If you choose a Roland hex pickup, then yes–a GP-10, SY-1000, or GM-800 will be necessary. GK-3 pickup for GP-10, SY-1000, and GK-5 for the GM-800 (or GK-3 with GKC-AD analog to serial digital converter).
It’s a large outlay of funds if you are just getting started, but most people that are experimenting with Midi Hex 3 already have this equipment.
Whatever way you go, ubertar, cycfi, sub six, or roland: it will be expensive. Ubertar, cycfi and sub six will require a six channel input interface–the Apollo twin is just two channels.
The cheapest route is a gp-10 with gk-3 pickup that you can often find used for three hundred dollars for both. Roland also has the least problems with crosstalk–the bleeding of one string going into an adjacent string’s pickup.
So theoretically if using the bill bax cable I could plug its mono-out into my Apollo twin, then use MG3 to re-separate out the 6 channels? Or would that not actually accomplish anything different from just using MG3 by itself?
ah, not with the apollo twin. there was another poster upthread with an 8 channel apollo interface, i mistook you for they.
any 6+ channel interface should work fine with mg3hex. i’m using a zoom l8 mixer at 128 samples, works great. separate knobs for the input gain are handy, both visually as indicators, and for fine tweaking if one string is a little bit too quiet.
i put an alert on reverb for gp-10’s < $275, i see them come up at least a couple of times a month. as @lpspecial said, that is the least expensive entry point for mg3hex.
The GM-800 has easy-to-configure midi alt-tune capabilities. You could for example make your high e and b your bass strings and your low E and A, high pitched strings. You can also mute strings like you can with the MIdi Guitar Hex string filters.
You can use both together at the same time as long as the chain is turned off for the one with the GM-800 midi device. I doubt I’ll use it that much, but the option is there–two trackers at once, GM-800 and Midi Guitar Hex.
Currently, I have a Launchpad X hooked up as a midi device to control non mpe basses and synths. One chain for MPE, one chain for hex audio, and one chain for Launchpad X with standard synths.
So many possibilities.The standalone Midi Guitar 3 Hex program is so good that I may ditch working with DAWs.
You can also tune strings in MG by adding a transposer, or even the retuning module, to each string group, the latter can be wired up with modulators to modulate tuning of individual strings…
i sound like that when i try to convince my (imaginary) wife that i need to plunk down $1k for the electro-super-deluxe-conduit-bender and she wigs her eyes over towards the already excellent and in fact superior conduit bender i already have in hand.
why would anyone use this function? especially if you need to turn off the other chains.
You don’t have to turn off the other chains. You turn the chain off on the one with your GM-800 midi controller. You have MPE going on one chain, hex audio on chain 2 and GM-800 configured midi on chain 3–all going at the same time if you wish. Turning off the chain with the GM-800 stops the MG3 tracker from getting into that chain. The chain still works when it is off with an alternative midi controller. As Yngwie says, less is not more, more is more.
I thought it couldn’t get any better, but it has! Been dreaming about a setup like this for years. Mobius Looper is now in version 3 with 64 bit aupport, and it works inside Midi Guitar 3 Hex! Jeffrey Larson is the creator.
The crosstalk issue is encountered with Graphtech Ghost piezo system which is also used for hexaphonic midi. The only way that I could reduce the crosstalk was to lower the sensitivity settings.
double check that the strings are properly assigned. i have no crosstalk issues using the graphtech piezo’s.
when using 6 instances of mg2 i did have to gate each string individually to fix the crosstalk, but mg3hex has some magic inside which rejects input from neighboring strings.
at one point i tried ‘channel 1-6’ to see what would happen. notes plucked on the high e would appear on the low e string. also this type of thing occurred when i had accidentally set two strings to the same input channel.
i saw the extreme earlier and like you i think it would be a great match with mg3hex.
unfortunately though, at the very bottom of the page, it says “PRIVATE VANITY PROJECT
NOT FOR SALE”.
if there is sufficient demand bill might be persuaded to change that, i hope. or perhaps he could work up a box which would allow the end user to attach a gk or other pickup on their own.
that sound you’re hearing? that’s the sound of thousands of sleepy gk guitars rising up out of their coffins and coming back to life, courtesy of dutti’s hexbox and mg3hex.
Please make sure it works at multiple sample rates, at the very least 44.1 and 48k. I just got a GI-10 and it is only 44.1. Most likely will be selling into soon.
