The Software Journey for a MIDI Guitarist- THANK YOU

[WITELITE]

About a year ago I purchased Gig Performer after trying out MIDI Guitar 2 and realizing that software could convincingly replicate my Roland GR55 with a 13 Pin Guitar Pickup. I had tried MainStage but really struggled and I thought Gig Performer could be the solution.

A year later, 150 cover songs and rackspaces later, I have replicated my entire hardware setup on a MacBook Pro thanks to Gig Performer. While I’ve not taken it out live yet, the portability change is incredible and the PCM software sounds are better as well.

I had many starts and stops (From Sampletank to Kontakt and finally settling on Roland Zenology as it best covers the original GR55 sounds and then some) For Guitar, I went with Mercurial Audio AmpBox and the Bogner Euphoria plug in which is the best in my opinion and I’ve tried them all.

Special effects include the Quadrovox for pitch shifting and the Blue Cat Audio Feedback Generator.

For my Piezo guitar (which drives the MIDI portion as well) I use THU which I found to get the best acoustic sound. I also use a few THU effects like a phase 90 and Wah.

I have replaced an AXE FX III, GR55 and two very large pedalboard with a Morningstar MC6 and 3 Expression pedals as well as an extra foot switch that drives sustain and feedback generation.

Does the guitar sound as good as the Axe FX? No. Will anybody notice? I doubt it. The only thing I’ve really lost is the COSM tuning simulations that the 13 pin guitar affords but that is worth the portability tradeoff in many cases.

I also use Bandhelper and have gotten it all working well enough to test drive at rehearsal.

My file is about 280MB and I do not use predictive loading as unless setlist are in order (which are driven by bandhelper) it is not really helpful. CPU usage is between 20-35%

Lessons Learned

• More in Global Rackspace the better - All my guitar stuff is in the Global Rackspace with parameters that I can switch on and off by individual rackspace. I find the Bogner, Clean, Crunch and Lead channels are good enough for 95% of the stuff so better to have one instance than 150.

• I went with single Midi channel plug ins versus multichannel performance ones. I found that SampleTank and SoundCanvas seemed to perform unreliably when loading multiple performance instances in a gig file so I just use multiple instances of Zenology which seems to be running fine.

Thank you to @dhj and @npudar as well as the whole community for being so helpful. The sustain, sostenuto scripts were a game changer for me to simulate some of the Roland GR55 Hold functions and now that I kind of know what I’m doing the flexibility in the MIDI space is multiples ahead of the hardware side- even for guitar.

I’m sure you guys could make the setup way better with what I don’t know but thank you for getting me here!

MM

[npudar]

Thank you for sharing

[WITELITE]

Thank you guys! I just added the Arturia Collection. Really amazing to think this is without a hex pickup.

[ZappaFrank]

It is really impressive to see how you have transformed yourself into a Software MIDI Guitarist. I use mainly a Quad Cortex, but also Gig Performer for a lot of things. Would you share your MIDI Guitar 2 settings? The problem I have with MIDI Guitar 2 is that every time I use it I find myself tweaking some parameters. Do you use MIDI Guitar 2 inside of Gig Performer or stand alone sending MIDI into Gig Performer. On the one hand I would like to have it inside Gig Performer, but I have a buffer setting of 1024 samples and I think MIDI Guitar should run with something like 128 samples. For monophonic Guitar to MIDI the Sonuus GM2v3 works pretty well, but obviously MIDI Guitar 2 - if I manage one day to really find the perfect settings - is much more powerful.
One more question: Maybe you are the wrong person to ask because you have replaced a lot of pedals with software. My guitar signal is going to a pedalboard before it goes into MIDI Guitar 2. I remember from some guidelines that the guitar signal that goes into MIDI Guitar 2 should be as clean as possible. Can you confirm that? Should I create another clean signal chain or can I stay with my current setup?

[David-san]

@WITELITE

The sustain, sostenuto scripts were a game changer for me

Oh really? Great!

[Gig] Sostenuto and Sustain

Scriptlets in this gig file allow you have a sostenuto pedal and/or a sustain pedal for instrument plugins that don’t have these pedals. [Sostenuto-Sustain] How to use Sostenuto: insert the sostenuto Scriptlet plugin in the MIDI connection before the instrument plugin (before the sustain scriptlet if you use it, too) if you need a second sostenuto insert it in the MIDI connection before the first sostenuto Scriptlet and use them in the order sostenuto #1, sostenuto #2 assign a widget to th…

[WITELITE]

Love the Forum name :).

I use MG2 inside of Gig performer and I think I have a buffer setting of 128. 1024 is going to cause more delay so if the audio card can’t handle 128, maybe try another sound card (they have gotten better and cheaper).

And definitely send a clean sound into Midi guitar. I use a guitar equipped with the piezo acoustic and use that signal for Midi Guitar.

And I also put Midi Guitar into the Global Rackspace so it doesn’t load 100 times. I then have widgets attached to settings I might change in specific rackspaces (chromatic vs pitch bend etc).

MM

[ZappaFrank]

What can I do? I am a die hard Zappa Fan. I have spent a lot of time recreating his songs and crazy guitar sounds…
Thank you, I will try to have MG2 in a Global Rackspace - maybe in a second instance of Gig Performer because I need a lot of buffer because I am running a lot of plugins.

[WITELITE]

The Global Rackspace is your friend. Really think about what can be there to minimize replication and then put stuff in the preset rackspaces that are very specific

Here’s a pic of mine

And since you’re an FZ fan…

WITE LITE - Cosmic Debris 2009

[ZappaFrank]

Oh, yes, nice playing. I think Zappa would approve this band