I’ve been busy with the new guitar setup. That is along with blogging the government about disability issues, going to Rotary, paying bills and sundry other things that get in the way of playing guitar.
The diagram, thanks to Godin, is modified to show my set-up. The guitar is a Multiac Grand Concert SA. It has nylon strings, super tuners, a special pickup for each string. It has standard ¼” output and the special 13-pin GK cable that links to Roland’s sythn/midi units.
It works with the GI-20 which is a straight synth to midi and no processor. Or to the GR-33 and GR-20. I liked the idea of the GI-20 which is simple and direct but opted for the GR-20 since I get better triggering and 400+ synth sounds for the guitar. Amazingly there is only a $100 difference between the two.
Better triggering and sensing in the MIDI world is important since early units had latency problems. MIDI notes came after the actual string notes. There was also a problem of picking up ghost notes when you slid your fingers along a string or lifted than off. The adjustments on the GR-20 seem to take care of that.
Output from the GR-20 is to headphones or to my old keyboard amp, a Roland KC300. I tried to sell this all last year and no one wanted it. It is a great amp and works equally well for keyboards, acoustic guitar and now synthesizer. The advantage of the Roland is large speaker, cone tweeter and smooth as silk response. I picked it as the best sounding amp to go with my Gibson EC-20 Starburst that people lust after. Since then I’ve had 2 other acoustic guitar amps and they could not touch the sound, admittedly there are no effects.
There are several other connections from the GR-20 that can be found on Roland site.
The only piece missing is the FireWire or USB computer recording interface. The diagram shows an M-Audio 410, a popular unit, but I don’t have one. My son in Oakville picked one up at Christmas.. They are pretty cool: a couple of XLR inputs for mics and ¼” balanced and unbalanced for gear that mix into a USB or Firewire interface. This would allow me to record into the computer. Then I publish my songs on the web and you could hear them. Not yet.
For now, I am practicing some songs with synth strings and chorus. Sounds cool. I tried the computer notation into Guitar Pro but it’s not right yet.
gabriel
I actually returned the M-AUDIO. It is USB, which I’ve decided will not suffice. Had to drop an extra few bills but got the TC Konnekt, which is a truly pro piece of gear. Firewire is the only way to go for serious recording.