I've been curious about the GI20 and wondered how it compares to the
Axon 100 that I've worked with the most, or to the GTM-6. My classic
guitar tracks pretty well into the GTM-6, and I do remember wondering
whether the small tracking delay compared to it that I experienced
with the Passac interface was due to mis-adjustment or inherent in
their process.
My understanding, not knowing the Passac people well but having sat
down and talked with them at that NAMM show going on 2 decades ago,
was that they seemed to be nice people fighting an underfunded uphill
struggle to gain a foothold in the North American market against the
competition of majors like Roland, an uphill struggle that was
ultimately unsuccessful. With technology changing that rapidly, many
people were becoming afraid to buy from small companies who might not
be around to support their music gear for years to come. And Roland
would soon clear all the small MIDI guitar independents out of the
market by standardizing the 13-pin interface. Passac's product line
also included just about the cleanest mixers around at the time, the
Unity-8, and a cute little active resonance signal processor meant for
guitar
<http://www.harmony-central.com/Effects/Data/Passac/AGR1000-1.html>.
It's not that I'm looking to get a 1st MIDI interface for guitar,
though thanks for your suggestions. I'm interested in the history of
MIDI guitar's development. If it's like just about every other kind of
music technology that's undergone rapid continuous change in recent
decades, there will be musically useful and interesting ideas in
systems that are now obsolete that were unique to them and deserve to
be known about and remembered. My guess is that given the audio
quality and unusual thinking of their few other products, there could
well be some musically pretty interesting aspects to the Sentient Six.
Musical instruments are all different, and it may be that it tracks
slow and can only be used for slow music but that there will be
compositional possibilities different from those of other interfaces.
But without a guitar with an appropriate pickup, this will never be
explorable.
Also it just plain bothers me to see interfaces there may be very few
of left practically begging for homes because no one has a clue what
signal they understand or how to produce it, or what the features,
logic and musical thinking of that particular concept of
digitally-interfaced guitar was all about. There is virtually no real
info on these on the web, which is in itself pretty odd and piques my
curiosity.
- Laurie, a self-admitted music technogeek
Post by TI remember tryin the passac at a namm show when it was new
this was at a time when a bunch of folks got into midi gtr
and i remember lumping it with the gibson labbs unit + a few
others at the time that tracked reasonably well but had some
fluke like not tracking hammer ons or wierd chromatic mode or something
I looked into it because it used piezo saddles and this was/is
something I like using on electrics
my opinion at the time was it didn't compare well with other units
then available and i rejected it
I don't remember what it was but there was something dodgey
about it
it was a pretty nifty pickup tho
I looked seriously at the unit based on the pickup
at the time there was very little available like it
6 piezo saddles mounted in a khaler vintage style bridge
I would buy one of the bridge/pickup units and mod it to work
with a modern 13 pin output system but I would not buy a late 80s
midi converter, even for $50
I'd put that $50 in my sock drawer and add to it
till I had $150 for a used GI10(a very good unit),
200 for Gr30 or 300 for a new GI20 or used axon 77
or something similar
when i think of late 80s systems there is no vintage vibe
the gear got gradually better and the new units are really very good
I own and recommend the roland GI20
you can get them online for around $300 new
not pocket change I know but very reasonable for current technology
i wouldn't buy anything before 95 (starting with gr30 or NGC77) and I
think
the newest roland and axon units are clearly better than earlier models
and are finally free of most of the earlier units tracking frustrations
I used a TRS cable with the GTM6 and it was nifty
but you'd have to have a smart guy convince me the multiplexer
doesn't add some delay or potential signal wierdness
my .02
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