Hello,
As the thread says, any Axon MIDI guitar users out there? I would like to buy one, either - the Axon AX 100 or the AX 50 USB. Seeing I am a guitar player and a crap keyboard player, it's about time I did. I have read favourable AX 50 reviews but nothing on the AX 100. Anyone out there with some useful information on both units would be much appreciated. Basically, do they perform the same? Is one better? How good can it get the job done? My playing style is in the Vai/Satriani vein. I should point out that it is not possible for me to go into a shop and try as none around my area have them.
Plus, I've been told that Piezo pickups are best to use as far as the pickup for the unit goes. Any recommendations?
Thanks
Any Axon MIDI Guitar Users Out There?
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Astral Fridge Magnet
- Posts: 347
- Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2001 4:00 pm
The Axons use their own, additional hexaphonic pickup. I'm not sure if you can really use it with other pickups as well.
I used to have an AX100, but it was troublesome to use. First of all, the setup has to be tweaked and fine tuned absolutely accurately if you want to get anything useful from it. Then, the Axon sometimes sent out midi data that hung up some of my synths while others played fine. As long as I had the axon I was never able to find out what kind of data caused it, must have been more than just some sysex.
Also, the axon is not equally good for all styles of playing. Obviously, it would work best with straight, jazz style pickings. It's almost impossible to play it right with bendings, since you definitely have to "bend back" the string in place before you release it, or else the tuning of the synth may stay pitched and cause an offset for any following note -until the next bending is played that would reset the pitch information. I don't know if that issue has ever been taken care of since then.
All in all, it is still a great box. But you have to be a _really_ decent player to get along with it, and you'll have to spend quite some time and a lot of nerve for tweaking the setup to make it work like it should. It's simply that a midi synth has never been designed to react like a guitar, and it won't be sensible to play whatever you would have with just the guitar.
I really doubt it will work with Vai's style. It might work with Satch style playing, if it wasn't for the crazy bendings...
I used to have an AX100, but it was troublesome to use. First of all, the setup has to be tweaked and fine tuned absolutely accurately if you want to get anything useful from it. Then, the Axon sometimes sent out midi data that hung up some of my synths while others played fine. As long as I had the axon I was never able to find out what kind of data caused it, must have been more than just some sysex.
Also, the axon is not equally good for all styles of playing. Obviously, it would work best with straight, jazz style pickings. It's almost impossible to play it right with bendings, since you definitely have to "bend back" the string in place before you release it, or else the tuning of the synth may stay pitched and cause an offset for any following note -until the next bending is played that would reset the pitch information. I don't know if that issue has ever been taken care of since then.
All in all, it is still a great box. But you have to be a _really_ decent player to get along with it, and you'll have to spend quite some time and a lot of nerve for tweaking the setup to make it work like it should. It's simply that a midi synth has never been designed to react like a guitar, and it won't be sensible to play whatever you would have with just the guitar.
I really doubt it will work with Vai's style. It might work with Satch style playing, if it wasn't for the crazy bendings...
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guitarhelper
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:07 am
Piezos are more accurate than the Hex pickups.
Any 13 pin pickup or guitar will work with the Axon or the Roland units.
The Axon works but you have to tweak it to work for you style.
There are different settings to get the bending to work better.
Brian
brian@guitarhelper.net
more info:
www.guitarhelper.net
where to buy Axons:
http://www.guitarhelper.net/midi13_pin_interfaces.html
Any 13 pin pickup or guitar will work with the Axon or the Roland units.
The Axon works but you have to tweak it to work for you style.
There are different settings to get the bending to work better.
Brian
brian@guitarhelper.net
more info:
www.guitarhelper.net
where to buy Axons:
http://www.guitarhelper.net/midi13_pin_interfaces.html
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pseudojazzer
- Posts: 222
- Joined: Wed Aug 18, 2004 4:00 pm
- Location: london
Pat metheny uses a roland gr303, i think - unfortualtely they are not available any more (or if they are there are V hard to find!)
I have been used the axon ax100 mk2 for a little while and its a great box. There is plenty of teakablitly to get the response to your playing quite good. The main difference other than size between the 50 and the 100 is usb.. both come with a small prgm that can tweak the box remotely, and is quite detailed. (you can define midi chamels, string splits etc..) the 100 uses sysex dumps and i'm not sure whether the 50 does or whether its software is usb based.
The 100 has midi out so you can trigger scope synths with is as well as using the onboard sounds (some of which are great - but as usual the synthetic brass sounds let it down, the pads are nice tho, spesh when thickened up a little in scope after..) On the 100 you also get more footswitching options, but i have only used one so far.
