Let's Invent Something Cool!

[rickymix]

Or maybe it already exists?
Hi guys! Is there an audio to MIDI translator plug-in for
ProTools? There should be, if only for laying down scratch parts;
drums, bass, melody lines, etc. in a light weight laptop ProTools
system without having to drag around a little MIDI keyboard or
step-program.
In MIDI's heyday there used to be all kinds of boxes that would
input a mono audio signal and spit out MIDI. They'd use them on
trumpet or sax or you could even just sing into them and it would spit
out violin or steel drums or whatever you wanted. Good fun.
Even cooler for us guitarists would be a plug-in that could
convert the output of one of those Roland GK-2A guitar pickups into
MIDI *AND* automatically get rid of the delay lag that those things
are cursed with. It strikes me that a computer plug-in could easily
do that type of processing without having to drag around that big,
expensive GR-33 box.
Anyone here have the programming chops to design such a plug-in?
I bet you could sell it to Digidesign or Roland or their competitors.
I would think there would be a substantial market for a MIDI guitar
system that finally recorded properly without any delay. I know I'd
love to have one for my travel rig, even if it was just monophonic.
Cheers, Rick Novak.

[David Morton]

In article >,
(rickymix) wrote:

> Even cooler for us guitarists would be a plug-in that could
> convert the output of one of those Roland GK-2A guitar pickups into
> MIDI *AND* automatically get rid of the delay lag that those things
> are cursed with. It strikes me that a computer plug-in could easily
> do that type of processing without having to drag around that big,
> expensive GR-33 box.
> Anyone here have the programming chops to design such a plug-in?
> I bet you could sell it to Digidesign or Roland or their competitors.
> I would think there would be a substantial market for a MIDI guitar
> system that finally recorded properly without any delay. I know I'd
> love to have one for my travel rig, even if it was just monophonic.

It's been done, and it doesn't even need a GK-2A:

http://www.lateralsol.com/index.htm

[Mike Rivers]

In article > writes:

> Hi guys! Is there an audio to MIDI translator plug-in for
> ProTools?

> In MIDI's heyday there used to be all kinds of boxes that would
> input a mono audio signal and spit out MIDI. They'd use them on
> trumpet or sax or you could even just sing into them and it would spit
> out violin or steel drums or whatever you wanted. Good fun.

Most of them didn't work very well at all. There were a couple of
exceptions but they were very expensive and didn't catch on because of
the cost. Mostly, they were performance instruments that you needed to
learn to play. I remember one (though I don't remember the name now)
that was a voice-to-MIDI converter that used a collar around your
throat as well as a microphone to get input from the action of your
throat muscles. It worked well but only people who used their voice as
an instrument and make a lot of money (Bobby McFerrin comes to mind)
could afford it.

> Even cooler for us guitarists would be a plug-in that could
> convert the output of one of those Roland GK-2A guitar pickups into
> MIDI *AND* automatically get rid of the delay lag that those things
> are cursed with.

There have been some position-to-MIDI guitars that depend on contact
between a string and a fret to make a note, but they can't do slides,
and in order to detect (and reastically react to) bending a string,
there needs to be some other sensor. I recall one that used a
sonar-like technique. Again, they never really worked well enough so
that enough people would buy them to make them affordable. When
dealing with an audio-to-MIDI conversion, you can't get away from the
delay - the system needs at least one cycle to decide what the pitch is
unless it has another clue (like a string contacting a fret). There
have been systems to mitigate this, like the Yamaha G10 that used the
same (light) gage string all the way across, but they didn't go over
very well either. Too difficult for the casual guitarist to learn to
play well.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

[Mike Rivers]

In article > writes:

> It's been done, and it doesn't even need a GK-2A:
> http://www.lateralsol.com/index.htm

Now THAT was a total waste of time. Consider this a virtual bill for
$100 to cover the hour I played around with it.

Didn't you read Rick's dream of:

> > Even cooler for us guitarists would be a plug-in that could
> > convert the output of one of those Roland GK-2A guitar pickups into
> > MIDI *AND* automatically get rid of the delay lag that those things
> > are cursed with.

Using my VX Pocket card and my newly discovered Microsoft Wavetable
Softsynth (which may indeed be causing the lag problem), there was
nearly a full second of delay between plucking a note and hearing it.
In addition, it was far too confused with what comes out of my guitar.
Now I might not be the cleanest picker in town, but the Casio MIDI
guitar (which is what I used to check out this program) makes much
better decisions about what it's supposed to hear.

