So with visions of orchestra and choral samples smoothly transitioning from chord to chord singing in my head I decided to finally put MIDI on the Super Pro. (for the purists, this guitar has been a Frankenstein for a long time) I have an IVL, and it works really well for quantized pitch tracking, whicht I think defeats the reason for putting it on a steel guitar, and it does a reasonable job of pitch bending. I have one and it's on the C6 neck.

I looked into using the IVL pickup to drive the Axon controllers and decided against it so I bought two Roland GK-2A pickups and took them apart. I machined an aluminum holder, made a circuit board and connected all the wires so that each pickup controller unit received and sent 5 signals. This wasn't anywhere near as easy as I just made it sound and if I ever make another one, I know where some of the pitfalls are.

I bought two Axon AX-100 guitar to MIDI converters, no, I don't want to talk about how much they cost. I didn't get the ones with the built in sound board because there aren't any sounds in there I can use for what I do. I make my own samples and I use an EMU E4 XT Ultra. What I want to do is play a note on the guitar and have a sample double or chase me. These are fed into a DDL chain and depending on which sample is "ghosting" me, the guitar sound blossoms into something else.

I converted a Goodrich stereo pedal so that the stem of a 500k pot is connected to the stem of a 10k pot. The 500k is for the guitar sound and the 10k is for the CV MIDI volume control so that they work together. The Axon didn't transmit the CV to the E4 and I suspect that it only works for the internal sound boards. Fortunately for me, just as I was about to go into full thrash and flail, Tommy Detamore suggested,"why don't you just plug the CV into the Peavey MIDI faders, (that were sitting on the floor) and use that to control the E4." That proved to be the ticket. Tommy Detamore hasn't received any where near the acclaim that he truly deserves.

If I had carefully read all of the text on the MIDI guitar website, I would have seen the phrase: "...may be the fastest MIDI guitar controller for normally strung guitars."

Here in lies the basic problem with the Axon, it's expecting strings 1 thru 5 to deliver E, B, G, D, A, and it responds accordingly (this is how it does fret splits). When it got a B on string 5, it assumed I was playing on the 14th fret, when it got a B (an 8va) on the 12th fret, it thought I was on the 26th fret and since guitars typically don't have 26 frets, it didn't know what to do. Inside the Axon, there is a window where I can tell it whether I'm using a guitar, a violin, a cello or a 6 string bass. Somewhere around here I have a chart where I plotted out the fret I couldn't go above or below for each individual string relative to what instrument it thinks it's receiving. And while it tracks the bar very well, it doesn't like pedal squeezes. One of the odd things it does is raise or lower all of the strings picked whether or not the pedal changes that string or not, even though I'm sending and receiving 10 indivual channels of MIDI. And while it tracks the bar moving up or down very well, including bar slants, if the string is picked at the 6th fret and slid up to the 8th, then it is picked again on the 8th, before it has been damped, it sounds at the 6th fret.

I ended up talking to the Blue Chip tech in New Jersey and he was surprised that it tracked the bar as well as it did and said it shouldn't track the Ps and Ks at all. He said the Axon works like Radar instead of following frequency changes. Since I understand how Radar works, that one really lost me. He also said that as far as he knew, I was the first to try to use this system on a pedal guitar. I told him that I didn't want to be the first, I want to be able to call the guys who have already done this and pick their brains for solutions. He suggested that I e-mail Germany and tell them what I was doing.

So I put on several magnifying glasses and changed the pin assignments in the pickup controller unit, (I'm now qualified to do brain surgery if anybody needs some) and so it will track a standard E9 10 string tuning if I don't squeeze the pedals and don't try to move around too quickly on the lower strings.

I just had a couple of sessions where I used this system. I have the Axons on the E9 and the Steelrider on C6. My open tunings, low to high, are as follows: C, G, A, C, E, G, A, C, E, G and E, B, E, F#, G#, B, E, G#, D#, F#.

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it shouldn't track the Ps and Ks at all. He said the Axon works like Radar instead of following frequency changes.

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Given all the reading you did, I'm surprised you didn't learn this before you bought 2 of them.

Are you saying that the Axon knows the changing length of the vibrating part of the string, but does not know when and how the string tension changes? How then can it follow a guitarist who bends notes?

(into infinity)

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

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Given all the reading you did, I'm surprised you didn't learn this before you bought 2 of them.

Are you saying that the Axon knows the changing length of the vibrating part of the string, but does not know when and how the string tension changes? How then can it follow a guitarist who bends notes?

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Yo Herb, at last nights rehearsal I was running a '59 Bigsby S-10 into a Stamps tube spring reverb into a '59 Standell 80L15. I think I understand the problem; why don't you send that old guitar and amp over here and I'll rip out those old pickups and put in some nice EMGs and maybe some MIDI pickups too, you can't have too many pickups and we could put your amp in the Chas Museum where it belongs, I'm sure we could find something better down at the Guitar Center.

The Neighborhood Association thinks I'm in some sort of Deed Restrictions violation. My attorney is looking into it.

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

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Four Sunn 2000S Coliseum bass rigs I just got on eBay!!

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So why won't it follow the pitch when you mash a pedal?

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Also there is a Neural mode for Piezo pickups. Maybe you can use the same idea?a

The unit aslo seem to know the pick position and angle. Maybe that explains the odd notes?

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The unit aslo seem to know the pick position and angle. Maybe that explains the odd notes?

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I mean, connect the Axon pickup for string 1 to mono mike input(1), then connect the mono mike output to the circuitry for string 1

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I admire your effort but the real fix is a new eprom for the converter with the proper input filters for the low frequencies. A "C" note on the bottom is about 69 Hertz. That is way out of the envelope for Roland, Axon and Yamaha.

The units will be available from me installed in a complete system with one of my pickups. I don't plan to do many of these posts until I have received and checked out a prototype. I got a little ahead of myself last year. I thought that all I had to do was build a pickup and I could use existing converter technology. It didn't turn out that way. I don't want to clutter up the airways until I have something solid in hand.

Bosse, I have tried several times to send you a reply. If you see this, please contact me at mbrewer555@earthlink.net.

Mike

so, that begs the question:

how much would you charge to recreate that for someone else???

Ive got an IVL steelrider brain unit, with a busted 10 str. Pickup (one string right in the middle won't read), a Zum U12, and would sorely love to get back in the MIDI game.

[This message was edited by Dave Van Allen on 14 March 2002 at 07:31 AM.]

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Mattman in "The Big Sleazy"-:
S-10 Dekley, Suitcase Fender Rhodes, B-bender Les Paul