Comment by wheels | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wheels | Hacker News Reader

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The most common instance is of course in keyboards, which seems somewhat natural since it's an interface that was an abstraction far before the digital age -- having been used to such disparate instruments as pianos and pipe organs.

For stringed instruments, what's been common for some time is MIDI pickups on either guitars or (less frequently) on basses. Then they can either be used to drive a synth or you can take the normal analog out.

MIDI drum pads or MIDI triggers on acoustic drums are also common.

I think much of the appeal for musicians with many years of playing behind them is that they don't have to master a new interface for music input. I've played bass for 15 years; I can do a lot of phrasing intuitively that's much more tedious to enter by hand into a sequencer or to play on an electronic-specialized instrument that I don't have mastery of. Granted, I don't actually have a MIDI bass pickup, but I've been tempted.

In Squarepusher's music, for example, you can often hear in his synth lines that they were played on an electric bass (which he's exceptional at) because the phrasing is much more idiomatic to an electric bass than to a keyboard.

I don't actually have a MIDI bass pickup, but I've been tempted.

Do it. I'm a crap bassist but I run the audio output into a Nord Modular and use pitch analysis to generate MIDI that goes to the drum machine (or whatever), and it's great for coming up with things I wouldn't necessarily do on the keyboard. If you're good at bass you'll get that much more out of it with per-string control.

I'm very interested in the state of audio -> MIDI... right now I'm using Max/MSP (the fiddle~ object) for pitch analysis, but it leaves a lot to be desired.

Eventide makes some great pitch related tools and the PitchFactor stomp box seems to be much more quick and accurate than anything else out there... unfortunately it doesn't have MIDI out, AFAIK.

How quick and accurate is the Nord Modular for pitch analysis?

Well, it's pretty good, though as wheels says, no real time pitch-detection algorithm can do much of a job with chords. Since bass is most often played monophonically, it does OK; then again I'm not a fast player to begin with.

I use a configuration of modules that implements a (very crude) averaging algorithm to smooth away the tiny pitch quirks from the way I slide or hit the strings, and then a note selector module to confine the output to semitone intervals, for when I want to control a different module or produce a completely different sound.

On the other hand, if I want to play a melody and have it sound bassy to begin with (with the kind of pitch inconsistencies from slapping or pulling the strings) the sky's the limit. It's also fun to set the synth doing its own thing and then use the notes to modulate filters or suchlike.

But MIDI pickup is still the route to go if accuracy really matters to you. Everything I record is done with the assumption that I'm going to edit it later. The 'midi guitar' thing cited in OP would probably do a superior job, but I really don't like the ergonomics of it. Another option is to hit eBay in search of a Casio DG-20, an appallingly ugly MIDI guitar from the 1980s that nevertheless has an outstanding midi implementation, or a Yamaha EZ-AG, which sells for $2-300 and has buttons on the frets but real strings on the 'soundboard' and is designed for students. They also made a MIDI trumpet if you can find it.

The synth stomp boxes in general work pretty well so long as there's only a single fundamental (note) that has to be picked up, but they don't do well with chording.

The advantage of the on-board pickups is of course having one pickup per string, but also that they're designed with a specific signal profile in mind (i.e. how far those pickups will be from the strings) and with the dynamics of that instrument involved (i.e. the difference between picking up a signal in an electric bass vs. a flute).

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