Guitar to MIDI?
 

Has anyone found a reliable guitar to MIDI device or software?

I have a client who would like to have me sent him sheet music of my finger style playing.

I'm thinking a guitar to MIDI converter would work, but haven't found one that's solid enough.

I'm using ProTools, so after recording, I can have ProTools generate the score from the MIDI file.

I've tried two softwares recently, single notes are OK, but with finger style they get confused and it sounds like crap.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Ty Ford

I would also be interested in anyone that might be having success . I tried one years ago ( 2003 or 4) it was a flat rectangle hardware unit that went under the strings and it could not replicate chords accurately. I finally gave up on it and got a midi keyboard . Things may have changed a bunch since then . Hopefully someone who may be using a more current solution can chime in .

I've never tried it so can't attest myself but I have a friend who raves about his Fishman Triple Play. Says it's much better than anything else he's had.

I was using an old AXON unit in conjunction with a Roland hex pickup which was amazingly fast. Most pitch-to-MIDI units only tackle monophonic sound, but the hex pickup, as the name implies, has one pickup per string, and the unit sends 6 separate signals to the MIDI device.

I have the NI Kontakt MIDI library, and used a software called GTAK to take the output from the AXON to play the MIDI sounds. But basically I'd have a separate track for each string, then combine each string in Guitar Pro 5. It's been about 5-6 years since I've done it, but it works really well. I currently use a GR55 because I don't need to lug around the AXON and Roland JV1080 sound module and guitar effects processor, as the GR55 does it all.

Midi Guitar
 

The first (and last) time I played a MIDI guitar was back in 1988 while I was a student at Berklee. Roland had come in with a bunch of prototypes and unleashed them on a group of guitar students to get feedback. Suffice to say, it wasn't pretty. So I never revisited the idea...though I'm sure they've improved exponentially.

What I do these days is play & record in Digital Performer. DP will turn audio data into MIDI data, which can be cleaned up in the score editor and printed or exported. I typically export & then do final formatting in Sibelius.

DP has a 30 day demo, so you could do that without having to buy it for a single project.

HTH

logic and reason can convert audio to midi, so i would check to see if your pro tools does the same. you may already have what you need.

play music!

I use MIDI guitar pickups and keyboards. I have not used them to create music scores or tablature, but I do look at the MIDI "piano roll" output and clean it up as part of using them to create music parts for recordings. It's been awhile since I looked at software that attempts to replace a MIDI pickup with individual elements for each string, but in general they do best with monophonic stuff still I think. There is also software that just tries to read the notes in a chord, and I sometimes use one inexpensive one on MacOS called Coda. It gets stuff wrong, but it helps me do the kind of rough transcription that I find better than just trying to use my (not very good) ear.

I currently use the Fishman TriplePlay MIDI system most often on guitar. Frankly I do this because the full Roland setup which may even be better is so bulky that it doesn't fit into the small, cluttered office were I often create parts. The Fishman cannot be easily fitted on many guitars because it's pickup is a bit bulkier than the Roland one I believe. You want a MIDI pickup to be right up next to the saddle, and if the saddle isn't high for the strings to clear the pickup you have a problem. On the other hand, I mounted my Roland pickup a long time ago and I may have rosey memories there.

Of course, you can mount the pickup on any guitar to create the MIDI data, including an electric guitar. Currently I have the MIDI pickups on two inexpensive solid body electric guitars, though I often use the pickups to play various acoustic ethnic instruments I don't own.

Properly calibrated (the pickup maker will have the utility to do that) the pickups are very sensitive. The usual issue you see when you look at the piano roll data is ghost notes you didn't intend to play. Some of them will be audible, some will be so short and low in volume that you may not hear them standing out in a complex part, but they will be there in the data and would presumably show up in the score. If you are a clean, precise player (I'm not) this will be less of a problem, but expect that any MIDI output from a guitar will need to be cleaned up.

If I was trying to create a score or tab, I'd play the piece as slowly and as cleanly as possible. If your playing mind can do this, reduce any expressive playing effects when you play to create tab. This will likely produce the cleanest output. Add any fancy tab notation about the expression after the fact once it's in tablature.

