Sometimes musicians want to change the sound of the music that has been produced on an instrument. One way of doing this is by means of MIDI technology. Most instruments are suitable for being connected electronically. This is dependent on the type and form of an instrument. An electronic instrument is more natural for connecting to MIDI and the technique is easy. Each type of acoustic instrument has a unique sound. Retaining the tonal quality when converting to MIDI signals becomes extremely important. The acoustic guitar is a good example of a instrument with a unique quality of sound. There are many guitars on the market with a wide range of sound quality.

How then is it possible to connect the guitar to the GM-3 MIDI interface?
By means of the ingenious application where the guitar is equipped with a six channel pickup, with just a slight alter to the structure of the guitar. A change of guitar only requires that the equipment is moved to the other guitar.

What are the possibilities of this new equipment? A need to amplify the sound of a guitar that is easily drowned in an ensemble, by simply connecting the analogue output from GM-3 to an amplifier. The naturally quality of the tone is retained. Another useful possibility is to produce sounds other than that of the guitar. The GM-3 is preprogrammed to control 20 different sounds that can also be transposed at intervals of an octave. New and interesting sounds can be created when connected to an external sound module. The guitar can be made to imitate any instrument, everything from a marimba to a church organ. This is a connection that provides enormous possibilities.

More and more people are using computers in their music. The GM-3 enables a guitar to be connected to a computer with MIDI equipment. There are several different applications on the computer market that meet the different needs.
So called sequencer programs are applications used to record music directly into the computer for easy editing. One example is to play the solo part on a guitar and then connect other MIDI instruments for the other voices. A computer can handle many sources of information at the one and same time.

With several instruments connected at the same time one person can play on the guitar and let the computer output the sound to another instrument. This enables a guitarist to play other instruments, such as piano or keyboard, on his guitar. In education the GM-3 is very useful. Guitar tutors can let their pupils play on an acoustic guitar and at the same time study the result on the computer screen. Afterwards the result can be analyzed which is a great pedagogic improvement.

Music that has been either written or arranged on the computer is easily reproduced on a connected printer. The result is professional and can be rearranged with little effort. All in all, one can say that the GM-3 is a tool for all guitarists, from beginners to advanced musicians, for the amateur at home to the concert guitarist.

Pickups for use with the GM-3.

MIDI-implementation table

Frequently Asked Questions