Astral fridge magnet - like you am a better guitar player than keys player, and i thought that midi guitar would be much easier than using a keyboard but i still find myself using my usb keyboard... i think of the midi guitar as more of an addition to the midi arsenal rather than my main controller.
I use a yamaha aex520 with a roland hex pickup attached to the bridge (its a "gibson style" tunomatic bridge and fittting the pickup to this was very easy - no drilling, or any damage to the guitar)
One tip for anyone using a roland hex pick up is to wrap the rather large heavy hex cable round the strap a few times because the connection is a little dodgy, made of plastic it doesnt fell quite as robust as the usual jack lead socket.
If you want better tracking, many people have recommended me the peizo ghost system (graphtek, or graf teck or something like that, quite expensive and worth getting fitted properly, but they are great!) which like RMCpickups are considered the best option, but the roland tracks fine for my playing which is not really vai territory... but it picks up the faster phrases as well
Hope that is helpful,
Tom
I have been used the axon ax100 mk2 for a little while and its a great box. There is plenty of teakablitly to get the response to your playing quite good. The main difference other than size between the 50 and the 100 is usb.. both come with a small prgm that can tweak the box remotely, and is quite detailed. (you can define midi chamels, string splits etc..) the 100 uses sysex dumps and i'm not sure whether the 50 does or whether its software is usb based.
The 100 has midi out so you can trigger scope synths with is as well as using the onboard sounds (some of which are great - but as usual the synthetic brass sounds let it down, the pads are nice tho, spesh when thickened up a little in scope after..) On the 100 you also get more footswitching options, but i have only used one so far.
Astral fridge magnet - like you am a better guitar player than keys player, and i thought that midi guitar would be much easier than using a keyboard but i still find myself using my usb keyboard... i think of the midi guitar as more of an addition to the midi arsenal rather than my main controller.
I use a yamaha aex520 with a roland hex pickup attached to the bridge (its a "gibson style" tunomatic bridge and fittting the pickup to this was very easy - no drilling, or any damage to the guitar)
One tip for anyone using a roland hex pick up is to wrap the rather large heavy hex cable round the strap a few times because the connection is a little dodgy, made of plastic it doesnt fell quite as robust as the usual jack lead socket.
If you want better tracking, many people have recommended me the peizo ghost system (graphtek, or graf teck or something like that, quite expensive and worth getting fitted properly, but they are great!) which like RMCpickups are considered the best option, but the roland tracks fine for my playing which is not really vai territory... but it picks up the faster phrases as well
Hope that is helpful,
Tom
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paulrmartin
- Posts: 2445
- Joined: Sun May 20, 2001 4:00 pm
- Location: Montreal, Canada
Pat uses a Roland GR-300 but that has no MIDI.Nestor wrote:I don't know which one uses Pat Metheny, but I have to some of his performances and the MIDI guiar was trouble free. I don't know what he is using, but it works perfectly well.
Magnet, if you play as fast as Vai ot Satch look into which guitar synth Al DiMeola uses. I would also think about the Godin synth pickup which tracks directly on the bridge (I want that!).
As far as the pitch bend release is concerned you can get around that problem by assigning a different MIDI channel to each string. This is a basic MIDI programming trick I use all the time when doing pedal steel tracks (minimum of 3 channels: 1 bends at on tone, the next at half a tone and the other doesn't bend).
Are we listening?..
I've also read that the Axxon delivers best result with that type of pickup, which is individual piezos under the strings - the difference is said to be significant.paulrmartin wrote:...Magnet, if you play as fast as Vai ot Satch look into which guitar synth Al DiMeola uses. I would also think about the Godin synth pickup which tracks directly on the bridge (I want that!)...
cheers, Tom
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Astral Fridge Magnet
- Posts: 347
- Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2001 4:00 pm
Thanks for all the responses so far. Not quite sure about one thing. Piezo pickups. Do they really matter if you don't intend to use the output of the guitar (from the guitar jack into the amp) but instead just for the triggering of MIDI data? I only intend to use the Axon unit to trigger MIDI data using my guitar and not worry about the actual sound from the guitar itself.
Or have I misunderstood the issue? Are the pickups required for the synths available in two modes - magnetic and piezo?
Thanks
Or have I misunderstood the issue? Are the pickups required for the synths available in two modes - magnetic and piezo?
Thanks
Piezos definitely result in better tracking for MIDI use. The typical Roland GK2A type pickup is pretty fiddly to set up to get anything close to decent tracking.
