Rayzoon Technologies LLC

[audiotrax2000]

Thought I’d share my experiences of using alternative (non-keyboard) MIDI controllers with Jamstix.

Sometimes I need to play in a live drum part to “train” a pattern into Jamstix. Other times I need to do some custom drumming, and will play parts in by hand, just using Jamstix as an excellent source of drum sounds, after muting it’s brain.

I have the M-Audio Trigger Finger. It’s nice, has lot’s of programmable control, but I found the pads themselves to be kind of futzy. It was hard to get reliably smooth velocity curves out of them, and they occasionally either don’t trigger on rapid hits, or false trigger on the next pad over. I gave up trying to use the programming software that came with it as well.

2 weeks ago I tried the new Korg PadKontrol at the music store. Wow! This time they got it totally right. I threw financial reason to the wind and bought it on the spot. The Trigger Finger will be going on eBay.

The pads on the PadKontrol have a totally superior response. You can play lightly and delicately all the way out to the edges and they trigger perfectly! The velocity response was also very smooth and covered a much wider range from soft to loud than the Trigger Finger. You can also set the velocity curve differently for each pad, which is very useful.

The padKontrol has a touch sensitive X-Y programmable track pad (like on a laptop),that turns out to be totally useful. There’s two buttons on the control surface that will let you instantly assign it for doing variable flam hits on the pads, or for creating controllable hi-speed superman rolls across which ever pads you hold down. The effect is amazing and realistic. You can control the roll speed and dynamics just by sliding your finger around the track pad.

Obviously Korg looked at what was already out there and put a lot of thought into this design. It just LOOKS totally cool too. It looks a hi end piece of controller gear from the future sitting in my home studio. Unlike the Trigger Finger, it also has a MIDI in, and an assignable footswitch in, which allows me to use it as an extra MIDI input for my laptop. The footswitch trigger is not velocity sensitive.

The Korg also comes with a package of free software that adds a ton of value to your purchase. It has a lite version of DFH Drums (one kit) with limited editing. It was really cool to get a chance to try out the DFH sounds. The almost 300 megabyte single kit sounds TOTALLY realistic. Especially the snare and hi-hats. Interesting though, after a lot of playing around, I found that I preferred the sound of the Jamstix internal drum libraries in my mixes. You can always mix and match the sounds with DFH.

I discovered that by using either the Waves Audio Channel plugin, or the PSP Vintage Warmer in Cubase SX as channel inserts on Jamstix, I could get very similar results, or even far surpass the unprocessed “tone” of the DFH kit. Jamstix wins again….

Jamstix drum sounds are kind of warm and woody (which I love) but you can really get them to pop with some high end EQ.

I have also been using a MIDI guitar controller by Yamaha called the EZ-AG for direct input with virtual instruments. What a find! For less than $200 it gives reliable glitch free, time lag free input for guitar players. It’s pretty amazing plugging it into my laptop and having Jamstix follow along, responding to my finger picking and chording. Instant arrangements!

The EZ guitar uses very similar “touch switch” neck trigger technology to the Starr Labs Z-Guitar. I always wanted one, but could never afford it. The EZ gives similar results, but the neck switches are not velocity sensitive. Only the trigger strings are. For less than $200 though, I am totally addicted to the amount of adventurous control this device offers. I also have a Roland MIDI system on my Strat, but the el-cheapo EZ gives much cleaner results.

Not many people know about the EZ series. I think Yamaha really flubbed up on marketing this one. They sort of approached it as a toy for the musical hobbyist crowd. (Hey, you don’t need to learn how to PLAY guitar now. Just push the buttons and strum the strings. Be popular at parties). They totally missed the boat on the market potential for the computer studio crowd here.

A lot of people have discovered it in the KVR forum. I first read about it there, and couldn’t believe there was a low cost MIDI guitar controller out there that I had never heard of. If you’re interested get one now. I don’t think Yamaha is going to carry them much longer, even though we’ve been beseeching them to come out with a Pro version.

Several members also got together and wrote some control software for it, that over rides its non-standard system exclusive output, and allows you to totally take over programming what it can do. Fascinating reading. The forum thread got so big; there is now a dedicated Yahoo group for it.

If you are thinking of getting one, I have some advice. Yamaha has two versions f it: the EZ-AG, a sort of acoustic guitar black plastic version, and the EZ-EG a $100 more expensive “electric” solid body version with a very cool looking sleek wooden body. Do not get the more expensive EG version. It uses a different string trigger design, which gives it a very stiff response that ignores finger picking and has an awful velocity curve.

I took it apart, and found that you cannot alter the trigger response or the velocity curves. I bought both guitars and just kept the slightly un-cooler looking EZ-AG model. It offers superior string tracking and responds great to delicate finger-picking.

Hope I haven’t rambled on too long here. I am NOT affiliated with any of these companies. I’m just sharing information on my experiences with these very cool devices. We are living in such interesting times now. My dream of having a professional recording studio living inside my notebook computer is finally here! Now with Jamstix, my favorite drummer lives inside there too.

Fun fun stuff!

Kevin

[Ralph [RZ]]

Great stuff, Kevin! Thanks for sharing!
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

[republik]

I use the MPC1000 with Note Repeat turned on, and sync'd to my host by midi clock.

It works great as a midi controller for Jamstix, especially with the jamstix drum sample banks because it gives me great control over the velocity layers.

The MPC is a bit expensive just to be used as a midi controller, but if you need a sampler as well as a midi controller, then look into it. Because I have never used anything else that lets me come up with so many creative patterns.

Note Repeat just locks your playing (quantizes) to the grid/midi clock in real time. So you just press down on the pad, instead of bang down on it.

I find with this kind of controller, combined with an amazing sample bank of drums with velocity crossfades, you will crap your pants 10 fold.

-Republik