:56 pm

Some things a computer still can't do and this is one of them, the issues involved with sensing multiple micro-tones in real-time and translating them into MIDI information are still unsolved by humans or their computers.

Robert Parent · Post by **Robert Parent** » 12 Jan 2012 2:32 pm

Ernie Dunlap wrote:Well I don't want to build one I want to buy a product that will Produce I have tried others in the past with Midi pickup but could not keep up with fast notes (Does it work or Not)

The delay time varies with the frequency of the input note being converted. The higher in frequency the note, the faster the conversion time. I tend to think of the delay times as close to what is a slap-back echo.

With MIDI, single note riffs work best.

The only way I know of to eliminate some of the delay is to use a unit similar to what KORG produced many years back (believe it was called a K-1). It used a MIDI pickup with individual pickups and amplifiers for each string. The conversion is the same as standard pitch to MIDI but where there was a saving in delay time is that the unit also contained a build in sound generator. This eliminated the need to send a MIDI serial message to an external conversion box and the related delays associated with that. There will always be a sample delay time based on the frequency of the note when using pitch to MIDI converters.

Robert

Jim Palenscar · Post by **Jim Palenscar** » 12 Jan 2012 9:03 pm

I play a SteelRider 12 string version and have another one for sale at shop in a rack along with a midi module, pickup, etc as well as a 6 string version. They are a bit of a pain but not terribly hard to get used to. Buddy Emmons used one on his Christmas album/CD however far be it for me to imply that your mileage will be the same as his

.They are not cheap but I've had mine for about 18 years and no real problem other than the tracking issues that, in my humble opinion, must be put up with until something better comes along. I've pushed for various companies to update/produce one for the steel guitar however the economics prohibit such a venture as a for-profit endeavor due to the extremely small market size.

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