so you’d run mg3hex standalone on the gm800 and patch its output into the apollo? seems a waste to drop back down to analog.
also once the vst version of mg3hex is out you might want everything running through the apollo, that would probably be less complicated. there’s lots of adat 8 channel input devices which are half the price of the gm-800.
thanks for sharing the subsix, that looks like a solid match for mg3hex.
Well I assume I can run GM800 as a second audio interface or w/e-- or how does that work? I watched the LoFi Leif video on this MG3 hex and I couldn’t quite figure that out. Currently I used metaplugin within protools with MG3. Maybe I could do somehow a 6 input track in protools (once the VST is released for hex). Or I could use loopmidi and run standalone maybe and pass midi into protools
Gotcha! Yeah I am thinking getting one of those Subsix hexaphonic pickups and maybe an 8 channel adat preamp and an 8 channel DI box. The total cost of this gets up there though… But I think that may get expensive if I need hiZ on all of the inputs. The advantage of this setup is I can also play with the hexphonic acoustic sound and pan the strings around but maybe GP-10 and other hexaphonic processors can already do that
i was experimenting with controlling pressure using a force sensitive resistor. this seems workable.
can you think of a way to have mg3 use the higher of the two values - ie: if the fsr value is higher, use it, if not use the existing mg3 derived pressure value?
or if i could chain them together and transmit mg3 pressure + fsr pressure that would work.
this would also be helpful if i was using an exp pedal. if the pedal starts from zero it will sound unnatural. if the pedal adds to the existing pressure rather than superseding it the result will be more musical.
this is definitely an area worth exploring. in addition to panning, hex fuzz is fun. also the deep effexor, i haven’t fooled around with that using the hex version yet but i am guessing it will be pretty neat.
the Audient Evo SP8 Smart Preamp is worth a look, ~$500, has an auto level feature, preamps on every channel.
another issue with the gm800 is that it isn’t designed to be an audio interface. it lacks knobs like direct/computer, headphone volume, and input level controls. no balanced outs is a killer for me. i don’t know if you can aggregate it in protools, but even if so it’s really not optimal for the task because it was designed for a completely different purpose.
That would be something like a pressure filter function perhaps, but with the task of just passing on the highest value from any set of values?
There are no Pressure filter functions right now, but it doesn’t sound like something impossible for @JamO to achieve.
It is important to decide which handle you connect your controller to. Connecting to the MIN handle gives you acess to control over the decay whenever the Max handle is placed above the Min handle. If you on the other hand place the MIN handle higher that the Max handle on the Press curve/envelope you will get an increase in pressure (as opposed to the natural decay from the strings loss of energy). And for that scenario you best control the dynamic evolution by connecting your controller to the MAX handle.
Now YOU decide if you want this to apply to just ONE note in a chord (using the string filter) or all notes, as would be the standard case.
Your settings of the MIN/MAX relationship witll decide where the dynamics start from.
I use a GP-10 and with my Presonus AR-16 as an aggregate device with basic Midi Guitar 3.
It seems to be working fine.
Can’t wait for the multiple audio input MG3 Hex VST.
I think that interface only has 2 hi-z inputs but maybe I’m wrong
This MG3 HEX development is very exciting and a potential game changers.
Even the embryonic version has immense potential.
The string filter is a great development.
One request could you extend the patch size to 6 (from 3) as with string filter one could do some amazing per string playing and processing?
A corollary to this is that using MG3 with the excellent AMPLE Guitar VSTs would be much more flexible. AMPLE does not currently support MPE (not sure if/when it will?). It does support per string MIDI channels but requires each string on a dedicated midi channel. MG string output varies in order of string strike (understandably). The String filter offers a way to allocate per string midi channels with MIDI OUTPUT.
I can’t figure out a way to use MG effectively at present.
You can use 6 instances of MG on split audio channels in DAW but I find this quite resource heavy.
Can’t wait for MG3 HEX VST to support 8 input channels — running two instances to filter strings may then work? – but 6 channels in a patch would be cleaner and more processor efficient.
thanks! i didn’t try attaching the cable to the min, didn’t realize that was possible.
i believe that will completely address my situation.
Yeah, it kind of changes everything. Especially if you learn how to manipulate the envelope to go with that. 
please don’t buy any audio equipment on the advice of a stranger on the internet, but i believe that while hi-z is preferred, a magnetic guitar pickup’s signal can be run directly into an audio interface, as long as there is a pre-amp on the channel.
if you do go with the subsix, you could test this using your apollo before adding the add’l inputs.
pickup-wise, another option is ubertar, pricing for the pickup, cable and breakout box is $275 single coil - $375 humbuckers.
i’ve briefly used a set of the ubertar pickups, no complaints.
MIDI Guitar 3.0.52 is out. This update only affect MG HEX and addresses issues with tracking loud and bright hex pickups (GK5) and added new features to MG HEX. See my top post.
