Amiga - MIDI - guitar

[Angus]

motorollin wrote:
Actually, you can get guitar amps which translate the notes you play on the guitar to midi data. So you can use the guitar as a midi controller.

Can I just jump in and ask a question here?

What does the above actually mean? I play guitar and used to put together little Protracker backing tracks that I could solo over, but I'm not clear on what the implications of me having access to midi are or sequencing.

What would using my guitar as a midi controller enable me to do, and is Bars & Pipes involved?

Any chance of a quick explanation for the hard of thinking?  :-)

[Jose]

@Bloodline

"For the money you'd spend, is it really worth it?"

Honestly ? Depends. For me it's a big yes, mostly because I like/need to have something to record riffs etc in a fast way. Just imagine you wake up in the middle of the night with a cool riff idea and you want to record it as fast as possible and go back to bed or other similar situation (this happends a lot:)) You won't wanna wait till Windows boots up the lauches the application to record it. Just fire up your Amiga and it's ready in 10 seconds:)

[Colani1200]

[/quote]
What would using my guitar as a midi controller enable me to do, and is Bars & Pipes involved?
[/quote]

For example you could record the MIDI data of what you're playing (i.e. the notes, length, velocity and the like) to your favourite MIDI sequencer software (including Bars & Pipes). You can edit it, have another MIDI capable instrument (e.g. a synth) playback the melody and so on. The long explanation -as usual- can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midi  ;-)

[bloodline]

Jose wrote:
@Bloodline

"For the money you'd spend, is it really worth it?"

Honestly ? Depends. For me it's a big yes, mostly because I like/need to have something to record riffs etc in a fast way. Just imagine you wake up in the middle of the night with a cool riff idea and you want to record it as fast as possible and go back to bed or other similar situation (this happends a lot:)) You won't wanna wait till Windows boots up the lauches the application to record it. Just fire up your Amiga and it's ready in 10 seconds:)

Yeah, happens all the time... just buy a Mac instead! :-)

[billchase]

The Guitar can provide sound input, but I'm pretty sure it can't provide midi input (not without some major hacking).  The midi interface on the amp is in/thru only.  I expect the midi capabilities will be limited to controlling the amp (gain, eq, ).

Thank you for the correction.  I didn't pay close enough attention
to the pic of the midi box.  Now to answer the original question
of what you can achieve with it using an Amiga, that mainly depends
on the features and capabitilies of the amp it is made for.  Sequencers
like Bars&Pipes can still be used for this application, the difference
being its outputing specific control data vs "music" data to manipulate
the amp.

C Snyder
 

[McVenco]

Wow, thanks for all the replies (I didn't suspect this much!)

I'll give things a try and see what will happen. As far as I've found out on Usenet, searching for "ATTAX 100 MIDI" (my guitar amp), I learned that indeed there is not much to control via the MIDI-output on the amp, apart from switching between the 3 different channels on the amp itself.

About quality of sound: I wasn't planning to make professional music, just making some nice sounds for fun and maybe for friends to listen. Plus, I like the somewhat "lo-fi" sound you get with 8-bit audio (I still play a lot of Mod-files every now and then on my PC).

Maybe I'll put up some soundfiles on a server when I succesfully have recorded some, but that could take months.


Does anyone know if it's possible to play the combined Amiga+guitar sound through my amp's speaker, or does the sound go through the Amiga sound output?

Cheers,
McVenco

[bloodline]

McVenco wrote:

About quality of sound: I wasn't planning to make professional music, just making some nice sounds for fun and maybe for friends to listen. Plus, I like the somewhat "lo-fi" sound you get with 8-bit audio (I still play a lot of Mod-files every now and then on my PC).

Yes, lord knows I stick bit crushers on pretty much everything now... but just remember that unlike a bit crushing a hi-res sample, you can't any get better than 8bit with the Amiga.

Maybe I'll put up some soundfiles on a server when I succesfully have recorded some, but that could take months.

That would be cool to hear!

Does anyone know if it's possible to play the combined Amiga+guitar sound through my amp's speaker, or does the sound go through the Amiga sound output?

Not without a mixer.

[Jose]

@bloodline
"Yeah, happens all the time... just buy a Mac instead!"

Hmm, what's the Mac booting time these days ?

[bloodline]

Jose wrote:
@bloodline
"Yeah, happens all the time... just buy a Mac instead!"

Hmm, what's the Mac booting time these days ?

My MacBook Pro gets from power on to desktop in 33 seconds... not quite the 17seconds my Amiga could do... but better than the 2mins my WinXP machine crawls through a boot up.

[McVenco]

bloodline wrote:

Maybe I'll put up some soundfiles on a server when I succesfully have recorded some, but that could take months.

That would be cool to hear!

I'll definitely keep you guys posted. Don't expect anything soon though! :-)

Does anyone know if it's possible to play the combined Amiga+guitar sound through my amp's speaker, or does the sound go through the Amiga sound output?

Not without a mixer.

Then I'll buy me one of those. My amp's MIDI module is already on the dutch equivalent of Ebay (www.marktplaats.nl) so I'll use the money I get for that to buy a mixer.

I also discovered FL Studio for windows today, which I might use as well for recording some stuff. But the miggy will get to do the most part in the digital music making of course!  :lol: