RE: OT: peavey midibase (was Guitar Synth)

["Goddard, Duncan" <goddard.duncan@mtvne.com>]

 

 >> Split frets impede bending.

Check out the Guitorgan for the earliest example of surprisingly workable split-fret sensor technology.  The SynthAxe also used the split-fret approach. <<

 

funnily enough, they don't impede bending on the peavey- the tiny little insulator between the "elements" of each fret are really smooth, like they were made from ptfe or something. & the ends of the metal parts are slanted.... I should probably put a picture somewhere..... in any case, the cyberbass software installed in an original midibase requires that one bends a string right across to an adjacent string's fret in order to write new patches into the beast. & the actual bend data is extracted from a strain gauge in the bridge. 

 

& somehow the thing's brain knows that the contact being made on the fret is from the "wrong" string & ignores it, unless it's in patch-editing mode.

 

I tend to use the pitch-bend data to operate various swell-type effects in my synth module, e.g. to bring in some vibrato or open up a filter. it's convenient to set this up with a lot of gain, so that a quite small pitch-bend on the actual bass note introduces a lot of variation in the triggered sounds.

 

I think the bigger problem with this kind of approach, even with today's superior materials & manufacturing techniques (& I mean peavey no slight, but the midibase was somewhat of a niche product shoe-horned into a fairly ordinary bass guitar, & could certainly have been developed further), is always going to be the reliability or otherwise of the string/fret conductivity, especially under stage conditions.

 

I've used the peavey a lot in the last year or so, on stage & in the studio, & mis-triggers are invariably curable by "scratching" the string against the problem-fret to remove surface contaminants. I carry silver-dip & a special polishing cloth too, & have experimented with different strings.... even flatwounds, which didn't actually help all that much. even after all that, I often filter the midi data through a sequentix midi sequencer that applies "force-to-scale" rules to incoming midi, so as to reduce the incidence of bum notes.

 

at the end of the day, though, the novelty wears off quite quickly, & there are only so many things that are actually appropriate to play as simultaneous bass guitar & keyboard parts. big power chords with a mellotron-string swell underneath are my latest infatuation. I tried piano & flute & it just felt..... daft. YMMV. :-)

 

d.

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