Which starting setup for best/cheap results? Audio interface or GM 800 / VG 800 for MIDI Guitar 3 Hex?

Hello everyone, I’m new on the forum and can’t wait to start experimenting with all the amazing possibilities of Midi Guitar. At first I wanted the VG800 for synth sounds but then discovered MG3 which looks better overall.

So I am at a crossroad to decide how to do it and i can’t decide the cheapest / best result option :

  • Audio interface with Midi Guitar 3 : Probably the cheapest option with a second hand audio interface but I won’t get the hex capabilities which i heard are the best to gest the most out of midiguitar like being able to strum and get the best tracking. But if i want to get into hex afterward, my audio interface won’t be of any use.
  • GM800, VG800 or other hex : It would allow me to get the hex function right away but it seems to me that the pedal in itself wouldn’t be of any use since all instrument can be obtained from midiguitar. I would think that the VG800 is better so that i have more out of the box guitars and string instruments and have the more synth things from MG3. I am confused as to it’s of any use to keep using the sounds from the pedal alone or in complement to MG3 or if it doesn’t matter since the pedal is only here for the hex function.

What are your thought on this ? I found a complete bundle of VG800 with GK5 & a control pedal at 680€.

Thanks in advance

Choosing a starting configuration, with the associated investment, is not easy with the various solutions available to you.
You must first understand the functions of the different hardware:
GM-800:
It has four distinct synthesizer channels with a large number of sounds accessible directly from the device.
It requires a GK5 hexaphonic pickup.
It can output the audio signals from the six strings of the GK5 and send them as USB signals to a computer (Mac or PC).
From these USB signals, the MG3Hex software allows you to control software synths on the computer. It does so with great precision, excellent dynamics, and optimal latency of around twenty milliseconds.
It can also send a MIDI signal to the computer with a latency equivalent to that of the MG3Hex, and in this case, the MG3 is not required. Personally, I prefer the MG3Hex solution, which produces more dynamic results.

VG-800:
It requires a GK5 hexaphonic pickup.
It doesn’t generate MIDI synth sounds, but it does generate guitar sounds from the audio signals output by the GK5, such as acoustic or electric guitar sounds like Stratocasters, Telecasters, Les Pauls, and others.
It can output the audio signals from the six strings output by the GK5 and send them as USB signals to a computer (Mac or PC).
Like the GM-800, it can also send a MIDI signal to a computer with a latency equivalent to that of the GM-800.
So, to get MIDI synth sounds with a VG-800, you need a computer. This can be an obstacle, but not a deal breaker, for live performances.

MG3 only:
Requires the use of a computer and sound card or a guitar multi-effects unit connected to the computer.
The latency in this mode is around 40ms, which can be a problem.
This works very well for adding “Strings”/“Pads” or similar sounds, in addition to the guitar sound.
But it will require very careful playing for sounds like “Plucks,” “Pianos,” etc.

I hope this information will be useful in making your choice. If you have more specific questions, please feel free to ask us on this forum.

I feel as though I’ve written this before, but if you want to dip your toes into the world of hex without spending all that much money, the cheapest option is a used BOSS GP-10 with a GK-3. If you don’t vibe with it you’ll still have a relatively cheap audio interface to run your D.I guitar and an expression pedal to boot. It’s small and you can run it on a power bank with a 5V to 9V adaptor, which is convenient.

But, once you’ve gone hex, you’re unlikely to go back so you might think you’re better off putting your hard-earned cash into a newer option with product support in its future, like the BOSS VG-800.

Ultimately, it depends on your personality and your cash flow.

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I can only tell you what I use.
Roland GK3 hex pickup with a direct breakout cable I put together into a MOTU 828.
100% happy with this setup.
Yes I know, it’s not cheap.
I have also used a Scarlett 18i20 3rd generation, you can easily find them second hand for much less, works great but with the MOTU I can get lower latency that stays stable under all conditions.
And then there is the Behringer 1820… cheapest but I have no personal experience with it.

Thank you very much for your advices.

I have mixed feelings because mg3 aims to replace the pedals so the choice of the pedal would be only for when I don’t have a computer.In which cases I may still want synth sounds but which would be inferior and make me miss the ones from mg3

I’m thinking that since I already have a guitar and a multi effect for guitar sounds I might as well go toward the gp10 or GM 800.

I’ve been very hyped because of lofileif videos where he uses direct mg3 without hex and seems to be very confortable with all’ this. I don’t quite see the limitations of strumming, tracking or latency. Could you explain a bit more how hex is just better ?

