midi pickup and converter for alembic guits

[mavnet]

Hi. Anyone have a pointer for whatever is the state of the art in midi guitar pickup/conversion nowadays? I have an ancient roland gi20 converter driven by an old brian moore midi guit, but i'd really like to use one of my alembic guitars (not bass), and have conversion track more accurately and faster. Thanks in advance.

[rv_bass]

I have RMC piezo saddle pickups And poly drive preamp on my bass for midi, installed by Alembic.  Bill (tgo) has them in one of his guitars as well I think.  I find they track very well.

[lbpesq]

+1 on the RMC piezo saddles.   I have them on my “Ferlembic”, an Alembicized Fernandes MH-110 Masterhand.   They track much better than the Roland pickup.  The guitar has a 13 pin jack to hook up with my Roland GR-33 synth.   The piezos also output to the 1/4” jack for an acoustic-like tone.  I have a pan pot that allows me to pan between the Alembic and piezo pickups.   I have also heard good things about the Graphtech system.  Here’s a link to my guitar:

http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=20043

Bill, tgo

[mavnet]

Thanks, guys - i appreciate the quite responses (and that guitar is a beauty!). As I understand it, the poly drive is not the converter, it allows you to use the piezo outs and drive an amp, and also drive a converter. I'm wondering if there is a converter that tracks well (or a pickup/converter combo like the Fishman tripleplay) - something designed more recently than my roland unit. I don't play out, i use the guitar in the studio, so ultimately it will be a usb output into my computer and driving virtual instruments in the box.

[rv_bass]

I use a Roland GI-20.  It’s not new, but works well for me.  I plug it into a Yamaha Motif Rack XS.  The GI-20 is discontinued, but you can find them used.  It has a USB out in the back.

https://www.roland.com/us/products/gi-20/

[rv_bass]

Mavnet, what software do you use with your computer for virtual instruments?

[mario_farufyno]

What a cool guitar, Bill.

[mavnet]

Rv - i use all sorts of virtual instruments. My go-to DAWs are Reason and Luna (and recently, almost exclusively Luna - when i need Reason instruments i use the reason rack as a plug in). Kontact (and lots of Kontact-friendly plugs), various sample players, soft synths, pianos, organs, things like that. My setup is clunky now - Brian Moore midi guit with a 13 pin out into Roland GI-20. The built in usb port on the Roland was giving me HUGE delay, so i got a midi DIN to usb cable - come out of the roland Midi out into my computer - way shorter latency, to the point where i can fingerpick and not lose the tempo. It works, but it's not elegant and i'd love to really get that latency as short as possible, with better tracking (esp on the low notes).

[rv_bass]

Mavnet thanks for the software suggestions, I’ll check out Luna and Reason.   

I see you are using the GI-20 already, I should have read your original post more carefully!   Searching the web I see good reviews of the Axon AX-50, but that is discontinued.  There is a Sonuus product that does not require a 13 pin, just uses your normal 1/4” cable and converts that signal to midi, then usb to computer.  Good reviews, but I have not tried it. I would like to improve my set up as well, especially to start using a computer, so  I’ll keep poking around and let you know what I find.