A MIDI Guitar you will ACTUALLY Want to Play

[@digital-guitars-uk]

Thanks for sharing this with us fella. Best wishes 👍👍🎶🎶😎😎

[@foofighter9656]

For anyone curious, it's a hex pickup, which is designed to detect each string individually, so the midi signal passed out includes all 6 strings. If you look at the monitor during the 'drum kit' section of the demo (1:41), you can see that the piano on the screen is showing multiple hits as Andy is playing multiple strings. So, you can probably play chords with this guitar. Imho, it's not a great demo, but this guitar has certainly piqued my interest. You could probably do some cool stuff by putting the midi signal into a synth and the audio signal into a guitar effects rack and blend them afterwards; the audio signal will also respond to bends and vibrato, whereas the midi signal wouldn't, so things could get quite spicy!.

[@con-rob]

Check out the Carvin/Kiesel NS1 or Godin Multiac series. They all have hex pickups and work much better than this toy.

[@robflores5172]

@@con-rob they look like shit and they’re nylon strings so fuck that.

[@landonbailey]

that's cool!

[@mycosys]

Have you tried the Fishman TriplePlay Wireless? We us it all the time on a Fender American Standard Tele with Lollar pickups and the range of tone you can get from a really decent guitar with midi reinforcement is just insane. Also, how have you not done a video on TwoNotes Genome yet? Its insane. And you and most of us already own it

[@TheGuitarGeek]

I have used it and I found it a little cumbersome but need to try again

[@TheGuitarGeek]

And genome… I don’t have it

[@mycosys]

You do have it, @@TheGuitarGeek Everyone who had wall of sound before last week, or has TwoNotes hardware, has Genome in their account (along with some extra cabs), on the software page. Check your email. I know you have it cos you have a captor X behind you all the time. You gotta try it dude, the sound is better then Kemper, better than NAM, and imo nDSP, and the interface is just great. We might be at the point where digital sounds better. With the Fishman, recent firmware updates have made a huge diff, really worth trying again.

[@saarangnarayan123]

Looks super cool! I'd also be interested in some sort of DIY-installable kit for the midi circuit that they use in these guitars, too, since I may or may not have a beater guitar lying around that such a kit can go into 😁

[@mylogify]

So cool videos Andy, thank you for the videos, enjoy all of them no matter what subject.

[@TheGuitarGeek]

You’re welcome as always

[@ajohnsonstudio]

I absolutely love my Jamstik Studio guitar....I've been playing my modular synth rig with it lately =D

[@zoltarwizdom6708]

I don’t know if I’d buy a whole guitar when I’d rather install it on an existing one. However, it’s nice to see that the guitar isn’t just an afterthought. I tried some software that is triggered by the guitar but the accuracy, latency and poor chord performance turned me off of it. If it’s accurate and handles polynotes, it would be really nice to record bass parts through a VST without needing to switch instruments or even get rough drum ideas down. Might need to look into one, thanks for sharing!

[@vasotoe]

Interesting stuff for sure

[@RobertFisher1969]

My problem with Jamstik is the same as my problem with the Variax and Fishman. If a guitar has a hex pickup, I want 13-pin out so that I can use it with my Roland VG gear and my Spicetone 6appeal and other hex pickup gear. Being able to only do pitch-to-MIDI conversion, like Jamstik or Fishman, or being only able to use the onboard processing like with the Variax, is needlessly limiting. Of course, if you have only one use case and never want to explore other capabilities, they can be fine for you. But why build in such a limitation?

[@con-rob]

Just get a GK3 then and add it into any guitar. That's all they did here basically.

[@KordTaylor]

Nice interview! Thank you.

[@TheGuitarGeek]

You’re welcome

[@dansweeney4497]

i wish the synth side of this instrument had a volume control. While we're at it, some soft keys to assign, for example, preset up and down. The new Boss GK-5 pickup dropped that functionality and I'm at a loss as to why.

