Lineage MIDI Guitar ( YRG Pro)

Started by Elantric, February 04, 2015, 10:06:08 PM

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Elantric

http://store.inspiredinstruments.com/lineage-midi-guitar-pre-order/









THIS IS LINEAGE
The Lineage MIDI Guitar is the next step in the evolution of guitar to MIDI. Building upon the patented and proven technology of the YRG, Inspired Instruments aims to satisfy modern high end studio and performance needs.

Availability
Lineage will enter an exclusive production run in Q4 2014. A preorder ensures that you receive your guitar from the first batch.

Delivery
Pre-order expected delivery is Q2 2015. This is not a guarantee. Depending on production the release date may move forward or backward and may change more than once.
When your unit is available for shipment you will be contacted with tracking information.

SPECIFICATIONS

Form
Solid full size body
Maple wooden neck
RADIUS fingerboard
Standard scale 22 fret fingerboard
13" radius
Traditional 'C' style contour
1-11/16" measured at the nut
Improved sensitivity
Black fingerboard
Clear colored simulated strings
Metal hardware
Strap Locks
Neck Plate
2.5mm pearlized pickguard
3.5in touch screen LCD
Contoured Lineage body shape


Control

LCD/Touch Screen
Home button
Next page button
(2x) Assignable button(s)
Mute bridge
(2x) Assignable pressure switches
Whammy
Full range steel whammy
(1x) Assignable whammy thumb button
Encoders
(2x) Assignable continuous controllers
1x default to Layer 1 Volume
1x default to Layer 2 Volume
(1x) Parameter editor encoder


Panel/Outputs

USB type B interface
MIDI 5-pin connector
Standard ¼" mono guitar out jack
Stereo mini headphone/line output
Power on/off switch


Power

USB power source 5v, 250ma
USB charger compatible
4000mah LiPo rechargeable battery
(10) hours of operating time


Trigger System

(6x) Enhanced YRG trigger system technology
(6x) Adjustable tension stainless steel strings


Performance Control

Tap mode
Monophonic mode
Customizable layers can be mapped into user defined zones
Preprogrammed and customizable open tunings
Adjustable whammy range
Adjustable slide range
MIDI velocity mapping
Customizable parameters to allow adjustment to different playing styles including: open damping, crosstalk filters, string gain, trigger sensitivity, and many more.


MIDI Control

Standard USB MIDI class driver for compatibility with Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, tablets.
Works with DAWS, recording software, tablature software and software synthesizers.
Interfaces to hardware synthesizers and keyboards with 5-in MIDI out.
Can transmit MIDI program changes when changing presets
MIDI mono mode for multi-channel pitch bend and notation systems
Assignable hardware encoders, whammy modes, pressure switches and more.


Touch Panel LCD Control

Performance (and MIDI) page:
Control the following features:
Tap enable
Slide enable
Open tuning enable
Transpose enable
Adjust Layer volume, pan and transposition
Select Presets
MIDI channels
Layer options
MIDI Controller pages
Page one: PADS (9x) Assignable pads
Assign MIDI channel
Assign MIDI controller number
Pad On/Off polarity
Latch or Momentary mode
Momentary mode delay time
Page two: FADERS (4x) Assignable faders
Assign MIDI channel
Assign MIDI controller number
Set Origin
Latch or Momentary.
Set the rate of decay from the defined level to Origin
Page three: PADS AND FADERS
(6x) Assignable pads
Identical configuration options to Assignable Pads above.
(2x) Assignable faders
Identical configuration options to Assignable Faders above.
Page four: XY CONTROLLER (1x) XY controller
Configure X and Y value/channel independently.
Assign MIDI channel
Assign MIDI controller number
Set Origin
Latch or Momentary.
Set the rate of decay from the defined level to Origin


Hardware Assignments

(2x) LCD assignable buttons
On/Off switch
Assign to any MIDI channel
Polarity - determine whether or not the pad will activate on/off
Latch or Momentary
Momentary mode delay time
(2x) Mute bridge assignable pressure switches
Defaults to silence ringing notes
On/Off switch
Assign to any MIDI channel
Polarity - determine whether or not the pad will activate on/off
Latch or Momentary
Momentary mode delay time
(1x) Assignable whammy thumb button
Press or press and hold
Two assignable whammy modes
Assignable non-pressed: Defaults to pitch bend
Assignable pressed: no default
(2x) Assignable encoder controllers
Encoder 1 default Layer 1 (Guitar Volume)
Encoder 2 default Layer 2 (Synth VOlume)
Assign MIDI channel
Assign MIDI controller number
Set Origin
Latch or Momentary.
Set the rate of decay from the defined level back to Origin

