Roland Forums

I joined the forum the other day as I wanted advice on my
malfunctioning GK3/GR20. It's now OK, but due to my
misdiagnosis I now have two guitar synths - so I want to
make more use of the technology.

I wonder if anyone has experience of using the guitar as
a MIDI controller for Sibelius. I found using the MIDI
out from the GR20 produced a huge number of ghost notes,
even tho' the audio output was clear and defined. The
piano keyboard has always felt alien to me, so I use
the PC keyboard and mouse to write on Sibelius.

Has anybody managed to get the GR20 to work with Sibelius?
Would getting a GI-20 interface make any difference?

Thanks

Jamie

No experience of either MIDI guitars (not even a guitarist) or Sibelius.
All I know about Sibelius is that it's 'score' / notation composition software (too many dots for me).

As you know MIDI guitars do send vast amounts MIDI data, as you've said 'ghost notes'.

The only suggestion I can offer is use a conventional MIDI sequencer package, and thin out the unwanted note data (delete below a certain velocity range). Then export that out as a Standard MIDI file (SMF) to be imported to Sibelius.

Glad your technical problem with the GK3 has been resolved..





With the tag of 'VitalSigns' can I assume you are a Rush fan?

Thanks S-E-A

What I want to do is to write and edit on the staves in
Sibelius, in real and step time. Currently I use the
program just like a pen and paper. Incidentally, using
Sibelius makes you realise that the myth of guitarists
being backward in harmony compared to keyboardists, is just
that - a myth. I tend to use the piano sound as the guitar
in Sibelius is rubbish. When you hear your chords played back
as piano, there's not that much difference, in fact.

I was going to use Vital Signs as a band name, but it sounds
a bit like Vital Information (I'm a jazz player) Sorry - Rush who?

Jamie

I'm drummist (well a sound/lighting guy when out live) where dos that leave me?..

Rush - Canadian progressive rock-band. Vital Signs is one of their tracks..
Sorry for the confusion.

I find it's possible to simulate most instruments on Sibelius, but
we always need a REAL drummer!

Jamie

Sounds like a cue for my drummer joke..


How do you tell when the stage, and drum riser are level?
When the drool comes out of both sides of the the drummers mouth.

Another drummer joke then................

What's the difference between a drum machine and a live drummer?

You only have to punch the rhythm into a drum machine once.

I can see I'm never going to get an answer to my question!

So: How do you get the guitarist to turn down?
Put some music in front of him. (A truism, sigh..)

I'm not a guitarist, but i am a bass player with a GK-3B and a GR-20.
To thin out the midi data, you could try lower settings on the GK setup, so you are not picking up every little nuisance.

Thanks GT

I'll give that a go!

I don't know if anyone has any other ideas on this?

I've tried adjusting the sensitivity, but there doesn't
seem to be much control: below 6 or 7 I start to lose
notes; above 7 or 8 there are more ghost notes, but no
ideal setting. It's OK for step time input and I'll
start to use it for that.

The frustration I find is that Sibelius picks up quite
a lot of variation in rhythm, and sometimes it sounds
spot on and more interesting than what I might input note
by note. It gives a glimpse into what might be possible.
I suppose the thing is I'm trying to get it to notate
quite complicated jazz, and tho' it sounds OK when it's
coming out of the amp, that's not what Sibelius notates.

I have the feeling there must be a solution to this -
maybe another product?

The difference between the recorded midi notes and the actual GR-20 sound is the extra data the midi conversion sends, as on page 29 of the user manual, Envelope Follow cc#18 (general purpose controller 3) tracks the note amplitude separately from the note on/off and velocity data, and if you could utilize this somehow with midi gating set to a certain threshold, you would 'theoreticaly' be able to gate out the unwanted ghost notes. Some sequencer software can do this, but i wouldn't think notation software would care to recognise amplitude.

Thanks GT

I've been experimenting with the flexi-time settings in Sibelius. Lowering
the staccato + tenuto settings by 25 -30% of the default settings seems to
pick up most of the notes, tho' it's far from perfect.

I'm currently working on a Jazz CD. I've written parts on Sibelius and I'm
putting down guide tracks for the drummer to lay down his tracks. Since the
bulk of the recording template is synthesized instruments, I'm creating guide
solos using the guitar synth. I could record the audio, but as a project, I'd
like to have everything written down. It's interesting how when you take what
you think is a phrase of mainly 16th notes, Sibelius notates it as a mixture of
sixteenths, eighths and triplets with odd ties between them. Of course, in the
real world, no one could play this: you'd give someone the semiquavers and let
them articulate it for themselves.

I guess it's a bit like dictation and photoscore software - at present, it's not
fast enough to pick up everything, and you end up having to do a lot of editing.
I'm encouraged to be able to write out the complicated rhythms I actually play
rather than what I think I'm playing for the moment, but I'm sure the answer in
the long term is a dedicated controller, along the lines of the old Synthaxe (but
much cheaper), which could pick up everything you play without glitches or having
to change your playing style.

Thanks again

Jamie

Just one last thing on this thread. I've been researching
on the internet about this and the Godin RMC piezo bridge
pickups get top marks for tracking, compared to the GK3.
I wonder if anyone has had any experience in using one
or their Synth Access guitars with the GR20 or GI20 into
Sibelius or another notation or sequencer computer program,
and whether the results were better than the GK3?

Thanks

Jamie