7 string Midi guitars?

[odibrom]

My Oni CF8 has 8 string Roland compatible hexaphonic output. It works just as well as any other midi guitar contemporary with it, but you cannot play the highest and lowest strings at the same time. (...)

Please elaborate a little more on this, how is it wired / how does it work?, like only 6 strings work at a time?

 

[c7spheres]

Apparently, with CycFi - https://www.cycfi.com/ one can go crazy. It's kind of a "per costumer" product. They sell breakout boxes that deliver each string individually, so with a nice audio interface with lots of input channels one can go crazy really fast in a computer environment... but ain't cheap for sure...

It says it doesn't do pitch to midi conversion but still it looks fun. You should try it and let us know. You go first. lol. : )

 

[c7spheres]

Please elaborate a little more on this, how is it wired / how does it work?, like only 6 strings work at a time?

Not sure about bostjan's but a lot of them used 2 hexpanders and two 13 pin jacks. I remember seeing Conklin doing it a few times. You set one converter for bass mode like on the Yamaha and Axon's for the lower string.

I wonder how the Acoustiphonc sounds in comparison to the LR baggs preamp for the double edge piezo's though. Right now mine are running on an old Bartolini preamp which I liked better than the LR baggs. It was just a little fatter and more clear sounding but mostly it was nice and quite on the noise floor.

 

[Fox Dieane]

That MIDI system only supports 6 strings guitars, but as for the piezo sounds, you can go with as many strings as you like

I didn't read too much into it, but that's a bummer if true. I remember looking into them a while back and only checked the website when I made my first post and saw the seven saddles and figured they'd updated it to work with 7 strings.

I never pulled the trigger on it, but it seemed like a really cool system if you wanted to put the effort into making it work.

 

[bostjan]

Please elaborate a little more on this, how is it wired / how does it work?, like only 6 strings work at a time?

At any moment, yes. So, for instance, if you play on the low b and high e at the same time, the note will not track, but if you played one then the other just a moment later, it would track both. If you do a lot of walking bass stuff, that could be a problem, but, honestly, it was very rarely an issue for me, to the point where I never really thought about it.

In my old band, I used a Brian Moore 6 string midi guitar into a Roland floor unit, and a regular seven string BCR MB7, so I never considered it necessary to split 8 strings into 2 midi channels. I then started doing more and more stuff at home through a GK13-Midi5 converter (which, ironically, despite being 20% of the price of the Roland, tracked even better).

 

[odibrom]

It says it doesn't do pitch to midi conversion but still it looks fun. You should try it and let us know. You go first. lol. : )

Nope, but with pitch to MIDI plugins associated with each string, a computer and an audio interface coupled with the CycFi system may open the guitar synth world quite a bit and into MIDI instruments and what not..

Regarding me diving heads first into this... just let me go and buy a wining lottery ticket...

Not sure about bostjan's but a lot of them used 2 hexpanders and two 13 pin jacks. I remember seeing Conklin doing it a few times. You set one converter for bass mode like on the Yamaha and Axon's for the lower string.

I wonder how the Acoustiphonc sounds in comparison to the LR baggs preamp for the double edge piezo's though. Right now mine are running on an old Bartolini preamp which I liked better than the LR baggs. It was just a little fatter and more clear sounding but mostly it was nice and quite on the noise floor.

I have some guitars with the LR Baggs (in LoPro and EdgePro trems) system and others with the Graphtech's (in fixed bridges). All with each proprietary preamps, so LR Baggs piezos with LR Baggs preamps and Graphtech's ghost saddles with Graphtech's Accousticphonic preamps.

I personally prefer the LR Baggs sound, which feels to have more mids on tap when the Ghost's sound feels more "V shaped", probably due to the Teflon finished Ghost saddles...

However, the LR Baggs sound is divided into 2 options regarding the Ibanez guitars, the 1st and the 2nd batch. Their preamps are totally different, specially on the prestige models in which the preamp came with active Treble and Bass Boos/Cut... which does have quite an impact in changing the piezo tones.

At any moment, yes. So, for instance, if you play on the low b and high e at the same time, the note will not track, but if you played one then the other just a moment later, it would track both. If you do a lot of walking bass stuff, that could be a problem, but, honestly, it was very rarely an issue for me, to the point where I never really thought about it.

In my old band, I used a Brian Moore 6 string midi guitar into a Roland floor unit, and a regular seven string BCR MB7, so I never considered it necessary to split 8 strings into 2 midi channels. I then started doing more and more stuff at home through a GK13-Midi5 converter (which, ironically, despite being 20% of the price of the Roland, tracked even better).

So, if I understand correctly, for chord stuff it would kind of fall behind, but for single note lines it would track things ok...?

@Fox Dieane let's see if Graphtech updates their game in this product line. As I understand, the Hexpander board DOES NOT convert the string's signal to MIDI, as it Emulates the Roland's GK pickup system, while the real processing is done at the pedals... as for the traditional approach. This new Roland's one seems to be a bit different, so let's see how it develops...?

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Question for those who use/used these rigs.
How is the rig setup? there are 2 different signal paths - MIDI/synth and regular audio - that merge before the poweramp, right? And one then would have to manage when to use or the other signal source, right? Obviously things can get a bit more complicated with FXs acting over both signal types, but that's the gist of it, right?