GI-20: Is it faster than the GI-10???

wvandyck · Post by **wvandyck** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 7:37 pm

Has anyone used both the GI-20 and the GI-10 MIDI converters???

I'm looking at upgrading my MIDI converter. I've used the GI-10 and GK-2A for a long time which works well for sequencing.

Is the GI-20 noticeably faster? Or least more accurate?

I just picked up a Godin LGX-SA which is a beautiful instrument (and the most expensive guitar purchase I've ever made. I usually find guitars I like for cheap that end up being worth something later on.)

The tracking speed of the Godin with installed RMC piezos was not dramatically faster or more accurate than the GK-2A. So I'm guessing that my MIDI converter is showing it's age.

Is it time GI-20 time???

markwayne · Post by **markwayne** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 6:38 am

The tracking speed of the Godin with installed RMC piezos was not dramatically faster or more accurate than the GK-2A. So I'm guessing that my MIDI converter is showing it's age.

I would not rush to that conclusion if you have tweaked your setup carefully. I have a Roland GR30 and 33 which I use with a Godin Multiac, Brian Moore w/RMCs and an old Tele with a GK-2A. All guitars and both synths track about the same after proper setup. I have honestly not experienced much tracking improvment in over ten years with the major players and I've owned many of them going back to my GR707 in the 80's. (Which was dog-slow in tracking but looked oh so cool.) I think the reason so many prefer the RMCs is that they are just less fiddly and far less ugly. I would imagine that most R&D dollars get spent on upgrading sounds rather than upgrading their pitch-detection algorithms.

Now I have played around with an Axon and that was a noticable improvment over my Roland boxes when driving external synths. If I hadn't been forced to become a good keyboardist over the years, I would probably buy an Axon.

Wayne

wvandyck · Post by **wvandyck** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:40 am

Wayne,
Are you saying that the GI-10 converter is not the real issue here???
If so, good news. I'm broke$$$

Your comment about comparable tracking after proper set up is interesting. I was expecting a dramatic improvement with the RMC pickups. It is better especially on the higher strings and higher up the fretboard. Just not enough

The low E in the low end of the fretboard performance is...well MIDI guitarists know the answer to that. The GK-2A held it's own pretty well due to time spent "getting to know it".

I've always had my eyes on the Axon.

I started off with the Yamaha G-10 (The Jetson's style wired controller) in 1989. It was the speed and accuracy king or queen, of it's day. In the mid-late 90s I checked out the Roland GI-10 and was blown away by the dramatic difference in speed. I did a comparison with the Yamaha, and the proof was in the MIDI editor window. Notes triggered by the Roland were on or very close to the beat with just a couple of false triggers. The Yamaha was "visibly" sluggish. The notes were several ticks further away from the beats.

I was hoping for this type of dramatic improvement factor.
If you have any parcticular recommendations for the Godin let me know.
Many thanks
Flash

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 1:03 pm

The Yamaha G50 was an Axon with a different skin, just as is the Zeta Synthogy. Yamaha and Axon severed their relationship years ago, at least in terms of future development, and this seems to be the main reason why the G50 hasn't been upgraded in that time.

I have also owned many guitar synths/controllers/pickups over the years, but gave all of that up about two years ago after too many frustrations with tracking (even using the Godin Multiac ACS). I happen to play keyboards so it seemed silly to continue on that route, but I do believe that ultimately we should see good tracking on guitars and this will lead to more expressive possibilities than through a keyboard interface.

In the meantime, Axon quite recently upgraded their line (at Winter NAMM this year I believe, but I wasn't able to demo anything as they weren't really hooked up for that). Has anyone had the chance to try their new generation yet (or is it even available at this time)?

It's good to hear the feedback on the mild/incremental progress from Roland, as I had been half-tempted to jump back into that pond after some of the magazine reviews. Now I know better

.

