The wonderous world of pitch to cv and or midi

[bassplayer88]

Hi,

After waiting patiently for the Mark Bass super synth hoping it would be the answer to my electro-four string prayers I have been let down.
It doesnt do a square wave shape and seems incapable of producing the sort of sounds I want based on reviews and a read of the manual.

Therefore I am re-thinking how I can get the sound/s i want. There seems to be a few options

1) Get a midi bass system - this seems like it would be VERY expensive and a pain in the bum, i dont want my lovely bass to have a unsightly midi pickup nor do I want the flexibilty of the midi system, I only want monophonic synth sounds not tubular bells drums kits or nylon string guitars or any other none bassy nonesense that can be achieved with such a system.

2) Get a pitch - cv converter and a suitable analoge synth, this seems to be the one i favour.

Just seeing what peoples experiences of the two systems are, thoughts pros cons etc etc

Hope you can help

[ped]

To be honest with a synth I think if you can go polyphonic you won't look back. It makes such a difference to synth lines, it makes them so much easier to play and there is no tracking error or delay.

You don't necessarily need an unsightly GK pickup on the bass - you can install the whole kit internally, like I have, and it's extremely neat!

ped (synth enthusiast)

[bassplayer88]

[quote name='ped' post='714193' date='Jan 15 2010, 07:16 PM']To be honest with a synth I think if you can go polyphonic you won't look back. It makes such a difference to synth lines, it makes them so much easier to play and there is no tracking error or delay.

You don't necessarily need an unsightly GK pickup on the bass - you can install the whole kit internally, like I have, and it's extremely neat!

ped (synth enthusiast)[/quote]

ok interesting stuff, what exact kit hav you got ped?

[bassplayer88]

[quote name='bassplayer88' post='714218' date='Jan 15 2010, 07:30 PM']ok interesting stuff, what exact kit hav you got ped?[/quote]
please ignore last post , i am prerusing you site!

[ped]

Hi mate

Aye, since that pic on the site I have installed the GK stuff internally. Was sat at home with a mallet and chisel and thought I would just go for it. Went very well in the end!! Here is a pic of the bass now, much neater and now it fits in its original case again! The standard jack and the 13 pin out are on the side.

[ped]

What sort of sounds are you after, by the way? I plug my bass into a Vbass unit - 90% of the time it is completely bypassed and I'm using the magnetic pickups, but its ready to switch in if I need the synths or other bass sounds. It isn't technically MIDI because there's no pitch conversion or anything, so no latency either. I did try it plugged into a friends MIDI unit and it was fun playing piano and drums but there was a tiny bit of latency which would annoy me. Not sure how one would get around that, or if it's possible.

Is a pitch-cv converter something that takes a standard bass signal and converts it to MIDI? I would have thought that would be pretty inaccurate and rather slow?

Another option instead of mounting the GK pickup (which may/may not fit on your bass depending on it's pickup arrangement - you'll notice it JUST fits on mine) is using piezo saddle elements to produce the signal for the GK electronics. I haven't tried this approach though.

ped

[DanOwens]

BP88 - I know I PMd you but now I understand the context of your message.

Playing pitch to midi can be a hassle, but the benefits of triggering a MicroKorg live are worth it. I watch the midibass demos with people playing flutes and pianos and I laugh. Pitch to midi is so you can make HUGE sub sounds.

Also, if I had the cash to invest another grand in my rig, I'd find a way to split my 13-pin signal and feed a V-Bass unit as well as my pitch-to-midi setup. I had a play and some of the synth sounds are incredible.

Dan

[M4L666]

Are the boxes that take a standard jack plug any good?

[Kiwi]

The Akai SB1 Deep Impact is very good, but like hens teeth now and can tend to be a little fragile.

I run a full MIDI set up at home but have had endless hassles with the piezo transducers...still waitin' for replacements too.

[squire]

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='715181' date='Jan 16 2010, 09:43 PM']The Akai SB1 Deep Impact is very good, but like hens teeth now and can tend to be a little fragile.

I run a full MIDI set up at home but have had endless hassles with the piezo transducers...still waitin' for replacements too.[/quote]

I have the Super Synth and it really pleasures my synth needs. I recommend you to check it out at a store which let you check out the editing software too. But to each his own

I don't really like the synth sounds in the V-Bass.


Here is a thread on talkbass on a new pitch to midi converter. Although I really doubt if it will be any good. Tracking and latency will probably be an issue.
[url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=617641"]http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=617641[/url]

[Matty]

I've heard good things about the G2M, and for the price, its just great value.
B2M will be on my buy list when it's released!

[NoirBass]

[quote name='Matty' post='717991' date='Jan 19 2010, 04:12 PM']I've heard good things about the G2M, and for the price, its just great value.
B2M will be on my buy list when it's released![/quote]

I have a G2M, works pretty well on a standard guitar and seems a good solution although latency is still present.

