Arduinoboy with Midi Guitar? (Page 1) - Nintendo Handhelds - Forums

1 Jul 16, 2010 5:45 pm

Offline

Edinburgh

I tried searching for info on this here & over at 8bc but couldn't find anything. Also I'm a total newcomer to midi, so I apologise if this is a stupid question.

I'm running a midi guitar (Yamaha EZ-AG) into the midi-in port of an Arduinoboy connected to a DMG running mGB. When I play the guitar, all I get is noise. I'm guessing this is because the guitar is sending out 6 seperate midi signals, which the Arduinoboy has no way of interpreting & correctly channeling to mGB.

I'm thinking that some kind of software interface between the guitar & the Arduinoboy is required. However, I have no idea what software or how it would be set up. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Or tell me if I am totally wrong?

Any help would be much appreciated.

2 Jul 16, 2010 6:14 pm

nickmaynard

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rochester, ny

why does the midi guitar send out 6 different signals? one for each string?

it sounds to me like it's sending out stuff on channel 4, the noise channel. are there settings on your midi guitar that let you pick what midi channel you're on?

3 Jul 16, 2010 6:22 pm

J. Arthur Keenes

Offline

Ontario, Canada

This is all the information you'll ever need on the subject.

4 Jul 16, 2010 9:18 pm

Comptroller

Offline

Edinburgh

nickmaynard wrote:

why does the midi guitar send out 6 different signals? one for each string?
it sounds to me like it's sending out stuff on channel 4, the noise channel. are there settings on your midi guitar that let you pick what midi channel you're on?

I'm guessing it sends out one signal for each string. This could be a fantasy.

Also, I was accidentally being misleading when I said all I got was noise - I meant random sounds, not actual noise channel. It sounds like a mess of pulse sounds, even if you're being careful to only pick one string at a time.

I can find no settings on the guitar to pick what midi channel you're on. I've checked the manual - it doesn't seem to be an option.

J. Arthur Keenes wrote:

This is all the information you'll ever need on the subject.

You actually got my hopes up there.

5 Jul 17, 2010 9:01 am

SurfaceDragon

Offline

USA

I know of a way to get similar sound without using the Arduinoboy or the Game Boy.
You will need your midi guitar
- a midi-to-USB cable
- and a computer running some sort of VSTi with music production software(FL Studio demo is free).

I would recommend you use one of these VSTinstruments
- Chip32
- Kraken
- Magical8bit
- Medusa
- Medusa2
- NESNoise
- NESPulse
- NESTri
- TB_Peach
- TB_Toad
- TB_Triforce
- or NESVSTi (http://8bc.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=17976)
-There are many more amazing VSTinstruments that would also work, I personally enjoy playing Tablas using DSK Indian DreamZ.

Have you tried any other midi controllers like a regular midi-keyboard with the Arduinoboy?

Check this out - http://www.tencrazy.com/gadgets/ezeg/ - Yamaha EZ-Guitar Environment v2.21 might be what you need. I guess it lets you change what midi messages your EZ-AG's buttons correspond to.

I hope you found this useful. I wish I could help more but I don't have much experience with the EZ-AG guitar or Arduinoboy.

I know Sonuus makes a guitar-to-midi converter but it is monophonic, doesn't track the notes properly 100% of the time, and costs about $100. But it works with a regular guitar. I heard you can also plug a mic into it instead of a guitar and convert voice/sound-to-midi. I don't own this so I can't recommend that you buy it but maybe you should check it out.

I am thinking about getting my own EZ-AG or EZ-EG. Do you like the one you have? Does it play well? Can you shred on it? I've had problems playing shred-metal on guitars with synth/midi pickups because they don't track quick enough.

Please let me(or rather us) know if you found a solution to your problem.

Last edited by SurfaceDragon (Jul 17, 2010 9:03 am)

6 Jul 17, 2010 9:08 am

SurfaceDragon

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USA

I just realized I've spent another night awake, DAMN.

7 Jul 17, 2010 9:23 am

SurfaceDragon

Offline

USA

I have a sleeping problem. Stress from my daily life keeps me up, then when I finally fall asleep I have horrible nightmares, usually wake up, try to fall asleep again, have nightmares, and repeat. Horrible nightmares every time I sleep.

8 Jul 17, 2010 3:43 pm

BLEO

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Geneva, NY

Hello, as the self-proclaimed Christ Child of All Chip Guitar (can I get an AMEN!?!?!), I'd love to help you out. Are you SURE your Arduinoboy is actually in mGB mode and not one of the other modes? That sounds like the culprit that would most likely cause tons of garbled MIDI data/sounds. If that's not the case, my other guess is that there might be an issue with your EZ-AG. Have you plugged it into any other MIDI sound sources? I'd try that, too. I say this because I've used MIDI guitars with Arduinoboy and mGB extensively in the past and a garbled mess of noise doesn't seem right at all. mGB is set to listen for channels 1-5 and will separate them without any problems. Be sure to read up on mGB and arduinoboy here.

SurfaceDragon has named many awesome VSTs if you end up going the computer route. I've totally scrapped hardware for my MIDI guitar setup because it just can't keep up with what I'm trying to do. I'm now 100% using plogue chipsounds as the sound source for my midi guitaring.

Good luck and let us know how things are going!

9 Jul 17, 2010 3:45 pm

arottenbit

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Milan, Italy

AMEN

10 Jul 18, 2010 9:51 pm

Comptroller

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Edinburgh

Thanks for all the replies & help! I won't have time to try out any of these solutions for a couple of days, but once I do I'll report back on the results.