It has become somewhat of a tradition for me to spend the last days of my summer vacation to summarize and mold together the past years’ findings into a sample video. You’ll find in this video those plug-ins, virtual instruments, apps, software in general, or perhaps even hardware sometimes, that I found to be of any interest to my ongoing MIDI Guitar project. Please let me know of any new ones I might have missed or anything you want to shine a light on for any reason. I’m all ears!
Thank you for this post. I really enjoyed your musical uses of this wonderful software. I have had MG2 and MidiBass for quite a few years now. I do love using it at home for experimental recordings etc, but have never had the confidence to use it in a live situation. I do play guitars but in the bands I am involved with I play bass only. I do have very good bass guitars but would like to use them to create Upright bass parts at some gigs. sort of jazz type sounds etc. I have not been very successful with this so far. You have given me a few ideas here!! I would also like to be able to play bass parts on one of my many 6 string electrics, but have also never got that quite right. I am amazed what JamOrigin have produced so far and you seem to have made better progress than me in using it. 
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Hi man, and thanks for taking time to leave a comment! I’ve been using both MIDI Guitar and MIDI bass in some extended range project for 8 string guitar. And my take away from that experience is that, if I were to use anything live, I would probably go with MIDI Guitar 2.2.1 and the Ample sound upright bass. That is a really good combo. Fact is, Ample sound have trial versions that lets you test them out for yourselves. If you decide to try, be sure to let me know what you think?
I’m always impressed with your videos and playing. Thanks for the inspiration. MIDI Guitar 2 is great but can’t seem to get great results with piano samples. I’m wondering if I’m missing something in the setting of velocity, volume, attack, release, etc. Single lines aren’t a problem, just chords. I mostly play fingerstyle and know a clean technique is important. Any suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks
Hi! My guess, not having seen or hear you play, is that it not a settings question. If you have a dry, not overly cpu-heavy or large sampled instrument you should be able to play piano just fine. There are some pitfalls however,1) rolled off tone on your guitar - don’t do that. Start with Max on volume and tone, always. It is a good rule! 2) Keep your instrument in tune, Especially important when playing chords. The cleanliness in picking the notes makes sure there no unnecessary information overload with bum notes, scrapes or other noice that the software interpret as pitch-to-be-translated! You won’t hear them, but the chords just don’t ring out. The tuning part is related, I believe, to the semitone translation problem of the software. It seems that anything above a wholetone interval, the software does fine, but not a semitone. And if your guitar is out of tune enough, I guess you might land in the interval problem area with some bad luck? Try working with small chords (maximum 3 notes) to begin with. And make sure you are in control of the notes played. It is not guitar you are playing anymore. You are using your guitar to play whatever instrument you have before you! Turn off the guitar sound, and listen to the output (piano) and make your amendments to your playing from there! Good luck!
I had a similar issue when starting with MG2 and piano. I ended up turning off the gate in MG2 and inserting a free gate before it. Can’t remember which one I used, but the more precise control you have the better. It made the piano much better on chords, but you’ll still have to play with the velocity, compression and your gate settings. I didn’t explore using a 3rd party compressor but if the above doesn’t work you could try it. I ended up with a few different gate settings, for different songs and instruments. And I found that some VSTi’s respnded a little differently are required their own gate setting. The chords you’re playing have an effect too… you might have a tighter gate setting when playing chords including the low strings, and looser if playing just the upper 4 strings. Once you get a pretty good setting, then work on your playing technique. The string release as you’re going to the next chord often triggers false notes. Higher action helps a bit too for that, I’ve found.
Also try adjusting you guitar master volume. I’m using a schecter C-1 Classic which is mahogony and a bit dark, and I get the best tracking with vol at 3, both pickups. But my strat is set higher at around 7, and can also track well at 10.
I have gigged with MG2, no issues, but only used it on a couple of songs. But I load it in a host called Cantabile (awesome), and I can easily store different presets/snapshots for each song section, which stores ALL setting for ALL plugins that I’ve loaded for a particular song or section. So the gate setting changes as needed. I couldn’t do it without that function in Cantabile. Keep trying, you’ll get it!
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LoFiLeiF, very impressive demo. I certainly under-utilize MG2 capabilities. I do enjoy blending the synth and tradition guitar portions of MG2 and want to explore dynamically altering the blend during live performance. You described the mindset so well when you said:
“It is not guitar you are playing anymore. You are using your guitar to play whatever instrument you have before you!”
I’m a sloppy player and understand that I need precise fingering with my left hand to avoid troublesome ghost notes and other unintended/unwanted results.
Thanks for the inspiration, rick
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Hi Rick! Great to hear that my advice/ideas come across as something else than pure gibberish or empty phrases. I do worry about that sometimes as some of my concerns aren’t necessarily purely technical at all times! So thanks for the feedback on that! I’m happy to see that more and more people are considering using MG2 with all its advantages! LoFiLeiF