Anyone Using MIDI Guitar 2

FTP is basically a wireless interface, with software. MG2 is a VST which requires a guitar input thru an interface. Don’t know if they will work together, as I do not own FTP. I’ve tried MG2 with a guitar into an audio interface, then into Cantabile …which is loaded with MG2. IMHO, It’s ok, but nothing I would ever use, but can see where others might use it.

Cheers

Corky

This is highly anecdotal but the guitarists I’ve heard using it were all playing a mix of their guitar amp + some midi sounds. From what I understood, there are still a lot of misses but this is acceptable in this mix scenario.

For me this is a solution for power trios where the guitarist wants to fatten/expand his sound.
As soon as you introduce a keyboardist in the band, there will be spectrum clash… or to say it another way: the keyboardist will do better and/or add something more interesting than just following the guitar track.

I guess it could also be used by a guitarist as a pure synth instrument (without mixing the guitar sound). But then, the guitarist will face the challenge to play “real clean” and find instruments that sound good for his style. I can see this work occasionally to get some wow factor or supplement a lacking track, for a localized moment during a gig.
In a reverse way, just like when a keyboardist plays guitar sounds…

Having said that, I would not even be too much surprised if you tell me some 5-year old Chinese wunderkind has a Youtube video where he uses his guitar to play the Bach’s Toccata on full pipes :man_facepalming:

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I have much better ways than midi guitar 2. If you want to play piano or organ on a guitar, it is really not going to fatten your sound…just change it. There are pedals that that do it better than MG2…some of them are VSTs. David Gilmour came up with a genius idea many years ago where he could sustain a pad-like sound during a solo, using 2 amps, expression pedal, and a delay.

After a few weeks of work with a genius forum member, I have a working rack that will provide backing chords, changing progressions with a foot switch. Piano, organ, pads, strings…whatever you want to use. I play guitar, or keyboard with the backing progression, which will really fatten a trio sound.

Like I said, MG2 is just fine, but for me, a bit limited and sometimes iffy. One would certainly have to modify their playing style to get the best from it, as I did.

I would not be surprised, nor would I watch it. :grin:

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I had no doubts about this… then you blew me away.
I’m not worthy! I’m not worthy!

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I am using MG2 fwithin Cantabile. It allows me to easily flip from a guitar sim sound to a midi based sound and also layered.

I also use MG2 with a TEC breath controller and SWAM virtual instruments and get great results.

Look for the other discussion we recently had on using a noise gate before MG2 to get some improvement.

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I currently use Fishman TP with very good success. I play all instrumental music using “customized” backing tracks using Reaper. My arrangements feature acoustic guitar, electric guitar, SWAM saxes and Trumpets, Organ, and Piano. I also do some solo guitar mixed with various pads for effect.

Lots of variety, flexibility, and creative opportunities with the arrangements/tracks and various instruments. Some jazzy stuff and pop songs with occasionally interspersed solos.

I was just trying out MIDI Guitar 2 as a potential option if I ever want to use a guitar other than my Godin Montreal Premier which comes with the FTP, Piezo, and electric PU options built in. Wouldn’t mind trying the Yamaha Silent Guitar with MG2. This would give me everything but the electric PU patches.

Thanks all for your feedback…always helpful to hear what others do. My website is www.digitalguitarist.us if you ever want to check out some of my stuff.

Thanks!

Nice act Tom. Thanks for sharing.

Sure thing…thanks!

Good discussion. Here’s the thread Lorne mentioned on gate : Send a different PC to a plugin for each Song or Rack state?

We don’t have a keys player right now and I needed some distraction a few weeks ago, so I tried MG’s demo again. IMO it’s much better than it was about 6 months ago so I took the plunge. We do Ride by 21 Pilots and I always felt funny doing the synth parts on guitar, even though I did get some pretty synthy tones… so as a test I tried to get it gig worthy.

Short story, by bypassing MG2’s gate and using another I got better results. Is it flawless and 100% gig-ready? No,at least not for me, but there are some folks on Youtube that seems to do pretty darn well. It takes a lot of time to get setup correctly, and I’m learning that every instrument or vsti I play will probably respond differently, requiring different gain and gate settings. Your guitar is crucial too… just search and there are some good tips out there. I’ve found sforzando actually works rather well for me. Oddly, synth 1 works great on simple lead stuff but on elec piano chords I had to give up. I haven’t gigged with it yet, but I am now able to get through Ride without a single false note. But for a song more complex I don’t know if I’d risk it.

