I've taken a new direction with this project now. I've decided that, even though the principle is ok for the resistor ladder, (fret resistance didn't seem to be an issue), the problems of string bending, dynamics and polyphony still remain. That's quite a list. I'm using the output of the guitar to trigger oscillators and envelope generators quite happily. I have 2 oscillators, a sub octave oscillator and a low pass filter with resonance so far. I can detune and sync oscillators and change oscillator waveforms, (sawtooth, pulse, with PWM, sine and noise). Note triggering though is problematic at the moment since, especially with the low E string, the amplitude of the string dies away and swells back before dying off again. This amplitude swelling retriggers the envelope generator. If anyone knows a work around, I'm open, as always to suggestions. I know it can be done... Anyway, as my wife says, "It sounds Phatt"! There's some high frequency noise on the video. You can't hear that in my workshed - it must be the camera. Importantly, it feels good and natural to play. Pitchbending is of course spot on, no dynamics as yet but the tracking is immediate,(just the latency of the soundcard - about 6 ms). I've been concentrating on the bass end of the guitar since the desire to play some nice moog style basslines is behind the whole project. It's also mono at the mo but polyphony is easy to implement. That's all for now, LFO's, dynamics and better triggering next.
Monday, 12 July 2010
Friday, 2 July 2010
Tuned guitar
I've got the guitar in tune! Only on one string but that's very easily sorted in software. Basically the guitar outputs one of 2 numbers per fret. I have a lookup table that correlates both numbers to the relevant MIDI pitch number and it plays it.
Semitone trills don't seem to work - though anything greater than a semitone does... I blame the Expression controller. It's not optimised for instantaneous jumps in pitch.
During my continuing research I've come across this unfortunate piece of information, "Actually, the ZETA Mirror 6 kicked ass when you played clean, but the fret/string contacts got dirty over time and the performance degraded as this occurred", (http://www.richardhallebeek.com/interviews/mcclish.php). This is from the founder of Zeta, the violin/guitar people. Bugger! I would have thought that the act of playing the guitar would de-oxidise the frets. This conbined with the polyphony problem means that I'm thinking of changing my approach to this problem... Anyway, here's a brief demo of what I've got..
Semitone trills don't seem to work - though anything greater than a semitone does... I blame the Expression controller. It's not optimised for instantaneous jumps in pitch.
During my continuing research I've come across this unfortunate piece of information, "Actually, the ZETA Mirror 6 kicked ass when you played clean, but the fret/string contacts got dirty over time and the performance degraded as this occurred", (http://www.richardhallebeek.com/interviews/mcclish.php). This is from the founder of Zeta, the violin/guitar people. Bugger! I would have thought that the act of playing the guitar would de-oxidise the frets. This conbined with the polyphony problem means that I'm thinking of changing my approach to this problem... Anyway, here's a brief demo of what I've got..
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