There is a lot of research going on around the world in guitar modeling, and this may prove more beneficial in the long term vs. the standard hex pickups. In Brasil there is research leading towards altering the strumming to match someone like Segovia, given the input from a live player. I have seen these presentations at various conferences (I am in the audio business so sometimes see advance research on stuff that isn't to market yet), and hold out great hope for its commercial viability.

wvandyck · Post by **wvandyck** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:19 pm

mhschmieder wrote: I have also owned many guitar synths/controllers/pickups over the years, but gave all of that up about two years ago after too many frustrations with tracking (even using the Godin Multiac ACS). I happen to play keyboards so it seemed silly to continue on that route,

As I only play guitar, I've always appreciated synth/sample access despite the tracking issues. I need to spend more time getting to know the LGX-SA. Although the MIDI tracking seems like an incremental improvement, I'm looking forward to using it's three voices (electric, piezo acoustic, and synth access) when creating with DP. It is certainly solid enough for me to use one instrument to develop my ideas with audio and MIDI in DP.

mhschmieder wrote:There is a lot of research going on around the world in guitar modeling, and this may prove more beneficial in the long term vs. the standard hex pickups. In Brasil there is research leading towards altering the strumming to match someone like Segovia, given the input from a live player. I have seen these presentations at various conferences (I am in the audio business so sometimes see advance research on stuff that isn't to market yet), and hold out great hope for its commercial viability.

Interesting stuff.

I appreciate your update and background info on Axon.

markwayne · Post by **markwayne** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:31 am

I started off with the Yamaha G-10 (The Jetson's style wired controller) in 1989. It was the speed and accuracy king or queen, of it's day. In the mid-late 90s I checked out the Roland GI-10 and was blown away by the dramatic difference in speed. I did a comparison with the Yamaha, and the proof was in the MIDI editor window. Notes triggered by the Roland were on or very close to the beat with just a couple of false triggers. The Yamaha was "visibly" sluggish. The notes were several ticks further away from the beats.

I remember that guy. It was Yamaha's answer to the Roland 707 although it tracked much better it was just so ugly. (I continued to use the Roland guitar live even after giving up on the MIDI aspect of it completely.) I also studied piano in college so it just didn't make sense for me to struggle with a guitar controller to play something I could knock out on a keyboard in half the time. I remember the Roland GI-10 as being one of the first interfaces to track fairly well and I'm pretty sure all the new Roland stuff is just built on its core with updated sounds to distract you from the fact that the tracking is not really much better.

I was hoping for this type of dramatic improvement factor.
If you have any parcticular recommendations for the Godin let me know.

Long story short: I think the Roland GI-10 was the last dramatic improvement in guitar tracking - FOR EXTERNAL MIDI DEVICES - outside of the Axon or the Synthaxe. Now if you are content playing the internal sounds on the newer Roland boxes live with no sequencing, you might be happy. Roland claims that not having to convert the pitch to MIDI data allows the internal voices to respond much more quickly to note triggers. I believe that Roland has just become very clever at programming synth sounds to cover for their sloppy/slow tracking.

The only advice I can think of with the Godin really applies to all RMC designs: They can be very spikey with regard to transients so you really have to overcompensate when you are setting your sensitivity levels at the tracking stage of the device otherwise you are going to get all kinds of strange stuff when you hit a string hard.

Not trying to be a wise guy, but piano lessons would probably be a better investment than a new guitar synth at this point.

good luck,
Wayne

wvandyck · Post by **wvandyck** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 10:05 am

Hey Wayne,
Piano lessons???
I'm gray turning white

I really appreciate your honest insights and perspective on the Roland GI-10. I sort of understand how Roland is able to make it's pickup trigger it's internal sounds faster than triggering an exeternal device (some sort of "hardwire" system if you will (oversimplied explanation).

My only use of MIDI is for sequencing. So my concern is with tracking speed and accuracy. I'm still tweaking the settings on the GI-10 with some improvement noted. The LGX-SA is a high quality instrument. My intent is not to take away from that fact.