[@jumpbackgeno]

It doesn't track my Bass VST's at all, I set it up to its best ability and does work well with the Creator plugin, but not any of my bass plugins, don't enjoy bashing products but this has been my experience and sent mine back and had to pay for return shipping ouch, really wanted this to help with my bass recording but maybe at a later date..

[@TheBeatlesGuiseDuo]

Okay, my thoughts for the next model design .. add piezo pickups in the bridge, nothing sounds better than a mix of acoustic guitar and light mix of strings or pads together. Too bad they chose a 3.5mm TRS for the MIDI instead of a standard classic 5 pin. Bluetooth may work (or not) with triggering latency using VSTs from a computer but a WiFi may work better. Using a WIDI device for connecting MIDI hardware modules/keyboards that have standard 5 pin MIDI to the guitar is pretty solid. Bluetooth in the JamStik will maybe only work with computers/tablets/phones? But maybe I'm wrong and things have advanced so that BT is no longer a bottleneck latency limitation. Would the BT on the JamStik be compatible and connect with CME WIDI Master? If so, that could be a problem solver too. The problem with Roland 13 pin gear is the proprietary cables and proprietary Roland devises needed in between the sound source and the guitar, there's no way to send or receive via WiFi or BT over 13 pin. A guitar using a MIDI i/o (cable or WIDI) straight to a synth sound source's using MIDI jacks cuts out all the proprietary Roland middle gear. I think that's why direct 5 pin MIDI guitars were squashed or bought out and then shut down in the past (MidiAxe, Casio, Brian Moore etc). Roland 13 pin also limits stage movement with that big honking cable plus a standard guitar cable all hanging out of the guitar and it's a PITA.

[@utropiks4617]

that would work on a MPC by usb or midi as a midi controller?

[@michaelbaynham5107]

Can the system be retro fitted to an existing guitar?

[@LieuNoir]

Seriously doubt it. If you look at the beginning of the video, you would have to do some real wood work to put the circuit board.

[@mycosys]

The Fishman TriplePlay wireless is a similar 6 pickup system that can

[@TheGuitarGeek]

You could but it would be a lot of work

[@medonho]

Sorry but it seems to have all the previous tracking problems of the past.

[@jakex5569]

Forgot to mention you can mix midi guitar sounds with pickups also with variable volume levels for both as per @m.bennett9656 comment.

[@HewittH]

If you close your eyes and listen, you can hear the novelty prevailing over good judgment and taste!

[@jamescuttsmusicjcm5013]

🤣🤣🤣

[@TheGuitarGeek]

It’s a shame you lack the creativity to use a tool like this.

[@jamescuttsmusicjcm5013]

@@TheGuitarGeek I think it's that patch that did it for the OP. Haha. But I myself have experimented with midi guitar parts through some beautiful quality synths with lots of expression capabilities and you can get that guitar-like pitch control on bends with a sound that isn't so jarring. Different sure, but not jarring. It doesn't have to sound utterly whacky. Just sayin... lol.

[@mycosys]

And if you open your eyes you can see a poser who doesnt know the value of reinforcement. ^^^

[@StratsRUs]

That's a great lyric !

[@scottybrowndotca]

Andy, how did i just watch a 7 minute video of a MIDI guitar (which looks pretty cool, BTW) and not hear a single bar of Super Mario Bros ..? Has Jamstick been living under a rock ..?

[@TheGuitarGeek]

Mick played it JUST after I stopped recording… 😂😂😡😂😂

[@Floydandsome]

Been looking for some solid review Is there any difference between the older model and the newer one Is the tracking greatly improved?

[@coadyj]

I would imagine the pick up is exactly the same but with better build quality and a synthetic bone nut it's going to sound better as just a guitar.

[@trev_mcnaughton]

shut up and take my money... as a former GR-33 owner, I long for the day I can get something like this. Like Mick I've been using a keyboard instead, which isn't as fun to me.

[@TRICK-OR-TREAT236]

HOW MUCH PRICE THIS IS ?

