Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'MIDI'.
-
Hi folks Thought I'd post my review here, No pics sorry. The battery was dead on my phone at the time of arrival and I was too interested in playing that waiting for a charge or shooting. The instrument came in two boxes. Once for shipping and another which can be used as a case. It's a hard plastic / paper firmer than cardboard and also thinner with a handle. Inside the box two usb cables (one mini to mini the other mini to standard) And a wallwart power supply. The charger has connector caps for different countries like Line 6. The battery is internal and can run up to 6 hours for standard traditional midi playing. It also has an 8th inch (mini headphone stereo out. The instrument has no internal sounds. It does have speakers and can be used as an external sound card to play out everything capable in your device (ios, android, mac, pc) It's not especially loud but loud enough for living room, bedroom practicing. Software is available for ios, mac and pc to define the patches/presets as it can operate in many modes. That being said you don't need the preset editor if you just want to play. Simply connect via usb to your device and it automatically installs and is recognized by your hosts. After having numerous midi usb devices which were always a pain to set up the drivers this was a godsend. Plugged it in, my computer installed the drivers seamlessly and off I went. All of my hosts instantly recognized it as a midi in and audio out source. Getting back to the Instrument One App Editor for a minute. It's extremely easy to use even without instructions. https://artiphon.com/use-the-app/ While tilt synth works for mac it doesn't for pc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abvYuJ0Rk08 Artiphon also supplies "staff picks" sounds that maximize the MPE features for both Mac and PC. For PC you'll need the Kontakt Player (Yes the free one works just fine) On with instrument one on pc's you use channels 2~7 to set up the mpe. The kontakt player loads these staff picks accordingly. About playing the instrument one. If only they would include a strap rather than having to order it separately. I just placed my order but they are on back order. It does not have conventional strap buttons like on a guitar. (that's my only caveat) The instrument one is not intended to replace just a guitar. It has a solid but not too heavy weight. It can be played like a viola, a cello or upright bass a lap steel or flat on a surface like a grid/linnstrument instrument. The neck which has only 12 frets but a "capo" feature which can be used to transpose by half step or octave just beyond the 12 fret with up/down markers. The feel of the neck has a fairly thick depth and flat back is thicker than my classical guitar but I'd wager about the same size feel as a full size classical guitar. The fretboard radius is about 10.5. You'll prolly need to bone up on your classical approach to fully appreciate it as a guitar.. Wrist parallel to the fretboard with your thumb centered in the middle of the back. (not wrapped around. The scale length is quite long. Comparing it to my 25.5 tele from the nut the 12th fret on the instrument one lands on the 15th fret of the tele. You're not going to be doing Paul Gilbert wide stretches on this nor are you likely to be doing stretch Johnny Smith or Ted Greene type chords. The fret spacing is not logarithmic they are equal much like a "button" ztar but wider apart. That being said me having smaller hands (5'6") had no problems with conventional barre chords and though it was a little bit of a reach out of my comfort zone I as able to stretch to five fret scaling. The "strings" are equal in lhickness and are a rubberized material. Much like a baby z (yep that's me) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxMHMUGEqdk&feature However remember the neck is considerably wider and thicker. The strings are slightly wider and higher than a YouRock. Which makes them more comfortable for hammerons pull offs, barring chords. Between the string spacing, scale length neck width this can be a godsend for those with larger hands having to deal with open chords or barring/scaling above the 7th fret. Regardless of your hand size you will need to be prepared to make adaptions to technique. It takes considerably less time then on other non-guitar midi guitar designed instruments. Also remember it's not intended to be solely for guitar player and guitar technique. About the "Bridge" string triggers. They are hard plastic not rubberized between the string spacing and the hardness of the downward push it's not ideal for my Knock and roll technique on a babyz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqs2SlmCAhk Trust me I was hurting trying to pull that off on the instrument one. They are also not ideal for classical finger style technique as they are not wide enough. they do have lateral (side to side) flexibility. Which does allow for a wider variety of techniques and expression (like alternate picking) this up/down as it were flexible tension makes it ideal for flat picking (though requires some time for adaption. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSD9UlvCl4M With regards to desktop performance. If you are totally into grid feel you will not like the nurbs that are the strings. That being said if you've ever played a dobro, pedal steel or simply laid a guitar flat and tried to tap on it this is the one. For years and years I've tried to play both of my ztars (babyz and z6) in a laid down position either on my lap or on a desk. No matter what it was impossible to balance properly. That was my great hope with the linnstrument. Something that I could lay flat and play. The instrument one due to it's flat back neck design smaller shape and unique "desktop" "headstock" allow it to sit comfortably in ones lap, on the floor or on a desk/table. I've actually spent very little time with tabletop/lap positioning and am becoming quite accustomed to the approach. No it's not a linnstrument. In some ways on a tabletop it's easier to negotiate. Although I wish there were fret markers visible on the top. All in all I'm loving it. Though I have to say... not comming from a mandolin / uke background I'm not enjoying supporting the neck/body with my fretting hand while trying to pick and brace the instrument with my body and hand.