At this point, it seem like the best contender for fast, accurate tracking when sequencing is the new Axon AX 100 mkll. (The price is much more reasonable than the older, venerbable Blue Chip version).

So now the question becomes: "How much better is the Axon compared to the GI-10, and...is it worth the added expense???"

I'm game if it is. Opinions please.

Again, many thanks for your insights.
Flash

Epilogue:Yamaha G10 was fairly expressive and I had no problem adapting to fingering all "G" strings because my ears were happy with the end result. I used to alternate tuning the strings G, and F# to decrease resonance. It took about 3 days for the controller to stabilze every time I put on new strings. And of course, I tried to keep my monitoring volume high enough to not have to hear the unchanging string pitch while triggering masterpieces into my trusty Alesis MMT8. Fun days

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:36 pm

There's also this descendant of the SynthAxxe(?):

http://www.starrlabs.com/

I've never seen one in person, but from the posted images and descriptions, it seems it would take a lot of getting used to if you traditionally have played old skool guitars. Maybe these would appeal to bandonean players

.

wvandyck · Post by **wvandyck** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:49 pm

The starlabs MIDI guitar controllers are pretty wild

markwayne · Post by **markwayne** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 8:23 am

I have not tried the new Axon. I was impressed by their original model which I felt tracked better than my Roland at that time.

The physics of turning a vibrating piece of wire into a MIDI signal is frought with problems. It's amazing it works at all. Much of the process of getting these things to track well runs counter to guitar habits. Dead strings track better than new. The less expressive your playing, the better the tracking. Many guitar staples such as muted, rhythmic playing produce chaos. I can get my GR33 to track well enough to input a part, but most of the time it would be far quicker to just play it on a keyboard.

Synthaxxe really had the right idea. They have not been in production in years and are very hard to find. Allan Holdworth owns a bunch of them. I've wondered why more companies don't just build a mechanical, "guitar" that replaces keys with wired frets and then place pitches in a guitaristic space.

Wow! Thanks for the link to Starr labs. It looks like they are trying to move into the niche left by Synthaxxe. I remember when Starr labs just built a little "toy" that looked an awful lot like their new models. That guitar sold for under around $200 IIRC.

Wayne

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:16 pm

The new Axon is reviewed in the May 2006 issue of Sound-On-Sound, which just got posted on-line this week.

It's now the Terratec Axon AX100 mk II, which I may have heard about earlier but had forgotten. This is of interest because Terratec is also now branching out into virtual analog land, having recently announced a MIDI keyboard controller that can accept plug-in modules (hardware-based), starting with a Waldorf microQ emulator.

wvandyck · Post by **wvandyck** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 6:53 pm

mhschmieder wrote:The new Axon is reviewed in the May 2006 issue of Sound-On-Sound, which just got posted on-line this week.

It's now the Terratec Axon AX100 mk II, which I may have heard about earlier but had forgotten. This is of interest because Terratec is also now branching out into virtual analog land, having recently announced a MIDI keyboard controller that can accept plug-in modules (hardware-based), starting with a Waldorf microQ emulator.

Thanks for that Tip. SOS is awesome, especially Robin Bigwoods DP column.

I've been checking out the AX 100 mk ll at the Terratec site. It's a new, improved, and most importantly, less expensive model than the old Blue Chip version.

wvandyck · Post by **wvandyck** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 7:48 am

SOS: "For the recording guitarist who isn't comfortable with keyboards, the AX100 Mkll can't be bettered for use with a sequencer...".

This device triggers external modules as quickly as it does it's internal sounds.

I set up a DP Search command "Delete Notes <.030 (duration)" which takes care of almost all of my short, low-velocity notes.

There are QT movies at the TerracTec website demonstrating the use of the AX100 Mkll. A lot of the features seem geared toward the live performer.

While the supplied sounds are not some shining jewel, I could see using them and the supplied "drum machine" for rehearsal without the computer.