[@Marcin79W]

What latency is there?

[@thataviatorj]

...Tbh that demo put the MID in MIDI

[@jimmcdougall9973]

Surely it doesn’t only do 80’s & 90’s video game sounds? Is it only able to play monophonic sounds? String sections, organs, choirs etc? No whammy?

[@TheGuitarGeek]

Of course, it’s midi. It can do anything

[@djbmanifestomode]

Why did you guys decide to use terrible 8bit synthesizer sounds with all the hundreds of thousands of analog presets available on so manny great synths that actually are interesting and powerful? I would be glad to make demos of that guitar and play all kinds of great synthesizers like access, virus, king, Korg and Arturias virtual collection, the micro freak, and the micro brute as well as novations mini nova If you guys send me one, and I would make videos every day with it, playing real synthesizers so anyone from the company please send me one and be happy to do videos every day to advertise the instrument. But I’m sure the best demo would be playing this guitar with arturias Jupiter-8 or Moog modular.!

[@leepshin]

The latency is bloody awful. I certainly wouldn't entertain it nor purchase it.

[@Swan1manband]

Soo, why bother telling us?😂😂

[@garyoneill5648]

that's awesome.....

[@jakex5569]

Seems similar to Fender Roland Strat GC-1, not the VG series. and previous others. BT midi suffers from latency issues when playing live. Have a look at Midi guitar 3 software. It’s in beta testing march 2024 for Mac Other versions to follow when bugs are ironed out. No expensive equipment or routing out holes in body of guitar and devaluing your instrument. All midi guitars need to be precisely setup with new strings worn in and tuned, truss rod adjustment, playing action and intonation as close as possible and midi pickup height to 6 strings at 1.0 mm, a locking nut, hard tail bridge, and possibly robot tuners, not locking machine heads. Midi pickup distance to 6 individual saddles must be measured and entered into Midi guitar controller settings. I have done a guitar mod to my Strat with Roland GT 3. There are also small synth pedals but are limited in the number of instruments and the quality of output. Will compare when Midi guitar 3 is released.

[@fredericthom8113]

Godin do it 20 years ago with some Roland stuff

[@PooNinja]

Synth it up!!! 😊

[@JaredGunstonTV]

looks like a GK3 pickup almost.

[@Floydandsome]

I am using GK3 pickup but it is tracking really poorly I wonder if this can be a fix

[@JaredGunstonTV]

@@Floydandsome I've used many gk3 pickups to the point where my one man band setup was reliant on it. They great if you get the balance of install, correct unit and unit settings and a fresh cable and sometimes a fresh gk3 unit.

[@Floydandsome]

@@JaredGunstonTVI tried to replace a cable andit sounds better but I am not sure if changing the pickup will do the job since the pickup itself is quite costly anyway I wonder If it would be better to buy the jamstik instead

[@JaredGunstonTV]

@@Floydandsomeyeah i change cables once a year if im gigging a gk3 system. Cable definately go wonky after time.

[@Floydandsome]

@@JaredGunstonTV Exactly! this bothers me so much

[@Maplefoxx-vl2ew]

i'm a game composer and play guitar and i still can't get this cuz it's so expensive. i need it so badly you have no idea. i stink at piano. but played guitar since 8 yr old

[@TheGuitarGeek]

What about a fish man triple play?

[@Maplefoxx-vl2ew]

@@TheGuitarGeek i ordered jamstik may 6th, it won't charge. I've been emailing them back and forth over and over just asking for a replacement battery to test it see what is wrong. I lthought they already sent it, shoulda been here by now. They didn't send me a tracking number so i emailed them 2 days ago asking for a tracking number for replacement battery. today he emails me again asking if i can buy the battery on amazon. our fist discussion i told him this battery is not on Amazon Canada and not even any battery store websites have them in stock, they sell out cuz ppl use this same battery for vapes. So i'm sittin here kinda upset, my parents are upset, we are all wondering why they still has not sent my battery so we can see if that is even what is wrong with it. guitar just been sitting on the counter in the bag since i got it. almost a month ago now. What would you do in this situation. i dont' think i can be patient much longer and my dad is asking for their phone number now