With a GK2A type pickup it's very hard to get each string the optimum distance away from the pickup surface.
You get better separation and a more stable level for each string with piezos, so the interface unit (i.e. the Axon) can translate the signal to MIDI better.
At least that's the way I see it... I've never used piezo's for MIDI guitar but I'm sure if you know your way around a guitar it would be very easy to set up. You would just wire the 6 piezos to a 13-pin hex-type output.
With a GK2A type pickup it's very hard to get each string the optimum distance away from the pickup surface.
You get better separation and a more stable level for each string with piezos, so the interface unit (i.e. the Axon) can translate the signal to MIDI better.
At least that's the way I see it... I've never used piezo's for MIDI guitar but I'm sure if you know your way around a guitar it would be very easy to set up. You would just wire the 6 piezos to a 13-pin hex-type output.
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paulrmartin
- Posts: 2445
- Joined: Sun May 20, 2001 4:00 pm
- Location: Montreal, Canada
the trick with the piezos (one piece under each string) within the bridge ist that they track the harmonics instead of the basic oscillation, thus avoiding the latency a couple of full cycles (of classic tracking) would introduce.
On magnetic PUs the same strategy is much less reliable, though it works to a degree.
So instead of 6 individual coils under the strings (the hexacoil thingy) it's 6 individual piezos in the bridge, one right below each string.
Never seen one myself, but I've read it even works (in a usable way, not just theoretically...) on electric bass down to the E string.
And that's way more demanding than guitar - but as already mentioned, it takes a serious amount of time to adjust tracking to one's own instrument and the individual playing style.
cheers, Tom
On magnetic PUs the same strategy is much less reliable, though it works to a degree.
So instead of 6 individual coils under the strings (the hexacoil thingy) it's 6 individual piezos in the bridge, one right below each string.
Never seen one myself, but I've read it even works (in a usable way, not just theoretically...) on electric bass down to the E string.
And that's way more demanding than guitar - but as already mentioned, it takes a serious amount of time to adjust tracking to one's own instrument and the individual playing style.
cheers, Tom
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pseudojazzer
- Posts: 222
- Joined: Wed Aug 18, 2004 4:00 pm
- Location: london
Sorry paul - you are absolutely right, pat uses the gr 300 - think i was getting muddled up with a tb 303! DOH 
John mclaughlin uses a godin midi guitar - and he's plenty fast so it seems that under the bridge pickups are the way to go...
http://www.graphtech.com/prodghost.htm
there loads of info on how to fit them etc there.. but for my humble playing the roland does a pretty good job, its cheaper, and for a tunomatic bridge its easy to fit!
On a side note, I had a chat with Burr Johnson, the guy who does the axon demo videos, at one of the stands at sounds expo in london, (who was a really friendly guy BTW) about specifically what pickups to use.. typically he was playing a godin and i think he had a brian moore guitar there as well.. but he said that the difference was pretty marginal between the internal and external options.. having not played one myself i cant say for sure but he saved me a few quid by saying get the GK3 (i also asked him about the axon GK3 equivalent.. which is £100 more, or was at the time, and he siad there wasnt much difference between those either...) In theory though, the internal options should do a better job, simply because they directly touch the strings more than anything else, i might upgrade to one at a later date - if i get fast enough!
If you havn't seen the vids to get you drooling over the axon they are here...
http://audioen.terratec.net/modules.php ... e&artid=66
mmm mmm mmm ... sweet
John mclaughlin uses a godin midi guitar - and he's plenty fast so it seems that under the bridge pickups are the way to go...
http://www.graphtech.com/prodghost.htm
there loads of info on how to fit them etc there.. but for my humble playing the roland does a pretty good job, its cheaper, and for a tunomatic bridge its easy to fit!
On a side note, I had a chat with Burr Johnson, the guy who does the axon demo videos, at one of the stands at sounds expo in london, (who was a really friendly guy BTW) about specifically what pickups to use.. typically he was playing a godin and i think he had a brian moore guitar there as well.. but he said that the difference was pretty marginal between the internal and external options.. having not played one myself i cant say for sure but he saved me a few quid by saying get the GK3 (i also asked him about the axon GK3 equivalent.. which is £100 more, or was at the time, and he siad there wasnt much difference between those either...) In theory though, the internal options should do a better job, simply because they directly touch the strings more than anything else, i might upgrade to one at a later date - if i get fast enough!
If you havn't seen the vids to get you drooling over the axon they are here...
http://audioen.terratec.net/modules.php ... e&artid=66
mmm mmm mmm ... sweet