midi bass - anybody had success?

[pjmuck]

I'm guessing there's only a handful of people out there thatare into midi bass, but does anybody regularly use a hexaphonic pickup (piezo bridge or Roland GK) successfully to control midi sounds? I'd like some advice, please. I also play rhythm guitar and I've had great success using a Godin LGxSA 13pin guitar as well as a Roland GK PUP on my strat with my GR-33 guitar synth, so I thought I'd experiment with the Roland GK-3B PUP on one of my basses as well. I'm getting horrible tracking below the 12th fret,so I'm wondering if the problem lies with the mounting, the GK-3B PUP itself, or some incompatibility with the GR-33 unit (I know the GR-20 supports bass, and I have a call into Roland to find out about the GR-33). Any input would be appreciated.

[luknfur]

See FAQ Dimento's V Bass pup experiment.

You have great success with rhythm cause it's not bass frequencies. The old PV cyberbass seems hands down the approach for bass - or a keyboard (or a piccolo bass -guitar - pitch shifted).

[ricknote]

I wish I could tell you mine works great with bass strings but it
doesn't.
For the past 5 years I've been happily recording with my
Yamaha G50 midi converter and Yamaha B1D pickup.
I currently have it in a Hartke 5 string bass I found that plays nice
and has a narrow string spacing for playing chords. I put EMG's in it.
I use Ken Smith piccolo strings tuned B to G.
When tracking into the computer I set the pitch way down so I can
play synth bass lines around the 12th fret.
With the piccolo strings and the high pitch the latency is fine.

Anything other than this combination is just too slow for real playing.

Forget playing midi with bass strings in real time. The technology
is just not there yet. I'm hopeful it will be someday!

All the best,
Rick

[elros]

Your problem is the GR-33.

Longer version:
I've been using the GR-20 on a regular basis for about two years now, and it works very well with regular 6 string bass tuned BEADGC. (Some latency on the lowest notes, as you may expect, but really fine otherwise)

Recently I bought a nine string bass that has the top six strings connected to a 13-pin GK output.... these are tuned ADGCFBb and so fall between the guitar mode and the bass mode of the GR-20.
So I bought a GR-33 hoping that it would be better for this in-between tunuing. But it turns out that it's range is very much like the GR-20 in guitar mode. (althoug the GR-33 sounds better than the GR-20.... that's another matter)
I suggest you get a GR-20 and try that with your bass. It will actually track the entire range of the bass guitar, provided it is tuned fairly standard (BEADGC). Make sure you set it to bass mode first (of course).

[pjmuck]

Elros, you are correct. Roland has confirmed that the GR-33 is not really bass/GK-3B compatible, so now I'm debating whether I should pick up a GR-20 or just get an Axon 50 or 100 and use Reason sounds instead
(FYI, I had no latency issues running Reason sounds off my laptop from my GR-33 midi out using my Godin guitar). A GC near me has the GR-20 set up so I'll bring my bass down and try it out.

I would like to hear if there are any other conditions that improve tracking and performance, i.e. lighter strings or flats vs. roundwound (I believe I read that someone got better results with tapewounds), a short scale vs. long scale bass, etc. Also, given the inherent issues with tracking bass, is it even worth it to upgrade to something like Graphtec Ghost saddles, or is the difference inconsequencial?

[Dirk Diggler]

Axon and hex piezo is about the best solution if you want real strings.
But I hate to say it but I'm really much happier playing my Ztar these days, no latency at all. Now I just wish they would create the proper string spacing for us bass touch style players.
Dirk