WWW.LINEAGEGUITAR.COM

Elantric


eno

#2
I'm a classical/acoustic/fingerpick player and I also like playing other acoustic instruments on guitar (like piano, flute, harp, guzheng and many more but I don't play keyboards). I prefer natural sampled sounds so I use Kontakt sampled libraries, they sound great. The issue is guitar-to-MIDI control and I've been searching for a good solutions and tried many:
- GR-55 is ok as a standalone synth but terrible as a MIDI controller. But I didn't like its synth sounds, as I said I prefer natural sampled sounds.
- FTP - kinda works but requires a lot of extra care and elaborated technique (left hand soft touch and release, good hand synchronicity) to play as clean as possible to avoid glitches and double notes. Even with trying my best technique I was not able to play totally clean with no glitches and doubles. On the positive side it tracks bends (which I don't do anyway) and hammering pretty well.
- YRG tracks much better if I disable hammering, basically I could play clean with no unwanted sounds and no extra effort and elaborated technique. Giving up hammering is a small price for the clean playing and I can easily work around that. Cons: poor right hand velocity control (small range, inconsistent), cheap look and feel like a plastic toy, small size so inconvenient to hold.
- I haven't tried ZTar and G10 but from watching the videos I think I would get annoyed by fretboard button clicks.

So I got rid of all the above and recently got the Lineage and I can say I'm finally reasonably satisfied. The look and feel is great, it feels like a professional instrument, the neck and body are made of wood. The fretboard is sensitive enough so playable with little effort. The velocity control is much better than YRG, larger range and fairly consistent. So I'm keeping it and I guess this is the end of my search for now (unless something even better will come to the market sometime).

eno

Quote from: eno on October 18, 2016, 09:59:17 AM
The velocity control is much better than YRG, larger range and fairly consistent.
Now some bad news. The more I play the Lineage the more I find that the velocity control is still inconsistent. Not as bad as YRG but still the same issue. It depends on the phase of the moon, sometinmes not so bad, sometimes much worse. If I pluck with the same strength and velocity the sound volume still changes randomly and occasionally the note is completely missing no matter how hard I pluck and regardless of the sensitivity and string gain settings. By looking at MIDI stream I can see that in the case of missing note the MIDI signal is not there at all (not that the signal is there but the velocity is low or zero). I sent a support ticket a few days ago to the YRG but no responce so far. I guess their string sensor design is just fundamentally flawed. So for me the Lineage as it is now is not good enough for a satisfactlry playing performance.

I have an idea how to convert it to a good MIDI controller:
- Disconnect the string sensors from the electronic board so the Lineage will not transmitt any string picking signals.
- Replace Lineage srings with real metal short strings and install FTP. FTP will sense the string picking with good and consistent velocity sesitivity - that is proven.
- Run Lineage in the tap mode so that the Lineage will only transmitt the fret touch signals through MIDI plus all other built-in MIDI controls (bendstick, screen controls etc).
- Use MIDI translator SW (https://www.bome.com/products/miditranslator) to convert two MIDI streams from FTP and Lineage into one that will use velocity and strin picking from FTP and fret touch from Lineage. Bome is a versatile programming tool and one can write a code to do any kind of MIDI tricks (well, this is only good for for computer geeks...).

I still have FTP, was thinking of selling it but now I may find a good use. Will update later if I move with this project.

There is another MIDI guitar that looks interesting: Squier Fender Stratocaster Guitar and Controller (https://www.amazon.com/Squier®-Fender®-Stratocaster®-Guitar-Controller/dp/B004MF102G/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8). It was intended for for Rock Band 3 but people say that it's a descent MIDI controller as well:
https://www.amazon.com/Squier®-Fender®-Stratocaster®-Guitar-Controller/product-reviews/B004MF102G/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_ttl?ie=UTF8&sortBy=recent#R10XRO7NFIDPOF


This guitar is discontinued and becoming rare. I just bought it, will write an update later once I get it.

It is ridiculous that with so many MIDI gitar models on the market there are no perfectly playable solutions. Apparently the market is so small that companies do not want to invest in the development. Fender Squirer was presented as a Rock Band game controller, not as MIDI guitar. Lineage only sold a little more than 200 guitars over almost a year since release (that's what the serial number says on my Lineage).

The Fender Squirer is close to the ideal solution that I have in mind (well, it's just my personal view of course):
- real solid well made guitar with real strings
- MIDI pitch signal generated by pressure sensors on the frets instead of string pitch sensing (I beleive pitch sensing is a bad technology not only because of latency but because of inherently poor tracking that can never be good enough for satisfactory playing performance)
- MIDI picking and velocity signal generated by good quality string pickup. 

So I'll see how well the Fender works. If still not good enough I will probably develop my own controller based on combimnation of FTP and either Fender or Lineage in tap mode.

Elantric

#4
The Lineage / YRG string triggers are sensitive to humidity - triggering can vary depending on the moisture in the air

We have prior discussions on many models you mention

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=5924.msg41676#msg41676


In my arsenal Today -

* for tapping to generate MIDI note on / off - You Rock Guitar Gen II,  my fastest Guitar to MIDI controller
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3230.msg70381#msg70381

* for normal playing , Fishman Tripleplay on my Godin xtSA
  https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=8427.0

GuitarBuilder

I'm surprised you can't make FTP work for you; I agree with Elantric that it is best for normal playing.  What is your FTP guitar configuration?
"There's no-one left alive, it must be a draw"  Peter Gabriel 1973

eno

Quote from: GuitarBuilder on October 21, 2016, 11:32:21 AM
I'm surprised you can't make FTP work for you; I agree with Elantric that it is best for normal playing.  What is your FTP guitar configuration?