Also you seem to be saying that my multi effect that has an usb out may be sufficient to try mg3 ?

I’ll look into the other gear option that you mentioned that I don’t know

Many thanks !

Any USB audio interface with an instrument input will enable you to experience MG3.

Per-string conversion gives you much finer control over your musical gestures.

Thanks,

Could you please tell me a bit about gm3 limitations in general ? I may be over hyped haha.

What about midi guitar instruments inside gm3 with hex, is it close enough to real guitar playing or what I would get from a guitar processor ?

IMO, it’s rather dependent on the player. I’d rather encourage you to try it out for yourself and see if it works for your musical purposes.

it will be helpful to you to explore mg3 at least a little before you decide to go for the hex version. i’d guess that 90% of guitarists will be perfectly satisfied with the way it works.

if you use a slide, independent string vibrato or alternate tunings those are arguments for mg3hex.

regardless of hex or not, ‘real’ guitar has certain challenges. one issue is that many of the virtual guitars are designed to be played with a keyboard. some details here will be helpful - do you want specific acoustic sounds, or blues/jazz, or ???

i don’t know if the gk5’s analog output is filtered, if so, some of the other choices (uber, cycfi, subsix) may be a better choice future-wise as mg3 acquires even more features.

Thanks again for your swift replies.

I can’t wait to try it “vanilla” first when I settle down in 3 weeks, I’ll keep you updated here of what wonders or limitations may arise. Per string instrument mapping does sound very interesting to accompany oneself.

For guitar sounds I was hoping a broad variety really, nylon, 12 string, blues, jazz, energized rock. Of course I want it all :slight_smile:

per string instrument mapping, or even partial string zones are definitely a reason to go with hex over standard.

but, with standard you can assign note ranges to different instruments.

you’d have to go with virtual guitars for the nylon and 12 string, but the rest are probably achievable without modeling. a reason to avoid models is that they tend to be heavy on the memory.

@lofileif posted this video on nylons:

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I think @kimyo and @Vaultnaemsae mixed together are the combined answer needed.
I have a GP10. I do not think it will make it to macOS 26. Boss did support GP10 since 2014 and beyond. My feeling is that in any case it won’t support it anymore. It’ll be interesting to see what they will do with SY1000 as that is not that old… so maybe having to deliver macOS26 USB Drivers for that they will give us a gift.
In any case Sequoia is supported and it makes sense to stop over it until the successor of macOS26 comes next 2026 fall. So your decision has to be based on what OS you are using for doing Music (Windows 11 vs MacOS) how much you want to invest (get a GP10 now and use it for at least two years on macOS by delaying mayor OS changes) or invest in a technology at its peak as VG800. I would stay away from GM800 simply because with VG800 and MG3HEX you’ll have an impressive combo (as well as GP10 + MG3HEX) but as @kimyo suggested, why don’t you get your hands dirty with MG3 first? There’s a lot that can be done with a standard guitar! I am a fan of both MG3 and MG3HEX but lately I am using MG3 more because I use it mainly for solos and some backing chord writing in the DAW. I use Gp10+MG3HEX only for parts that benefit from it and some ALT Tunings. As you can see yourself all depends on your ability as a guitarist (I am a disaster at finger picking and tapping) and needs in your musical expression.
Hope it helps.
Whatever path you’ll choose, Ole’s fantastic job on this software will open your musical expression like no other!

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Hello,

The support aspects does make sense, I am on windows 10 and would surely like to have my setup to go through the years. I guess the GP 10 may become outdated on it too ? The GP 10 looked nice because of the price and the pedal (is it usable in mg3 ?)

For the choice between GM 800 or VG 800, I don’t really know. Why do you say to stay away from the GM and that the combination with VG would be better ? Maybe the guitar sounds from VG are better than what mg3 can do ?

Why do you not use directly mg3 with hex all the time and return to mg3?

Thank you for your advices, I think I may be able to invest in one solution or the other in the end, with an added expression pedal.

I use both because my SY-1000 isn’t always on and sometimes I don’t need full hex power. Like @pasha said, it’s not entirely necessary when playing single-note line content (“solos”).

