What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?

Started by mooncaine, October 05, 2011, 06:18:57 PM

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Elantric

True, the cable capacitance is designed for high speed data, and not analog audio.

I anticipate this will require some R&D,and well designed active analog drive buffers. You will NOT be able to feed a passive high -Z guitar signal with this cable.
But the goal is really worth pursuing for my need for a more user friendly road worthy cable IMHO.


Multichannel wireless, and LOW latency, and affordable   - that solution may be around the corner, but I do not have the capital or time to create that path.

I'm aware  of the emerging technology. perhaps Wireless Ethernet AVB in 2014.


mooncaine

I'd favor a smaller connector. An HDMI connector seems alright to me. I don't know if it should be locking, or not.

Which is worse? Cable yanks out and your guitar goes quiet, or cable hangs on and a) you pull your VG-99 crashing to the the floor or b) your cable pulls you crashing to the floor?

Yeah, wireless would be ideal in that sense: no cable worries at all. But is it cheap, easy? Very small? I think the GK wart could be shrunk so small you can get it onto the face of your guitar, down among the rest of the guitar's knobs and switches, without it ever being in your way.

My ideal wart would just be a hub: you plug in your GK pickup here, your outgoing cable there, it's one a single knob on it *that you can replace with a knob that matches your guitar*, and it has input jacks round the edges for options: a pickup selector switch, a knob or two, or a pair of push-buttons. Mine would have pressure-sensitive pads for those (gonna wire up my own this winter). Others might want a flat-mounted, digital whammy bar. Buy the ones you want, ignore the rest. Fit it onto *your* chosen guitar, fit it where it suits you best. Hide it under chrome dome knobs or a stock strat pickup selector.

drjoness2001

I would like to see a divided hex pickup that looks, and works, like a standard pickup, similar to the Sound Garage design. You could drop the pickup in a standard humbucking slot. Then, either using some kind of backwards compatible trs guitar cable, or bluetooth wireless, etc. the signal would go to the synth.

This system would be easy to install, and maintain conventional appearance.

But, more than anything else, if there was a way to make the tracking flawless, that would 10x current sales.

Wayne

gumbo

Read slower!!!   ....I'm typing as fast as I can...

3Play

I followed this thread over from the thread about wireless MIDI.
[url]https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3444.msg34060#msg34060/url]
Thanks Elantric!

My two cents about HDMI:
1. The connector isn't particularly robust and it's prone to falling out, so a good strain relief would be in order.

2. It's been a while since I looked at the spec, but intrinsically, audio is compromised by being relegated to stealing clock cycles from the video stream. So (I'm just blue-skying, here) if one is thinking of converting the mag signals to digital at the guitar and sending dig audio into a modeler via HDMI, there's a price to pay. Some may notice, some may not.

HDMI does offer advantages, but it seem that there's so little data to send when sending MIDI, that it seems like overkill, and HDMI won't really ever support analog. I seems the same amount of time could be spent on a wireless solution, with a better result - Wireless MIDI and standard guitar cable.

Elantric

Supposedly at NAMM show next month Fishman will debut its wireless guitar to MIDI adapter.

Reread the top of this thread, will reveal the plan was send analog signals down a locking DisplayPort cable.

acousticglue

I was asking Amplitube folks (I have both the VG99 and Amp3) why they couldn't get the midi calls from Amp3 to software synths and pull that information. Would be cool to use 1/4" cable and the Amp3 module chain to synth access in computer.

kenact

I was just reading about an older guitar/midi technology from a company called Passac.  They sold both guitars and an outboard controller called a Sentient Six.

It seems they had an onboard multiplexer that sent all signals through a single 1/4" stereo cable.  From what I've read, the mag pup was sent down the tip and the hex pup was multiplexed and sent down the ring.  The company also claimed to have figured out a way to do pitch analysis with just a half cycle of the waveform (6ms on low E).
Godin Session & Montreal FTP, LGXT, LGX SA, Redline, ACS, A12, A11, A10, A4
Danoblaster Baritone w/GK-3
Gretsch Nashville, Viking
Fender Strats
Fret King Supermatic
Larrivee DV03RE
Parker Midi Fly
Seagull, S&P 12
VOX Phantom XII
GR-55, 33, 30, 20, GI-20, RC-50, US-20, VG-99, VP-7
Sentient 6
Cyr 7

Macciza

Hi
Yeah the Passac Sentient Six was an Aussie invention and were/are pretty novel compared to most other systems
You needed to use a special Passac/Kahler bridge that had the electronics on it -surface-mount mostly.
And yep - stereo cable setup as you thought so a standard cable gave standard guitar only.

