[chuck-users] Synth for use with guitar hex pickup

[Kassen]

On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 11:52:23PM -0700, ryguasu at gmail.com wrote:
>    That sounds like a good idea, though I haven't bought any sort of MIDI
>    guitar yet. Can you describe the difference in sound you get with
>    monophonic vs polyphonic? Does it make the sound more accurately reflect
>    what you were actually playing on the guitar?

Didn't the Rockband (the video game) people do a guitar controller
with poly MIDI output and actual strings? I seem to remember they did
a few years ago and did so at a fairly modest price as far as such
things go. I think you could also plug it into a amp, which is really
quite spectacular for a game controller.

That might suit your needs, or at least let you test without committing
to a exotic beast like a pro guitar with poly MIDI output.

To answer the literal question; pitch detection of simple monophonic
signals (the flute, the recorder) is doable, pitch detection of notes
in chords (say; 6 notes chords as likely found in guitar playing) is
very hard even if you don't need to be fast. Using a pickup per string
reduces the problem to six monophonic sounds. This should be far more
accurate and far faster, especially in the context of relatively (as
compared to the flute) complex sounds like strummed guitar strings.

Yours,
kas.