Midi bass.

[6stringbassist]

Following on from my previous post about the Roland GR-20.

Midi bass is something I've been thinking about for ages, it'd be really useful in my one band which is kind of an experimental jazz band, just a trio with me a sax player and a drummer.

Synth pads would be cool, I currently use an Ebow to try and achieve the right sound.

I now have a looper so I could loop the bass part and play over it, again with synth pad sounds and I hope lead synth sounds like Jan Hammer and Chick Corea , piano sounds would be cool too.

My favourite at the moment is the Roland GR-20, but the Axon AX-100 seems to get really good reviews too.

I'm having a Sei fretless 6 built, that's having a Graphtech piezo pickup built in to the bridge, that'll have midi capability, for my fretted the Roland GK-3B or GKK-2B seem to be the best.

Any midi experts out there want to chime in and give some much appreciated advice.

[Kiwi]

There might be a few things of help in my Shuker build diary perhaps?

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=8263&st=180&start=180"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=...0&start=180[/url]

[dannybuoy]

There's also the Peterson G2M audio to MIDI converter that doesn't require a special pickup. It doesn't track low notes well though, but you can always play high up and downtune the synth if you need to!

[elros]

I'd say you're on the right track. The GR-20 is quite easy to use and sounds very good. Also the "hold" pedal is very useful, at least it was to me.
You might find that you'll have to adjust your technique, sometimes just landing your fingers on an adjacent string will produce a short MIDI note (like a "thump" normally would sound). This'll probably come by itself, but it's good to be aware of it.
Setting the sensitivity on the GR-20 is also important, of course. When set right, you should easily be able to get a broad dynamic range from most preset sounds.
What might be a bit fiddly though, is if you have two instruments with different electronics setup. I found that my Conklin with RMC piezos gave a much hotter signal on the GK cable, compared to my two six-strings with Roland GK pickups. I don't know if the GraphTech is similarly hot, or if it perhaps is adjustable somehow. The GR-20 doesn't allow for storage of different sensitivity presets for different instruments..... (perhaps the Axon does, I don't know.)