The Fishman TriplePlay comes with a bunch of software that takes some busywork to get registered and installed. I skipped some of that as I already had a good amount of MIDI "virtual instruments" to play via the interface. I recall one of them was software for music transcription.

Hope any of this helps.

If you have an iOS device, I've heard of folks getting decent results with this app, https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/midi...523095780?mt=8. It would be by far your cheapest choice. There is an in app purchase that goes with it to make it truly functional, but still, as opposed to a new guitar, new pickups, or a guitar synth, it's cheap like borscht. It doesn't work well on really crazy stuff, but might work for basic finger style.

Audio to Midi
 

Celemony's Melodyne software is the most comprehensive audio to midi software. It is expensive, though, but it can do so much more, like pitch and tempo correction.

The versions of Melodyne that handle polyphonic audio are expensive, and limited to the editor and studio versions. I upgraded my way to the studio version at a significantly discounted price (holiday sales, etc. once you register a version with them).

I have not tried to use Melodyne to convert polyphonic audio to midi and yet, but I can give it a try with a song I want to learn and let you know how it does. As with any other full featured software, there may be a steep learning curve so this may take me some time. I am guessing this will depend heavily on the complexity of the song, the quality of the audio file and the skill level of the guitar player, especially at minimizing other noises and keeping uniform time/tempo. Once you have the midi file, most sheet music software should be able to import them. I use Sibelius which will do this.

Here are some links:
http://www.celemony.com/en/melodyne/what-is-melodyne
http://www.celemony.com/en/melodyne/...hnical-matters

Plugindiscounts.com offers discounts on a lot of recording software including Melodyne. You have to create a free account to see the pricing. I have purchased several times from them in the past.
https://plugindiscounts.com/?s=melod...t_type=product

I also have a Brian Moore midi electric guitar and Blue Chip midi guitar controller. I have tried using these in the past to generate sheet music and was not very successful. I found it much faster to just type the notes directly into Sibelius using the mouse and keyboard to make sheet music with guitar tab.

If you want to create guitar sheet music with tab, you may also want to give the open source (free) Power Tab 2.0 Editor a go (still in development but works fine on my Windows 8 PC):
https://github.com/powertab/powertab...-Here-at-last!

I hope some of this is helpful. Maybe the studio guys who know more will chime in.

I had the AX-50 which I thought was very fast. I wish the technology would re-emerge from another manufacturer; I remember reading Yamaha bought the patents but did nothing with them. The way I did it was split each string to a separate track in Cakewalk, then import each track (which is each string) into GuitarPro and recombine everything. It wasn't click-and-done but was very accurate.

Well, I sprung for a Fishman Triple Play. I think it took best of show at a recent NAMM convention. I have a Fishman SoloAmp and part of my decision was based on how well that works for me. I installed the wireless pickup on my semi-acoustic Telecaster. Haven't even tried the MIDI files yet. I've been captured by the sounds.

Setup for recording is not for the faint of heart. I had very good phone support. Frank Pedallaro sets up a software thing that temporarily lets him operate your computer over the internet connection while you talk on the phone. He's very quick and knows how to get stuff up and running.

It'll probably take me a few months to actually read the manual and get to understand what I have here, but many of the string, horn and flute sounds are very good.

Regards,

Ty Ford

MIDI IS COOL
 

I enjoy mine for the purposes of controlling MIDI virtual instruments. The introductory package of sounds that come with the unit has some interesting stuff. Playing sampled bowed string instruments with a guitar can be addictive.

I have the GR55 with the GK3 pickup and its absolutely addicting. I predict soon you will stop creating sheet music and just start loving the cello, sax and orchestral sections. Its another dimension of playing.

I figure by now you must be realizing you cannot just jump on the thing and hit it like a der der toy. The tone has to be coaxed. And think like a sax player, not a guitar guy with a sax sound.

Have fun. MIDI guitar is awesome. Been into it since it first came out.