I've just started playing around with MIDI output with the Stick, and it feels like I have to be more precise in my playing. Maybe it's just unfamiliarity with the response, but it sure seems to reward more precision on the player's part.

Anyone else experience this?

Definitely yes. Midi is a bit like running with weights. Not very elegant, but useful.

I remember one of my favourite bass guitarists once saying that after playing bass for decades and recording over 100 records, he bought himself a Peavey Midibass and ...... only then did he realise how sloppy he was playing and how he still had to work hard on his instrument.

I have MIDI on several of my instruments.
I've found that the quality of the MIDI patches make a huge difference.
The same thing is true with my Kemper Profiler Stage and Helix Floor.

There are people out there, that know how to create these great tones.
I don't mind spending a bit of money to achieve a much better sound.

There’s a reason not many people use a midi interface. As you’ve found, it puts demands on what and how you play that most find is not worth the the reward. I had one for a while, and that was the case for me. But, there’s lots of new midi instrument software since the days when I tried it so it might be easier to deal with given that.


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Is that using the https://www.jamorigin.com/ software MIDI guitar 2 (or MIDI bass)?

With the newer interfaces, do you get a lot of false triggering and ghost notes on the stick? Does just releasing the notes often trigger the midi?

Now Roland/Boss is the monopoly on hardware "midi" equipment, and they build everything with a pick-playing guitar players in mind. There is no old Taping setting feature (like in GR30 or GI10). The note played should be loud and from the bridge, not from neck. On a guitar with pick and GR-55 or SY-1000 you can really achieve a very clean playing now. Compared to the old equipment, I have a subjective impression that the Stick is worse with them. However, this may also be the effect of my progressing musical degradation on Stick So playing through a GK pickup with typical synth/piano sounds is tiring. Sometimes I have false, ghost notes etc Howewer, the SY-1000 now has a lot of possibilities to create sound without the GK pickup, and Virtual Guitar also works without any major obstacles.

I’m very familiar with the Roland units. I’ve been playing a long time so playing with these is Norma a problem. I’m noire interested in true “midi” triggering of synths…… has he technology improved with latency and false triggers?

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Certainly the currently available equipment is faster than the old. Low notes in particular have gained. Latency is still present, however. There is nothing to compare it with the advances among audio interfaces. If you use a USB connection to your computer "midi latency" is really decent. With a standard 5 pin connection, even cables can make a big difference. Personally, for me, the big dynamic/sounding limitations still present in GR are a bigger problem than the latency. However, I play mostly Pad/FX than some piano parts or other fast point notes.

So to answer some questions (explicit and implied...) above...

Personally, I find the demand for more precision a good thing. I like the analogy of "running with weights" above!

And yes, @DavidWS, I'm running the iOS version Jam Origin's MG2. Of the two Sticks I have, – one rosewood and the other a Railboard – I'm getting really amazing results on only one.

After a bit of tweaking, the Railboard is working perfectly. No false triggering, good tracking across all strings. Really fun to crank out an organ or sax or English horn (or gnarly synth!! ) on the right-hand!

The rosewood not so much. On the 5th string, the fundamental is pretty consistently mis-read a semitone too high, and/or an octave off. If I hold a note, it will often stutter between the octaves (and be a semitone off!! ) This also occurs intermittently on some 4th-string notes as well. Apparently there is an update (MIDI Guitar 3) coming sometime, and since the developer has a MIDI Bass (monophonic only IIRC) product too, perhaps the challenges in interpreting the FFT for low freqs might bleed over into the MG3 product. We'll see. Note that I switched MG2 to monophonic to see if it would improve the situation on the rosewood Stick, but it had no effect.

I'm not too dismayed by this though. All of my "study" is done on the rosewood as it's tuned BM. Can't do Greg's "Tapping Into Bach" on the Railboard as it's MR. But this gives me an excuse to switch to the Railboard for experimentation, noodling, composition, which is always a blast when you have interesting orchestral and electronic timbres to inspire. I love the sound of the Railboard and how it plays (no knock on the rosewood by any means.) I do wish I could practice these Bach pieces using the MIDI output though, as that forcing me to play more precisely thing (especially since I'm still such a newbie) has to be really, really good in the long term.

And yes, as someone asked above, one has to be careful about lifting one's fingers as it's easy to trigger a note on the open string. I remember years ago while learning guitar that one of the most important little skills that distinguish someone who knows their way around the instrument and the rank amateur is string muting. I haven't been aware of this aspect of Stick playing (I may even be doing some string muting that I'm not consciously aware of) but working with the MIDI output will definitely reveal any sloppiness in this area too.