Ebay. You should be able to find an inexpensive, used, Pickup and preamp combo.
Roland GK MIDI range has become one of the most widely available and popular MIDI guitar systems. These pickups are designed to be powered
by an external MIDI converter device. The Roland GK-2 (single coil) and GK-2A (humbucker) consist of an electromagnetic hexaphonic pickup .
A Propeller chip could offer a lot of design flexibility if you use a cog per string and a cog for FullDuplexSerial object /MIDI out.
I did a simple midi out test to a Roland sound module and print to a TV text screen a few months back. Everything worked well.
Just for everyone's information, I know it's a little off topic but... The new Zeta pickups and old Jazz series pickups (except the one on their acoustic crossover) does this for 4 and 5 string electric violins. Pinouts for the jack from the preamp are avalible on a number of different forums. They no longer sell the pickup separately, but people on eBay sometimes list the old RetroPak -- the Jazz one has has separate pickups per string. There are some other pickups as well, but I'm working with a zeta.
Guitars and other plucked strings (including pitz. on violin/viola/cello/bass) should be able to pitch-to-MIDI using zero crossing (with a margin of error) or FFT (with less error, but potentially slower). This should allow the instrument(s) to be used the way you'd ordinarily play them.
Bowed strings are problematic because the waves are "distorted" from bow articulations and even the current best commercial products out there require you to change the way you play and/or lose articulation and volume information. With advancement of analog effects, most people using electric violins are moving away from playing with MIDI because of these problems. I would like to try to address them, but first I have a bit more work to do on my new electric violin... It requires another coat of poly, gluing on the fingerboard, mounting the preamp inside the instrument, cutting and re-soldering some leads that will need a bit more length to be placed in the body of the instrument.
Comments
Roland GK MIDI range has become one of the most widely available and popular MIDI guitar systems. These pickups are designed to be powered
by an external MIDI converter device. The Roland GK-2 (single coil) and GK-2A (humbucker) consist of an electromagnetic hexaphonic pickup .
A Propeller chip could offer a lot of design flexibility if you use a cog per string and a cog for FullDuplexSerial object /MIDI out.
I did a simple midi out test to a Roland sound module and print to a TV text screen a few months back. Everything worked well.
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Aka: CosmicBob
Bob Lawrence
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Guitars and other plucked strings (including pitz. on violin/viola/cello/bass) should be able to pitch-to-MIDI using zero crossing (with a margin of error) or FFT (with less error, but potentially slower). This should allow the instrument(s) to be used the way you'd ordinarily play them.
Bowed strings are problematic because the waves are "distorted" from bow articulations and even the current best commercial products out there require you to change the way you play and/or lose articulation and volume information. With advancement of analog effects, most people using electric violins are moving away from playing with MIDI because of these problems. I would like to try to address them, but first I have a bit more work to do on my new electric violin... It requires another coat of poly, gluing on the fingerboard, mounting the preamp inside the instrument, cutting and re-soldering some leads that will need a bit more length to be placed in the body of the instrument.
Luiz, please keep me appraised of your progress.
Thank You...
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How you making out?
Bob
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Aka: CosmicBob