The VG-800 probably gives you access to more things that you’re interested in, compared to the GM-800 – i.e. actual guitar sounds. At the very least they’ll form a good point of comparison once you start driving virtual instruments. FWIW, MG3 doesn’t “do” guitar sounds; it generates MIDI to enable control of guitar virtual instruments. If you’ve watched any LofiLeif vids on the subject, you are likely already aware that the instruments themselves can be a limiting factor. While, it’s possible to get decent results from plugins, it’s a bit harder work than using the BOSS unit.

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@Vaultnaemsae answer would have been mine :

My main machine is still a VG99 because is more powerful as a guitar tool but it lacks USB 8 channel audio out. Hence where GP10 comes in. I got GP10 in 2014 to play live as VG99 is fragile (plastic shell). So… GP10 is not permanently installed in my little home studio.

GM800 does not support MPE the way that MG3 does. I skipped it because I already invested in MG2 and MG3 beta came about at the same time or a little later so it didn’t make sense for me.
GM800 is a great machine IMHO to perform live with guitar and MIDI. I am older and I do not play live anymore and I never used MIDI to play live.

In any case Windows 11 supports GP10 fully and that support will go on until WIndows 11 will be there (unless Microsoft won’t change some internals that will affect the GP10 driver).

Hope this helps
Pasha

PS : I am sorry if my answers have more of the OS stack consideration sometimes. I worked in Information Technology 30+ years and it’s a dimension I have learnt to consider.

I suggest you go onto YT and watch a lot of videos before you buy anything.

Look at Midi Guitar 3 videos. I agree with @Vaultnaemsae, the ones from @LoFiLeif are awesome. Find his YT page and start with the video , “Starting With Midi Guitar 3”. It was posted about 8 months ago.

Next, look at videos of the Boss / Roland GK devices. You can categorize them by product type as well as cost.

For example, the Boss VG-800 and SY-1000 are guitar modelers with some synth-like sound types. But their main focus is modeled sound output, even though both can also do pitch to MIDI conversion.

In comparison, the Boss GM-800 is a guitar to MIDI converter with a built in tone module that has versions of many classic Roland synths preloaded in its hardware.

If I remember correctly, the Boss GP-10 does some of both: guitar tone modeling and pitch to MIDI, with some Roland synth sounds built in. It is also the cheapest of all of these units. But it is also an older product, with far fewer capabilities than the others listed above.

All of the above products can send the hex audio stream from an connected GK pickup directly to a computer via USB. This function is critical for use of MG3 Hex.

I currently have a Roland VG-99 (older than even the GP-10) and while I love it for what it does, I’m selling it because it cannot send the hex signal from my GK-3 pickup directly to a computer via USB.

I am replacing the VG-99 with a Boss VG-800. The GM-800 is a nice unit, but it is somewhat redundant with MG3. I have a huge collection of virtual instruments that I can play via MG3 hex. I can also buy the Roland software instruments that come pre-loaded in the GM-800.

In comparison the VG-800 gives me all sorts of added guitar tones not available in the GM-800. Plus alternate tuning and a lot of other great features.

Note that even if you own a multi-effects pedal, the VG-800 can also be a standalone multi-effects unit. It will have a lot of great effects from the Boss pedal line. So it will cover a lot of ground your other pedal might not cover. You can also use the GM-800 as a multi-effect with MG3.

And IMHO the VG-800 is worth the extra cost over the GP-10.

The other way to get the hex audio output from a GK pickup is to use a breakout device. I have been using a RMC fanout box with my GK-3 pickup to send analog hex audio to my Universal Audio Apollo interface, which connects to my Mac (which I prefer over a PC, but it would work fine either way). That gets me the hex audio signal to drive MG3 Hex.

You can’t buy the Fanout Box any more, but you can get a hex breakout cable. They are easy to find and cheap.

Now the “here is what you absolutely need” to run Midi Guitar 3 section.

  1. a computer to run MG3
  2. an audio interface*
  3. a GK pickup**
  • the Boss VG-800 or GM-800 or GP-10 or SY-1000 are all USB audio interfaces. As I said above, I’ve been using a stand alone audio interface and my Fanout Box to send hex audio from my pickup to my Mac. But I will use the VG-800 when I get it instead of my Apollo audio interface. Note that any audio interface with a single line level input can accept a mono signal from a guitar plugged into a direct box. That will allow you to use MG3 in mono mode, but not hex mode.

** I use a GK3 pickup and have a Brian Moore i213 guitar with built in piezo hex pickup from RMC. So to connect to the VG-800 which only has a serial GK input I need a GKC-AD box. The GK-5 pickup can connect directly to the VG-800.