- 5 replies
-
- midi
- instrument
- (and 4 more)
-
I Feel I'm In The 'midi' Of Everything (Frustration No. 139)
justsoulin posted a blog entry in justsoulin's Blog
So, I got a DAW setup - yeh, party time. I got all my plugins to link (well 99% of them) correctly - yeh, party time. I got a Novation Launchpad hooked-up and making noise- yeh, party time. But there hasn't been any time for a party You see 'between' each potential party-time of the first three lines, are a lot of things each respective company doesn't tell you. How could it with all the permutations of OS, DAW's, Plugins, Soundbank file types, Sound Card setups, Keyboards, Controllers etc. Well it could go a long way if truth be told !!!!! Take this Presonus example; they offer you a list of compatible and tested 'external devices'. But if your 'things' aren't in the list, then you set them up manually. To do this you choose which category your 'thing' fits under: New Keyboard New Instrument New Control Surface. But that creates a problem, since if your 'surface controller' acts as a Midi interface and you add it as a surface controller, it will not act as the Midi interface it is supposed to. So you have to add it as a keyboard. They don't tell you that, but they could (and if they do, I haven't been able to find it 'from them'). Then take the Novation Launchpad problem. They made it to work with Ableton Live, so that DJ's could perform amazing live sets. DJ's seems to have united to the Launchpad and have been busy creating various maps etc that will allow them to use it with FL Studio, VDJ and a host of other DJ type programs. But it has the ability to be used like a Midi keyboard, just pads to hit instead of keys, and to organise the pads in the way you want (called mapping). So if you have EZDrummer, you can create a Midi drum track quite easily. But there's little help in this area, probably in one respect due to all the permutations of OS, DAW's, Plugins, Soundbank file types, Sound Card setups, Keyboards, Controllers etc. But it doesn't stop the frustration of knowing it 'will' do the job you want it to do, but taking a lot longer to work out how to. Couple that with the hours spent going through say Youtube and people's so called tutorials that are just them showing off what they can make the Launchpad do without saying how, and finding out way, way down the line about how you setup the wrong permutations of connecting and routing a Midi external device .............. you end up not feeling very much in the party mood. People create these amazing 'map' files, but they seem to omit where you put them to work. All these little types of things just mount up in frustration and time spent tracking down answers that offer solutions aswell as joining multiple forums to ask basic questions that leave you in 'limbo land', as you wait for days for a kind person to answer your question. It's no wonder really that musicians walk away from mixing and production - they'd have no time left to make music So, if you're the kind of person who gets a new toy and opens the box and plays with it without reading the instruction manual first (requiring some doctorate in language interpretation), or you have zero PC / technical skills, or you have no patience .......... I advise you to think carefully before going down this path I mean, install Ableton and be left wondering why the 64 bit version will not utilise your 32 bit plugins, I dare you I bet you're glad this is 'my' mountain to climb now Onwards and upwards ......... as they say! -
So after much starving and car repairs and biting the bullet selling guitars to pay for teeth and the tax man eating me alive... I happen to have a three paycheck month (getting paid every two weeks) I've long debated about the instrument 1 from artiphon. Mostly thinking...is this just another toy? Along with how will I adjust to only 12 frets. Nonetheless it's on the way and should arrive in about 2 weeks.
-
Hi! I live in a dormatory and therefore need to find a way to play around with my RC-30 loop station quietly - for now my setup is this: Guitar -> Pedals -> RC-30 -> Amp -> Headphones | | PC (Drum pad and midi) The problem with this setup is that the effect pedals going through the RC-30 sounds awful, and the amp is making the drum pad & midi sound awful. THIS setup sounds way way better: Guitar -> Pedals -> Amp -> RC-30 -> Headphones | | PC (Drum pad and midi) The problem with THIS setup is that the mono/L output from the RC-30 doesn't work with my headphones, the sound is only in my left ear Can you help me?