[@Maplefoxx-vl2ew]

​ why was my comment deleted? i'm literally having a nervous breakdown over getting a faulty jamstik and he's not really helping me like they should. all he has to do is send me a battery to see if that is what is wrong..cuz the one i have is either faulty or it's the guitar itself. apparently he still never sent it after numerous emails making me think they already did, then this morning email telling me i should look for battery on a m a z o n.. dude... i'm a game composer right.. i'm in Vi forums.. He really should be helping me out right now. this is super bad. my parents are mad. i'm mad. guitar been just sittin in the bag on my counter for a month waitin for a replacement battery to test. You literally can not get these batteries in Canada. sold out in all shops online, they are not sold on a m a z o n

[@vicesquadpunk]

The salesman didn’t do a good job of selling his companies products to be honest. He talked too much which I suspect was to hide the poor tactile demonstrations he gave which featured slow tempos and mis-triggered, sloppy notes. I sincerely hope there will be better implementation of guitar pickup to MIDI in future, currently Fishman TriplePlay is the best I have used, outside of in the box Roland/Boss units.

[@arataka57]

Midiguitar never worked for me: Try playing a samba!

[@cchavez248]

I like the synth pedals that are available these days! They track way better than this and most of them have very usable sounds!

[@justinnaramor6050]

Yeah... I think that's because synth pedals entirely do away with shitty "pitch to MIDI conversion". I mean come on, regardless of how "fast" pitch to MIDI technology has become, it is still intrinsically shit. Try playing super low bass guitar notes... I bet you'll notice the latency big time. Think about it, a string has to oscillate at least once, maybe more than that, before the frequency can be correctly tracked. This tracking only gets slower and slower with lower frequencies. It's there even if you fail to notice it. Synth pedals literally just take the raw audio signal coming straight from the pickups and modify its waveform, so much so that it no longer sounds like a guitar. At least that's my understanding of how they work. As such, I bet this will become way more popular than MIDI guitars if it hasn't already, since you do not have to sacrifice anything about your playing just to get some kind of pitch tracker to accurately detect what you're doing. In all this time that MIDI guitars have been around I cannot figure out why pitch to MIDI hasn't just been abandoned. Why not just have MIDI notes be determined by simply electronically sensing which frets your fingers are pressing on? Way less convoluted. We have successful MPE-based MIDI keyboards like the Roli Seaboard and so on, so why couldn't that same physical technology be used in a guitar body? Even if it's just a controller and not "exactly" a real guitar? It would still be simply detecting finger position on the fretboard, alone, to determine MIDI notes, without the convoluted and computer-intensive processes involved in trying to find the frequency a string vibrates at, just to determine a fucking MIDI note! OK, rant over :)))

[@con-rob]

Uh...all they did was add a Fishman TriplePlay (or Roland GK3) inside an existing standard boring strat ($300+200 = $500 yet theyre charging $1,000??? 😂) Look, for those wanting to know the bettwer way to do Midi abd not hate it. Follow these instructions. 1) Choose one of the following: Carvin/Kiesel NS1, Godin Multiac, Expressiv Midi Guitar Pro 2 from Rob O'Reilly Then...2) Pair it with a Roland VG99, which is still the KING of the synth world (even better than the AxeFXII) Done, you're welcome!