Finally, I must mention that you may not be aware of a very powerful use for the hex audio output from a GK pickup.

Once you have the separate audio stream from each of your guitar strings recorded into your DAW, you can process the audio the same way you’d process audio from your mono guitar pickups. The huge difference is that with each separate string you can do different processing individually on each string.

You can do any processing you want on each string. For example, you could add amp sim plugins, effects plugins or even use external pedals on separate strings.

Specifically, I recommend the Blue Cat Audio Re-Guitar plugin. It allows you to select a guitar pickup type on each string. I can use the same type (say a Strat pickup) across all of the strings or I can do three strings as a Strat and three as a Les Paul.

Once I get the guitar pickup sound I like I add amp sims and effects.

But the best part is that you can resend the hex audio streams back to your Boss VG-800 and do all of the above on a string by string basis. So for example, you could create a 4 string guitar on your upper four strings and a two string bass (VG-800 also does bass modeling).

Then you could add an octave above the first four strings, creating the top four strings of a 12 string guitar.

Just send the processed sounds via USB back into your DAW for recording. This is a very powerful method of using hex guitar for almost limitless creative sounds.

Hope this helps. I know there’s a lot to digest. Take it slow and really get to understand each part before you go onto another.

a gk pickup is not required to run mg3hex.

also, assuming the newer gk pickups filter the analog signal like their older siblings, this is not desirable. i want all of the signal, not just the parts boss thinks i need,

the gp10 is likely to live forever on windows machines.

if you don’t have an audio interface, there’s lots of $100 options (presonus, ik multimedia) which will work fine with mg3 standard.

that is by far the cheapest way to get started.

and it will still be useful if you do decide to go with hex, now that mg3 supports dual interfaces.

Not what I’ve been lead to believe. Can you please explain how a mono input signal from a standard magnetic or piezo pickup can be used as input for MG3 Hex when the program expects a hex input signal?

Even if this worked by sending the mono (all strings) signal into all six inputs of the hex version of software, wouldn’t at least some of the hex version software’s features become non-functional?

A good point! For that reason (and some others), I am considering installing a CycFi Nu2 pickup on my Hamer Duotone. It is a full 20 to 20 kHz, low impedance hex pickup. CycFi makes a breakout box for it that has a GK 13 pin output, so it can work with any of the Roland and Boss GK devices.

See it here:

the cycfi is one of the non-gk options. there’s also the uber and the subsix.

as i said, no boss / roland hardware is required to run mg3hex.

also, none of the boss / roland solutions are stage ready audio interfaces, as they do not have balanced outputs.

lastly they lack independent knobs for headphone and direct/usb mix.

Hello, I am back from a solo 10~ hiking trip and I must say that midi guitar and my dream setup has been on my mind more than it should have :smiley:

Many thanks @Vaultnaemsae, @pasha & @scratch17 for your answers.

I understand that it appears that the VG 800 comes preloaded with many guitar tones that may be easier to use than MG3 virtual instruments while it would still be possible to do all the same in MG3 (amp, pickup, effet, alt tuning in MG3) but with a bit of added work and less plug and play.

@scratch17

This I don’t understand, you already have processed the hex signal to get processed sound by strings but you still want to send it back in VG800 to get more other sounds added by strings ?

I’ll try framing it differently, my goal setup should allow me to

  • Play live with guitar tones, synth etc…
  • Have at least volume control for the whole thing
  • Have some expression capability to modify either the mix between instruments and/or influence some aspects of the expression (distortion, wah wah, filter, arpegiattor, added octaves etc…).
  • Allow me to change preset

I have tried to represent my options :

With my curent multi effect ME-80 which i still have to try : I keep the control volume of the native guitar but no hex and i don’t know yet it this setup would work or where the midi control switches should/ could go ?

With VG-800 : Capable setup but needs the addition of 2 pedals & midi switches which I am not sure the VG 800 can all receive.

With GP 10 : I may be missing something but it seems that the GK3 has control volume and the GP 10 has a pedal already. Would I be able to link the GP10 pedal into MG3 for expressive control ? Unsure also as if the GP10 is a good audio interface to receive additional midi controls into MG3.

The third option seems cheaper, i could also find a way to connect my multi effect for inhouse guitar sounds that would need to be recreated in MG3 otherwise.
I am generally unsure how the midi controls can be channelled through any device into MG3 without another audio interface.

What do you guys think ?

Thanks in advance.