Well, after an hour of noodling with the GK-5 .52 update, I have to say it is working great! I raised the dynamics to 85 and got wide dynamic range reaching full velocities. My quality score was 85 and spurious note number was 2. Latency value was 8 ms. A second test session received values of 82 and 1 with a latency of 7ms. Tracking is solid and clean.
Latencies are the same as I measured before in Ableton–faster on the E and A strings than the GM-800 and the GM-800 being slightly faster on the high b and e strings. The responsiveness to bends is like no other pitch to midi device. Other systems, especially the Tripleplay requires such exaggeration of bends and vibrato to get any result, but Midi Guitar 3 Hex picks up even subtle vibrato.
The only problem found so far, is that the added Dynamics knob setting does not get saved to the patch. I would prefer that its value gets stored when saving a patch.
Also, I would like the knob values to be able to be controlled by the up and down arrows on the computer keyboard. As it is now, if you hit the up and down arrows, it cycles through the saved patches.
I’m having issues with ghost notes and haven’t been able to fix it with the gate knob. I think part of the problem is that I play pedal steel and my picks tend to introduce unintended harmonics on the strings. I have some sample recordings separated by string if you are able to use them in testing. The gain is very low since these signals aren’t going through a preamp, but the gain knob in MG3 tends to be enough to get them detectable.
pedal-steel-samples-1.zip - Google Drive pedal-steel-samples-2.zip - Google Drive pedal-steel-samples-3.zip - Google Drive
One way to fix these would be to add an option that blocks notes with greater than X pitch change over less than Y time. For example, block a note that is more than a 5th up in less than 20ms. This wouldn’t work with tap playing or intentional harmonics, but the tradeoff could be worth it if your playing style tends to create unintended harmonics. Definitely shouldn’t be default but could be a helpful option for those experiencing issues.
Another issue I’m having is notes getting spam triggered rather than just triggering once. It only seems to happen with certain strings. For this one I’ve attached a video showing the retriggering.
pedal-steel-samples-4.zip - Google Drive (link)
Thanks for your work on MIDI HEX!
I have never tried with a Pedal Steel.
I just a listened to a few of your samples and one had crackles, another had a note or even some strumming in the background, so I guess you have lots of crosstalk? What kind of pickup are you using? I guess a preamp would help.
I assume the polyphonic MG3 is better than HEX for edge cases like this.
I’m using a pickup from CyCfi. Right now the individual capsules are not properly aligned so I do have some bleed over between strings. There is also a good amount of white noise/hiss. The issue with regular MG3 is that it is limited in how well it can track multiple strings ringing at the same time, especially octaves. HEX has been much more reliable at picking up every string hit, which is more important to me than avoiding ghost notes (although ideally I could have both). I made one more recording if you’re interested:
when using the cycfi nu multis on a bass i also had hiss/white noise plus ac hum, regardless of power source (battery, standard guitar pedal power adapter).
i ended up using an eq to notch out the 60hz multiples, and a gate to block the noise. both of these were ableton efx, and in place before mg2/mb.
there was nothing i could do about the crosstalk, adjusting pickup height low to high didn’t really make much of a difference. the nu’s are very sensitive, and perhaps the mass of bass strings made things even worse.
however, now that mg3hex is here i may outfit another instrument with the cyc fi’s to have a look-see.
Another GM-800/Midi Guitar Hex 3 Comparison. This time, the comparison was made within the Reaper Daw, with just two tracks, one with gm-800 and one with the loopmidi input from MG3Hex. Results matched up very closely. The top track is MG3Hex and the bottom track is GM-800. The notes were just open strings from high to low.
Reaper is an easy DAW to use for MPE. All you have to do is set up a track and then set it to receive on all channels. Configure your vst synth for MPE mode and you’re ready to go.
After playing for some time with this new version of MG3Hex, I must say that I am amazed by the result. We can now almost forget that we are playing on Midi instruments, we have sensations very close to playing on a “normal” guitar. We are not far from the “Holy Grail” of the vguitarist 
I did some tests to compare the playing sensations between MG3Hex and the GM-800 by playing on the dynamic and feeling settings, and the observation is clear, MG3Hex is much better!
a quick little example to try to illustrate my point:
The first part is done using the plugin “ARP 2600” from Korg. The second part is done using Halion7. On these examples, I’m not using the MPE capabilities of MG3, it’s just to illustrate the feeling and the perfect tracking. I use a GK5 installed on a strandberg guitar.
Please mind, when you use loopMidi to send MIDI to a DAW, it adds around one buffersize of latency before the DAW reads it. Conversely, when you host instruments directly inside MG you actually subtract one buffersize of latency (this is because MG can generate a full buffer of the piano after it has processed the same buffer of tracking the guitar), so I the real latency is probably around ~5ms lower.
Lastly, latency depends also on the GATE knob, and of course the driver of the audio interface.