[@alexandershugayev]

isn't it USB straight out of the axe? No gear in-between that is. I think its the selling point

[@con-rob]

@alexandershugayev there has to be gear internally to do the conversion from analog to digital. It's just embedded where you can't see it

[@Maplefoxx-vl2ew]

this whole experience of ordering a jamstick that does not work right and cant' even charge is going to make me quit guitar all together. i've neve been this upset about something ever in my entire life, maybe i refund it and learn saxaphone.. F my life.. you need to contact them for me to make this right. i'm very upset at this point. it could just be the battery and the guy is not sending me the replacement i need . you literally can not buy this battery in Canada at all what so ever. and they are the ones who sent me the guitar.. why is this my responsibility to find a shop with a battery online when you literally can not.. only shop online is in Texas and they do not ship to Canada.. i've never been this upset in my life about buying something and if you read my other comment from 2 months ago i said i can barely afford this. i also had to pay duty to UPS when it shipped and Canadian Taxes on top of this which was a lot. Right now i can't sleep or eat right. and i am not working until i get this fixed, i can't concentrate. i'm very upset. Its' been sitting on my counter in the bag since it got here. cant even use it. I was expecting them to have already shipped a replacement battery to try . they did not and today i get another email saying if i can look on Amazon.. i'm livid at this point.

[@MadSteex]

mmmm too unpredictable results..when you play a note I can see that are playing 3 notes or 2 on the synth behind..

[@TheGuitarGeek]

The sensitivity needed to be adjusted. Once that’s done it’s far more usable

[@jogmas12]

Needs more cow bell

[@TheGuitarGeek]

😂😂😂

[@andsoistopped]

I like big necks and I cannot lie.

[@TheGuitarGeek]

😂😂😂😂

[@paolo-1283]

It needs a tremolo

[@mycosys]

Way better off with a midi expression pedal - youre playing synths now

[@paolo-1283]

@@mycosys synth plus floating tremolo and a Killswitch is endless possibilities

[@martynridley3671]

That's got to be the worst guitar synth demo I've ever heard!

[@TheHirade]

He didn't play a chord, for a good reason

[@taewankim6283]

I love the idea, but I have my reservations about these types of guitars with midi. I feel like I'd rather buy a keytar instead of a guitar with a midi integration. How the hell are you going to play a synth without controls??? It's like driving a car without a steering wheel, gear shift, and pedals. These products are made by idiots for other idiots that don't know what synths are. Down right offensive.

[@Majmune123]

Really Sad that midi guitar still isnt a thing, the demo is this video was horrible and very inconcistent

[@theprisonier]

Thumb down. Please go back to GODIN. THEY MADE MIDI GUITARS FOR AT LEAST 20 YEARS.

[@marklammas2465]

A friend of mine plays a Godin midi guitar. It's his usual guitar, often with a small midi expansion unit, not a keyboard synth. He tends to add string patches, or a pad sound.

[@dragan4658]

This is much nicer looking than the Godin midi models and offers an alternative to the ugly models Godin makes.

[@TheGuitarGeek]

Are you ok?

[@dragan4658]

@AndyGuitarGeek lol. Love your sense of humor Andy, and your KZbin videos!

[@Opinions-from-YUL]

@@dragan4658I don’t think anyone would consider the Godin LGXT or xtSA models as being “ugly” guitars, by any stretch.

[@101xaplax101]

how in the world is it that the majority of guitar reviews are by people who can't play guitar? it's crazy......would you watch a review of a car by a guy who can only idle around the parking lot because he doesnt know how to drive? this entire genre is meaningless information

[@TheGuitarGeek]

Yes I would if he was honest and entertaining

[@BrianRandall-v8c]

You would think he would show it off using better MIDI sounds. Those were horrible!

[@gerardlanphear9185]

It's me, MARIO! Why do they play that 8 bit Nintendo garbage?

[@Ronbo765]

No, they didn't

[@jimmyjohnson9615]

To much talking. More demo of the guitar please.

[@TheGuitarGeek]

I’m sorry, this isn’t a live show

[@ShoggyPlayTv]

Worst midi guitar play demo i've seen 🤣

[@RandomVelocity]

This not a good demo at all. The few things played sound like crap.

[@fragslap5229]

Just ANOTHER silly GIMMICK that no one needs and likely no one will WANT.

[@jonherdman6282]

They’re selling great, because midi guitars are great.