I tried a lot of FTP settings such as strings sensitivities and gains etc. For fingerpicking style, especially serious classical music pieces, it's much more difficult to make FTP work well compared to the rock style. Even with low sensitivity settings FTP picks up sounds that are hardly hearable (fretboard touches, string skweeks and so on) and makes pronounced MIDI notes from them that sound like glitches and double notes. One has to play 100% clean and both-hand super-synchronous to avoid those glitches. It is possible for easy pieces but very hard to challenging ones, I need to put too much extra effort to play super-clean that I would not bother to do without FTP. One has to develop special technique for FTP and I don't feel like it's worth doing. It's better to find good technical solutions that will accommodate to the existing players techniques.

GuitarBuilder

Before we delve into technique, could you tell us what your FTP guitar configuration is?  Is it built in or did you add it yourself?
"There's no-one left alive, it must be a draw"  Peter Gabriel 1973

eno

#8
GuitarBuilder, thanks for willing to help. Here are my settings that I found work the best, but I tried many other combinations. What would you recommend?

eno

GuitarBuilder, you made me revisit the FTP. I tried it a while ago when I only used Ableton factory VSTs and it didn't work very well. Since then I got a bunch of good Kontakt libraries but never tried them with FTP. So now I played FTP with Kontact libraries such as Acoustic Legend, Maverick and like and it worked AMAZINGLY well and clean! I could only make glitches or wrong notes if I played really dirty. Then I went back to Ableton and found that with the same FTP settings it work much poorer, plenty of glitches and wrong notes. I guess those Kontakt libraries have smart codes to somehow sort out the glitches and double notes? I don't know, seems like a mystery to me. So the lesson is: FTP needs a good VST or sampler library! And with a good one it works quite well!

eno

#10
Well, I found that some sampled libraries respond to FTP quite well, others much poorer although they are still good sound quality libraries. So FTP is still not good enough for me.

The Lineage support responded regarding velocity inconsistency: "adjust the velocity mapping by going to the Settings->Layers menu. Click on Vel Map and use the 3rd knob to adjust the velocity table. There are 7 tables available. 1 is most dynamic, 7 is least dynamic (you will get more consistent results)  3 or 4 are good intermediate options". I tried and didn't find much difference except that with the highest sensitivity setting there are no missing MIDI signals anymore, just velocity content is random.

I tried a simple solution for Lineage: just override the velocity MIDI signal coming from Lineage with a constant velocity and then control the velocity by a footpedal. Lineage works quite well except for the velocity, I like the tapping mode and the modulation stick. I turned off the MIDI velocity in Kontakt by MIDI filter script available in the Kontakt factory script library. In this mode I find it VERY playable, almost perfect. The tracking is pristine, no glitches and missing/wrong notes at all. The only little problem left is that with fingerpicking with nails is sometimes makes double notes because it detects both when the skin touches the string and then when the nail touches it. This can be avoided by adjusting the technique (angle of fingerpicking) or making a script in Kontakt that can detect and disable these doubles. Finally Lineage seems to work for me although with no velocity expression control by fingers but that's ok.

eno

#11
A fix for the inconsistent volume and double notes (when fingerpicking) issues for Lineage and YRG:

For those who use Kontakt:

Run this script to fix both the inconsistent volume and double notes
{*******************
on init
declare $max_delay
$max_delay := 40000
declare $volume
$volume:= 64
end on

on note
ignore_event($EVENT_ID)
wait($max_delay)
play_note($EVENT_NOTE, $volume, 0, -1)
end on
{********************

Run this script to fix only the inconsistent volume 
{*******************
on init
declare $volume
$volume:= 64
end on

on note
ignore_event($EVENT_ID)
play_note($EVENT_NOTE, $volume, 0, -1)
end on
{********************


Anther way is to use Bome translator SW and run the attached scripts. The First one fixes the inconsistent volume and double notes. With keys 4,5,6,7,8,9,0 you set detection time (delay) to 40,50,....90,100ms (70ms is the default).Not with the numeric keys because some laptops don't have. Velocity (on launch) by default is 127 ,but is assignable and mapped to GM volume CC#7 on channel 1.
The second script only fixes the inconsistent volume and sets it to constant volume 64


All these scripts that fix the double notes will introduce a latency equal to the specified delay.

Elantric


hippietim


admin

No string bending

Contact them

Simi Valley, California 93063

(805) 426-5000

http://www.yourockguitar.com/

hippietim

The site doesn't work and the Lineage store doesn't either.

admin

#16
Quote from: hippietim on August 08, 2018, 10:37:59 AM
The site doesn't work and the Lineage store doesn't either.

I believe they are now defunct

used channel only
https://reverb.com/item/13917093-lineage-midi-guitar-lineage-yourock-inspired-instruments-2016-white
lack of appeal due to no string bending

That leaves the IndustrialRadio Solange  - but when I played Solange  at 2018 Winter NAMM , it was not tracking very well -
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=6078.msg173952#msg173952


I get better Guitar to MIDI results with my Boss GP-10 feeding a Macbook Pro via USB, or Fishman Tripleplay