Piano seems to be the hardest for me… very tricky to get clean chords when fretting off for the next chord. Of course, finger picking is key too, at least for me. Anyway, it’s a fun distraction, and maybe as I continue to mess with it it can become more useful in gigs.
Enjoy, and stay safe,
Tom

Corky, can you expand on that a bit? Are you using a chord generator or something similar? Or are they predetermind chords that are preset for each song? I’m currently in a trio plus lead vocalist so anything like this could be helpful. Thanks!
Tom

Hi Tom

I was helping a forum member get his guitar setup together in C3. He asked a question about backing chord progressions thru pedal switches, which I started work on a few months ago. I had several bindings I couldn’t wrap my head around. So, I asked Dave Dore’ for some help, and, naturally, his genius came thru.

I’ve been testing and modifying for the last 2 weeks. I expect to release a modified rack, maybe this week, to the forum. It does involve another chord vst (free), it will be predetermined chords, but a possibility of 12 different chords available to 1 rack. You could also have multiple racks.

I will be able to change chord progressions from any chosen VSTi by activating one switch. Example: in song 1, verse progression is C-Am7-C-Am7-G-F-C. I will be able to play that progression by using one footswitch (or other switch). This enables me to have a backing chord while playing guitar, or keyboard, or whatever…maybe tambourine, lol.

A state change could activate a chorus progression, or key change. There is a lot of improvisation in most of the bands I play in, so in a solo section, I may have a repeating progression, such as: Cm7-F/C (over and over). In that case, the switch would keep repeating the two chords.

It boils down to this:
Many will say “It’s easier to do backing tracks, or click tracks triggering the chords”, and it is, if I were in that type of band.
I am not, so I do not use backing tracks, arpeggiators, or click tracks. I am not knocking those that do. Everything is played live, by interactive musicians…old school (apparently a dying art). Tempos can vary, solos extend or shorten, verses may be repeated. Therefore, I trigger chords with a footswitch, just like playing them on a keyboard… I determine when to switch them.

Whew !! Was that enough expansion? :joy:

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I feel like I made it through one of my posts :rofl::rofl::rofl: great explanation though …

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Excellent explanation, thanks! Yes, Dave is a true C3 Guru, but you’ve also been a huge help too. That sounds really interesting and could be perfect for my current band, and I’m sure many others will be interested too Looking forward to seeing the rack when you have it.
Many thanks, Corky!
Tom

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I will try to get it posted in a few days. Working with it now. I will post a link to it on this thread, but will post it to the racks thread.

MG2 is okay, I was playing around with using on sax. The tracking is pretty good, but once I started using a wind controller I like that a lot better.

An ironic thing, MG2 led me to Cantabile! I was using MG2 with the MIDI input loading synth and effect plugins, just using it as a live host. After doing that a while, I realized I needed a proper live host and then I found Cantabile. I still have MG2 on my iPad, I don’t use it much at all. I could run sax through it, but I have better luck with effects chains to create interesting sounds rather than pitch to MIDI conversion.

The Roxsyn app for iPad is interesting, it’s not pitch to MIDI but it morphs the sound somehow to make it sound synthetic.

Interesting. I also found cantabile from the limitations in MG2. The biggest one at the time was no preloading so switching presets was slow. The grid view for Cantabile also sold me.

The challenge for a sax player doing pitch to MIDI, the sax is really loud. So in any kind of smaller venue even if you want to blend the sax and synth together it’s a challenge. And if you want only the synth sound, it’s not going to happen. In your DAW at home, sure. It was a very easy switch for me to get the wind controller for most of my synth playing needs. When I use the sax, it’s mostly with the usual effects people use…chorus, delay, reverb, envelope filter, etc.

I’m still working on mine. After learning how to make PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards), they were ordered and now sit in quarantine outside my place. Here’s a shortened version of a video I posted on Youtube (the response there was UNDERwhelming though). The new model has 12 frets and an un-tethered pick. BTW, So many Cantabile forum people were such great help! Thanks to all.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Sd6xU_KaMfb-cLiHHwnjOiQbv-yNxG9a
[ https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Sd6xU_KaMfb-cLiHHwnjOiQbv-yNxG9a ]

@twaw

Here is the link I promised:

C3 Community Racks Exchange

Great Corky thanks! I’ll check it out tomorrow!
Tom

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