-
So I might have some extra money coming my way in the next few months, I'm looking to buy myself something as a Christmas gift to myself. I've got the chance to buy a zb2 which is an instrument I've been in love with since about 2001 but never could afford. It's a 12x24 grid layout tuned to 4ths which is roughly 6.5 Octaves but if you split it in half you get 2 5.5 octaves and you can even split it into three and still get 3 5 octave "Zones" It's finely programable and is based on starr labs ztars (Of which I'm quite familiar with. When starr labs was selling them they went for $5,000 I have the opportunity to pick it up for 2k As far as I'm aware there are only 10 ZB2's in existence. One owned by Alan Holdsworth. It doesn't however mean they are collectors value as I've seen the same one on the market for 3 years now. So the resale value is very low. The other option is the linnstrument. The linnstrument is only an 8x25 is capable of only doing one split and doesn't have the features (knobs, joystick, touch-strip) or the programability of the zb2 What the linnstrument does offer is x/y control within the note region. easy "frettless" slides left and right and two other parameters for up and down (like modulation) giving the linnstrument full aftertouch in ways that cannot be created on a conventional keyboard or even the new "seaboard" instrument. The linnstrument is a brand new instrument released this year. It's mass produced and so far as I can tell they aren't going up for resell on the used market. They are very popular with "touch" musicians (chapman stick et all) And a number of my fellow "ztarists" have made the conversion to the linnstrument without looking back. If I had the financial means I'd get one of each. The ZB2 for harmony and the linnstrument for solo's That isn't going to happen. I've given myself till December to decide. And in doing so the decision may already be made for me. As the zb2 I intend to purchase is up for auction on ebay (even though it hasn't sold in 4 years (relisted)
-
From the album: Audio stuff
This track would not be anywhere near as frustrating to work on if I owned a MIDI controller of some sort. -
Anyone able to help me? I have Samplitude Music Studio 15 and I am trying to use drum kits from Kontakt by drum map. I can select the drum kit from kontakt in the output in Samplitude.......... but when I create a midi object and open a drum map it is all of Samplitudes drums
-
Educational tip for ableton live midi major scale composition. You can use this technique with any other DAW around. Cheers!
-
- ableton live
- ableton
-
(and 8 more)
Tagged with:
-
Personal Thoughts on Humanization of midi tracks. Can of worms? Probably. A bit of back ground on myself. I played in my own and others bands thru out my teen years into my 30’s. I finally can afford Logic. I am retired. I'm back into making music. During this time I was also learning theory composition, arranging, and songwriting. The Songwriting being my favorite. Now I have time to play. I have logic and other music apps for my Macbook and my iPod. I score all my music, I do not do Classical but Rock. I started sequencing using a Roland MC 101 and a TR909. I wrote everything on Paper then programmed it into the TR 909 and the MC101 synced with Midi. While doing this I was playing in bands. No on to how I feel about humanization. Neither the TR909 or MC101 had humanization. Logic does. I am not a fan. When I score something that is the way I would like it played. If I wanted it played off the notes, etc. I'd play it myself. I think the people hollering about humanization should go ahead with it if that’s what they want. But don’t bitch about the “midi sound†of other peoples work. After years of dealing with “Human Players†I'm Thankful for my machines. Who are at the ready to work don’t show up on cocaine, heroin, various pills and liquors. Actually do show up and are not late, do not have to “Play it their way.†And are capable of playing what I have written. So as for humanization no thank you. Tried it don’t like it. If you like it that’s fine with me I won’t complain about you using it.
- 7 replies
-
- Humanization
- machine
-
(and 1 more)
Tagged with:
-
The other day I was seeking out overs on the tyros (It's not in my budget) The yamaha tyros is considered the cream of the crop in auto accompianment. Just for the record I hate the redundant 1 measure loop that comprises an auto accompianment system. None the less I do a great deal of two and three part arrangements these days (bass/chord, chord/melody/ bass/chord/melody) and... It's work to make things happen. Sometimes I wish I could break things down to simpler forms and get on with the process of writing/learning songs more quickly I've been thinking about buying OneManBand v11 http://www.1manband.nl/omb/index.htm. I've got omb original but it sucks as you have to use split points as opposed to midi channels which doesn't work to well.
-
From the album: My Stuff
This is axe number one. While not perfect it spoiled me for all stringed instruments. I play it every morning and every night.