On bass it would not work well at all, I even put the signal through a Micro POG with just the oct up and still no real joy.

The other problem I've found with the G2M is that I have needed to turn off all pitch bend options i my software to get a clear note.

If they do a "B2M" I'll give it a go but I doubt the results will be gig worthy.

Just my two-peneth.

[bassplayer88]

[quote name='NoirBass' post='719773' date='Jan 21 2010, 07:49 AM']I have a G2M, works pretty well on a standard guitar and seems a good solution although latency is still present.

On bass it would not work well at all, I even put the signal through a Micro POG with just the oct up and still no real joy.

The other problem I've found with the G2M is that I have needed to turn off all pitch bend options i my software to get a clear note.

If they do a "B2M" I'll give it a go but I doubt the results will be gig worthy.

Just my two-peneth.[/quote]

Yeah I wasn't ever really considering the GM2 as a serious option but was looking into Analouge Systems RS35 and associated modules this is part of a modular synth and would convert my bass into CV/gate info for analouge synths this is another expensive option tho. Think i might just check out the MF-107 as this can give me a square wave the cheapest by the looks of things. Or go down the axon midi route

Thanks for everyones advice

[Kiwi]

Dunno if its his playing or the bass but the sensitivity and tracking is less than impressive. Have you managed to get better results Squire?

[squire]

Yeah I've got much, much better results. I've said it before, probably on Talkbass, but this movie is really crappy and doesn't do the pedal right. I've got much better tracking results. If I were Signor Mark Bass I would ask this german webstore to remove this video


Dont know if u heard them already, but here are some better sound samples;
[quote name='phagor' post='691938' date='Dec 23 2009, 12:02 AM']Thanks squire. I didn't want to post the clips here and step on lapolpora's toes, as he said he was gonna do some... but maybe he's been busy, probably got better things to do than make silly noises!

But here's what I've done:

Finally got round to making some clips. In the first clip I run through the presets one by one.

[url="http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8510304"]Markbass Super Synth Presets Demo[/url]

Bear in mind that these are the unedited presets - I would probably tweak each one to suit the song or my playing style, especially the dynamics.

Demos 1 - 9 are synth presets 1 - 9
Demos 10 - 12 are octaver presets 1 - 3

Apologies to all the fine musicians whose songs I've butchered


Next are some random bits and pieces.

[url="http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=1021221&songID=8510303"]Markbass Super Synth Stuff[/url]

Demo one is a C major scale running down from C 3rd fret on the A string to C 1st fret on the B string, and using the open A and E strings.

Next is the bare sound of one oscillator, filter wide open, no resonance, no envelope, no dynamics. C 3rd fret on A string.

Third is all three oscillators, no detune.

Fourth demo is all three oscillators, this time with osc 2 + 3 detuned - nice and phat!

Demo five is a simple envelope controlling the filter, moderate attack and release.

Demo six is a big ol' filter sweep - no attack, max release. Watch your speaker level for this

Seven is me attempting to demonstrate how the tracking briefly plays the previous pitch. I play a high C (17th fret G string) then a low one (1st fret B string). On the low note you may briefly hear a blip at the beginning as the effect plays the higher note, then changes to the lower one a fraction of a second later.

It's pretty quick - I repeat those notes again. Then the same again with the low note as C 3rd fret A string, then C 5th fret G string. It's not really noticeable on the higher notes.

Finally I swap the original low and high notes. Again, the effect is not noticeable as the pedal can figure out the pitch of a high note much quicker than a low note.

Next I solo the octaver tones. First note is my dry bass sound, C (3rd on the A again). Next is the Octave +1 tone on its own. Then the Octave -1, and finally the Octave -2.

Next segment is all three octave tones at equal volume. Note that like the synth, you can't totally eliminate the dry bass sound!

Last demo is the same with the dry bass mixed back in.

I hope that gives you an idea what this pedal can do. If you have anything specific you want to hear, let me know. I'm not going to have much chance to play over the Christmas period, but I'll see what I can do.[/quote]

Edited January 21, 2010 by squire

[urb]

Interesting to see this thread pop up as I'm thinking very seriously about adding a MIDI thing to my Single Cut sei, as I already have a piezo pup system installed, just looked around at various interfaces, and I've obviously checked out the amazing Rolad V bass that you have Ped (very impressive but a biut much for my needs) and I found this:

[url="http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/en/roland-gi-20p-midi-converter/10087"]http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/en/roland...converter/10087[/url]

I think that's my kind of budget and it looks like it'd work well for both home recording via Logic and some live stuff as well, thoughts and opinions welcome on that unit, and I'll let you know as and when I get it installed, my main desire with it is to be able to effortlessly create synth/piano parts in my recordings and even some midi drum beats etc, instead of labouriously writing the stuff out in a score... which I'm rubbish at anyway!

Cheers

Mike