Long after the 100-plus pound guitar processing racks of the eighties have gone, and the need for eight different synths in one room have left for the millennium, do we, as guitarists, need MIDI anymore?

We're back to playing guitar for the most part. The "Gimme a guitar, an amp & some stomp-boxes, and I'm good to go" attitude has been back for a few years now, and I love to hear it. So where did all of the MIDI guitar, program changing, auto switching, zero to one-twenty-eight go?

Now that many things have gone computer audio, and we've been concentrating on getting our songs recorded, and getting the band recorded, many have seemingly gone away from sequencing via MIDI.

I've been having a few conversations with some guitarist colleagues on this particular topic, and got a wide array of answers. Some seemed to think that it was never a product for them, so what am I talking about? Some are full on enthusiasts, that use different MIDI products like the Roland VG88, or GI-20, and are going to town with them. I'm working on a project right now where a guitarist is using the VG88 version 2 for all guitar sounds. Clean, distorted, alternate tunings, you name it. It's very cool. Others have stated that guitar MIDI to them is more like a Wah pedal. They may not use it all of the time, but it's definitely going to be part of their arsenal. On average though, the consensus seemed to be that Guitar MIDI still lives. And lives very well Thank You!

It's still here. Though perhaps in different roles. I'd probably say that with the advent of soft synths, and amp modeling software, that much of midi patching has been relegated to the simple USB or Firewire controller keyboard of choice. No need to wire up extensive keyboard and sampler set-ups anymore, just assign them in software. That may be well and good for many, but MIDI still has a valuable life for us guitarists. Mainly in two areas: Composition and Synchronization.

See, had we stayed "just guitarists", perhaps we wouldn't need MIDI so much, but since we've evolved as guitarists into more technical roles such as composer, or recording engineer, producer, editor, etc, as well as being a guitarist, the rules changed as we did.

You may be a great guitarist, and be able to read & write standard notation. But writing lead sheets, much less orchestration can still be tedious by hand, or having to learn yet another software program for charts. Your keyboard chops may not be as handy as your guitar chops when it comes to voicings. Wouldn't it be fairly simple if you could play guitar and let the computer notate for you just like the keyboard folks have been doing for years? Sounds to me like the perfect case for a synth guitar pick-up & MIDI interface to me. There are a few cool systems on the market in the way of MIDI pickups. Roland has their "GK" pickups that can attach to your guitar, or you can buy a guitar from Fender, or Godin, or Brian Moore that are "GK" ready. The pickup is built in. Some have even bought a cheap guitar just to put the pickup on, as their "MIDI trigger guitar". Yamaha also has midi pickups & MIDI rigs for guitar, as well as a few other manufacturers.

Imagine writing lead sheets by playing the song once against a click track, then printing it out right away. Too easy! Got a sub playing on your "all originals" set? Chart away! Almost all of the sequencing software in the market place has the ability to make charts/notation these days.

Keep in mind that when playing a guitar synth there are a couple of things for better results while charting. Put your synth module into "chromatic" mode-no pitch bends. The fluctuations of your strings and intonation could cause many extra or wrong notes on a chart. If you have to bend, play the first and last notes of the bend, then annotate a bend on the chart. Same as you would a gliss, or a hammer-on/pull-off.

The next big item is to finger pick, not strum. If you're not a big fan of finger picking, just use your picking hand as a sort of "claw" to grab the strings. The idea is that the notation software is time based. A slow strum to us maybe separate notes to a computer. If you play them all at once, on the chart it will appear as all one chord.

Please keep in mind that I'm not talking about recording MIDI for performance, only for charting right now. Using these methods, I've been able to get a lot of easy MIDI work done.

Another part of performance is playing virtual synths. There are SO MANY virtual synths available, and so many that automatically come with the software we might as well take advantage of them! Try playing the keyboard parts, or trigger a sampler part. Make your own guitar loops in the software sampler! Then trigger it by MIDI guitar. It's actually pretty cool! Think outside of the box as we normally do!

The second big thing is Synchronization. Nowadays we need to know how to sync things together, a recorder & a computer, or computer audio to video and the like. That means MIDI in many cases. MIDI Time Code, or MIDI Clock. Frame rates, etc. I spoke directly on in a previous column this year, so check the previous issues section of the site for that info. So the idea is that yes, MIDI is still important to us guitarists. Next month I'll have practical applications, audio examples, and charts for you to check out.

If you have questions, always feel free to drop me an email at makintrax@philgates.com.

Phil
makintrax@philgates.com
www.philgates.com