It used piezos arranged so they would detect direction of picking, which was pretty good
Onboard midi sequencer that you could record to and loop as well from memory

Quite a good system even for this day an age it has some unique features
I'll have to have a serious re-look at mine and see if theres any life left in it....

Cheers
MM
'70s Strat, Brian Moore iM, VG-8, VG-99, FC-300, VL-70m, StringPort, SoftStep, Sentient6, iMac QC i7 27".

Elantric

Sending all the signals down one TRS 1/4" cable method was also employed by Shadow, who OEMed the technology to Charvel and Ovation back in the 1980's for their short lived MIDi Guitars.

The circuit is known as an analog Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) multiplexer.

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=2485.msg14389#msg14389



Same type technique was used recently by Gibson with the Tronical / Echo Audio designed Dark Fire / Dusk Tiger.

ecca

I happily drilled holes in my strat to mount the GK3 pick-up.
It's only a new scratchplate after all.

ecca


kenact

Quote from: ecca on February 10, 2012, 08:47:30 AM
Anyone considered a fibre optic cable ? ::)
It's capable of a lot more bandwidth, for sure, but the fiber has a tendency to be more brittle.  IMHO, the way I've seen many musicians, myself included at times, treat their cables, a fiber optic cable wouldn't last long with many players.
Godin Session & Montreal FTP, LGXT, LGX SA, Redline, ACS, A12, A11, A10, A4
Danoblaster Baritone w/GK-3
Gretsch Nashville, Viking
Fender Strats
Fret King Supermatic
Larrivee DV03RE
Parker Midi Fly
Seagull, S&P 12
VOX Phantom XII
GR-55, 33, 30, 20, GI-20, RC-50, US-20, VG-99, VP-7
Sentient 6
Cyr 7

kenact

Quote from: Macciza on February 10, 2012, 07:00:33 AM
Yeah the Passac Sentient Six was an Aussie invention and were/are pretty novel compared to most other systems

Hi Macciza,

Sorry I missed your earlier post.  What I was trying to get at was an earlier comment that multiplexing the signal would take too much hardware to be practical.  It seems Passac was able to overcome that problem over 20 years ago.

It looks like Applied Research & Technology owns those patents now, but it doesn't look like they're doing anything with them.

It would be interesting to see what could be done with that technology today.

Ken
Godin Session & Montreal FTP, LGXT, LGX SA, Redline, ACS, A12, A11, A10, A4
Danoblaster Baritone w/GK-3
Gretsch Nashville, Viking
Fender Strats
Fret King Supermatic
Larrivee DV03RE
Parker Midi Fly
Seagull, S&P 12
VOX Phantom XII
GR-55, 33, 30, 20, GI-20, RC-50, US-20, VG-99, VP-7
Sentient 6
Cyr 7

Sedgewick

I believe that a 20 year old patent is now public domain.

kenact

Quote from: Sedgewick on February 15, 2012, 02:15:36 PM
I believe that a 20 year old patent is now public domain.

In that case, does anyone know where to locate a schematic?  :)
Godin Session & Montreal FTP, LGXT, LGX SA, Redline, ACS, A12, A11, A10, A4
Danoblaster Baritone w/GK-3
Gretsch Nashville, Viking
Fender Strats
Fret King Supermatic
Larrivee DV03RE
Parker Midi Fly
Seagull, S&P 12
VOX Phantom XII
GR-55, 33, 30, 20, GI-20, RC-50, US-20, VG-99, VP-7
Sentient 6
Cyr 7

alanw57

I install the GK pickup 'internally' after re-wiring it so it can be mounted 'upside-down' (so that the the 'Roland' bit doesn't interfere with your right hand).  The 13 pin GK socket isn't very robust and I often replace it with a circular multiway screw connector.  More details at telemods.co.uk
Al

Frankster

Echoing what others have said, the GK hardware is too flimsy to be "roadworthy", too expensive and requires too much modification to the guitar to fit an internal GK pickup. The thing that really annoys me is the price of the GK cable, asking a musician to shell out £30 to connect a guitar to a processor is a little too much and the US-20 switch box is ludicrously overpriced for the amount of simple electronics it contains. To my mind, that's what's killing the GK and V-guitar in general.

Improvements?   Here's a few just off the top of my head.