Maybe I've just discovered "latency." Sure glad I don't have to use
that technology except when I'm messing around.





--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

[Jim Williams]

(rickymix) wrote in message >...
> Or maybe it already exists?
> Hi guys! Is there an audio to MIDI translator plug-in for
> ProTools? There should be, if only for laying down scratch parts;
> drums, bass, melody lines, etc. in a light weight laptop ProTools
> system without having to drag around a little MIDI keyboard or
> step-program.
> In MIDI's heyday there used to be all kinds of boxes that would
> input a mono audio signal and spit out MIDI. They'd use them on
> trumpet or sax or you could even just sing into them and it would spit
> out violin or steel drums or whatever you wanted. Good fun.
> Even cooler for us guitarists would be a plug-in that could
> convert the output of one of those Roland GK-2A guitar pickups into
> MIDI *AND* automatically get rid of the delay lag that those things
> are cursed with. It strikes me that a computer plug-in could easily
> do that type of processing without having to drag around that big,
> expensive GR-33 box.
> Anyone here have the programming chops to design such a plug-in?
> I bet you could sell it to Digidesign or Roland or their competitors.
> I would think there would be a substantial market for a MIDI guitar
> system that finally recorded properly without any delay. I know I'd
> love to have one for my travel rig, even if it was just monophonic.
> Cheers, Rick Novak.

I've been using a great little box called the Axon 101 for a few
years. It's a roland pickup style midi converter that does full
polyphonic or you can use the 1/4 " input jack for mono midi
conversion with any source, mic, guitar, recorded tracks, anything.
This box is fast with a 2 ms delay and won't screw up if confused,
which is rare. You can strum and it tracks. You can pop harmonics and
it tracks. You can do 6 string whammy bar dives and it tracks. You can
play slide and it tracks. You can plug in bass and it tracks. If you
play a note low and slide it up the neck as fast as possible, it
tracks and plays every note clean.
One thing I really like is the splits capability. Besides the usual
string/fret divisions, this box senses where you pick to feed midi
data out. You can set up 3 patches and depending on where you pick, it
changes patches.
I have a Fernandes "Sustainer" guitar set up for it. This overcomes
the dreaded "midi note off" problem. I can dial up a tough Jimmy Smith
Hammond patch and hold a chord for 4 bars. Now that's fun!
Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

[rickymix]

Hi guys,
I just sent the guy at lateralsol this email and invited him here
for discussion;

In a thread called, "Let's Invent Something Cool!", I recently
posted to rec.audio.pro suggesting the creation of an audio-to-MIDI
plug-in for ProTools, and someone referred me to your product. Wow,
your Guitar-synth software looks amazing! Very nicely done. It's
almost exactly what I had in mind.
Unfortunately, since you're Windows based and most of the audio
world is Mac based, it probably would be very clunky, (at best) trying
to use your software with ProTools, Digital Performer, etc. In your
FAQ you state that you have no plans to create a Mac version, but I
would urge you to reconsider.
There would be a substantial market for your product if you could
implement it as a ProTools plug-in, especially for those of us with
portable laptop systems, since it would eliminate the need for
dragging around a MIDI keyboard weighing several pounds. Also, it
would be great to be able to easily double or replace existing audio
tracks with MIDI sounds. As you probably know, this is already
commonly being done with drum sounds. But it would be cool to also be
able to, say, double a bass guitar part with a Moog or B-3 bass sound,
or replace a piano melody with strings or steel drums or whatever.
Also, such a plug-in could eliminate once and for all the latency
problem which has cursed MIDI guitar recording since the beginning.
This could be done by automatically compensating for the lag time,
more for lower notes and less for higher notes. There should also be
an option for the MIDI notes to be spit out at octaves lower, (or
higher) than the original audio. For example you could play a bass
part on the high strings of a guitar with very little delay time. And
of course you should be able to blend in some of the actual guitar
sound for monitoring purposes while recording parts, for the sake of
performance.
I hope you consider creating such a plug-in. I'm going to post
this to the thread in rec.audio.pro for comment and I invite you to
reply there, or of course to my home email. If you're not familiar
with rec.audio.pro, it's an amazing collection of some of the top
engineers, composers, and equipment manufacturers in the music
business, all the way through to beginning musicians with their first
home studios. Really a nice forum. I hope you join us there for
discussion.
Cheers, Rick Novak.

(David Morton) wrote:
> http://www.lateralsol.com/index.htm