  • Abandon the 13-pin standard entirely, it's mechanically unsound. It's a solution designed by electronic engineers with no regard for mechanical engineering.
  • Move the analog to digital convertors into the guitar and output it on something readily available like ethernet cable.
  • Give each GK processor a digital in and out on the same cheap cable to allow them to be linked together.
  • Make a cheap A/B switch box.
  • Make the digital guitar output format open source and encourage third party developers to use it.
  • Agree a digital guitar standard with other manufacturers!

mbenigni

QuoteThe thing that really annoys me is the price of the GK cable, asking a musician to shell out £30 to connect a guitar to a processor is a little too much

+10000000

Cost of cables and connectors is always the last thing I consider, but all told it's probably what I've spent most of my money on over the years.  Cost (and scarcity) of GK cables is a serious road block, and it's the real reason I don't use my GR55 much anymore.  Basically any time a problem creeps up, even if I suspect it's "just the cable", I've got a $60 trial-and-error proposition ahead of me to confirm as much.  And if I do, I have to plan on spending twice that (accounting for a backup cable) before I'm comfortable taking the rig live.  It's a lot easier to just shrug and gig something else that week... and then a year gets by you.

Roland needs to find a standard cable/connector solution that meets their requirements, so that customers can benefit from competition and economies of scale.  I don't mind paying Roland a premium for a good processor, but there is a limit to what I'll pay for cables - especially if they are prone to failure.

Jim Williams

Here is a thought for this topic....... think Bluetooth. and think about iOS apps for the gear. My iPad would be great for synths if only the Roland Gear I have could have a USB or Bluetooth conection to my iPad. I think Blutooth would be the best idea for the next generation of Roland gear.
Skype: (upon Request)

Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

Elantric

QuoteI think Blutooth would be the best idea for the next generation of Roland gear.

Bluetooth is Not the best low latency wireless platform by a long shot  - based on my direct experience
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=7019.msg71989#msg71989


Using Bluetooth for live instruments on stage remains in the "not recommended" methods of connections.

Using a pair of these with any Guitar processor with

Avantree Saturn #1 set as BlueTooth  / APT-X Transmitter
and
Avantree Saturn #2 set as BlueTooth  / APT-X Receiver

Yields about 150 milliseconds audio delay latency = unacceptable for my needs.

The best Bluetooth wireless tech today (Dec 2013) is Bluetooth 4.0 / Low Energy Transmitter feeding a Bluetooth 4.0 / Low Energy Receiver
(like an IK Multimedia iLoud
or
Avantree Avantree Cara Bluetooth 4.0
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AEJJRBK/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

- but using this with my 2013 iPad Air and using a synth app as a test, this is still 80 milliseconds audio delay latency!

And explains when you read the IK MultiMedia iLoud Owners Manual, they DO NOT recommend using BlueTooth for live music performance. 


concordal

Bluetooth might not be practical, but Jim Williams has the right idea. 

How about WiFi?  By example here's an audio product that acts as a WiFi hot spot -- it transmits audio with almost no latency:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L26YDA4?ref_=pe_527950_33920290

And it's inexpensive. Yeah, it's not the same as a GR-55 but the idea is surely transferable.


Elantric

I got one of those last week too, to test for use as a transport layer for wireless GK use.

it uses Apple AirPlay or DLNA and the reality is it still yields higher latency than anything we talk  about and work with here at VGuitarforums.

Consumers dont complain or care if there is an average one second delay between pressing the play button on their iphone media player and the moment sound actually emerges from the Airplay or DLNA connected wireless speakers - but Musicians performing live music care big time!

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2077288&page=5

http://blog.laptopmag.com/dlna-reality-check-from-phone-to-tv-how-well-does-it-work


Suggest read the AVNU.ORG site for latest developments on low latency multi-channel audio transport protocols.
http://www.avnu.org/knowledge_center


and

Sony Wireless Audio Transmission
Sony multi-channel wireless microphone systems with improved sound quality and low latency

http://www.sony.fr/res/attachment/file/95/1193315636495.pdf


Frankster

Quote from: mbenigni on October 21, 2014, 06:37:44 AM
Roland needs to find a standard cable/connector solution that meets their requirements

To be fair to Roland, that's precisely what they did. It's a 13 pin DIN plug which is just as much a standard as the 5 pin DIN plug used for MIDI.

gumbo

Quote from: Frankster on October 21, 2014, 05:59:43 PM
To be fair to Roland, that's precisely what they did. It's a 13 pin DIN plug which is just as much a standard as the 5 pin DIN plug used for MIDI.

At the risk of further blatant self-promotion, the 'plug' is probably the least of the problem...the performance of what they chose to sell as the Roland 13-pin jack under conditions other than never-being-moved-once-you've-plugged-it-in-next-to-your-bed, is where most things begin to come unstuck in a big way..   ::)

..but I do get what you meant.. ;)

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=8888.0
Read slower!!!   ....I'm typing as fast as I can...