the Fly Clone Project

I have a midi nitefly with the midiaxe system plus all the cables and I cannot figure out how to hook it up to my amplifier!I have looked at the manuals on this site and I still don't get it!Help
Larry

Hi @Davekim; just addressing this old post:

Did you see the MIDIFly manual in the Manuals section?


#MIDIFlyResources

Hello. I am having same issue. But I just bought the Midifly and it may have an issue of its own? I've follow the diagram best I could. I'm using a Roland GR-33. Diagram shows coming out of midi devise with a 1/4 in cable but where would I be plugging this into on back of my amp? I tried midi out with5 pin to midi in on back of amp but no sound.
Piezo is/was having an issue under low e - possibly ground or need re-soldered? Loose or corroded wire? I know the piezo works the midi so - If anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated! I've had a Midifly before and loved it. Hoping this won't be an expensive lesson lol

Hi.
First of all the midi output of your Roland GR unit should not go into the Hughes and Kettner. The midi in on your amplifier has only the purpose of switching settings, not generating sound.
The audio out of the GR goes into the amplifier input in the front panel.

I’m just now reading this, as well. The short answer seems to be that the five pin MIDI-out of your guitar is meant to interface with a sequencer-equipped keyboard synth or a DAW interface with its own synth/sequencer plugins; and not a Roland GR unit. If you’re wanting to drive a Roland guitar synth, you likely require different technology (specifically, a 13 pin setup driven by either a GK pickup or something like a Graphtech/RMC piezo system).

For example: I run an M-audio keyboard controller into my PC recording interface with a 5 pin MIDI cable, and the sequencer-synth plugins on my PC are triggered via the controller. I have a variety of guitars and basses that I run into a Roland GR-55 (a different kind of synth which doesn’t claim to be a MIDI sequencer) with a 13 pin cable, and the secondary option of using the unit to drive the PC sequencer-synth plugins with the guitar requires converting the guitar signal to MIDI (which your MIDIFly AND GR-33 does - But they’re not made to work together).

Longer answer:

When you say you had a MIDI Fly before, what was your setup? Was it the same model, or one of the “Mojo MIDIs” with the Roland pickup?

Unless I’m misunderstanding, your signal path appears to consist of the 5 pin MIDI-out of the guitar feeding into the MIDI-in of the GR-33 (which is a command input and not a sequencer), then another MIDI cable from the unit’s MIDI-out (intended to feed either a sequencer or MIDI commands to another device being controlled by the GR-33) into the controller MIDI input on the back of a guitar amp?

If so, I’m not seeing how any of that would work together. How did you arrive at this rig? That’s three different eras of technology that share a common plug connection and comm protocol, but are intended for different uses.

The modern Roland GR stuff (20, 33, VG-99, 55, GP-10, SY1000, etc.) gets its input signal from a 13 pin, analog hex pickup system that is processed in three different ways:

1. Hexaphonic DSP - Each string signal is processed through an A/D/A converter and tweaked to model other guitar EQ curves and/or emulate older analog Roland units that used pitch-to-voltage synthesis. This processed signal can then be outputted direct or through further processing within the unit’s multi-fx/amp modeling section, via one or more of the 1/4” audio-outs.

2. The analog hexaphonic signal of the isolated strings are converted to pitch commands digitally to trigger internal samples in the Roland unit. As with the previous, this processed signal can then outputted direct or after being routed through further processing within the unit ‘s multi-fx/amp modeling section, via one or more of the 1/4” audio-outs.

3. Pitch-to-MIDI conversion for passing the converted signal on to a sequencer (Which the MIDIFly already does under the hood).

These three functions are all driven by analog signals originating from guitar string transducers. As far as I know, the synth engines in the Roland units aren’t designed to be driven by an input signal which has already been converted to digital MIDI commands (which, again, the hardware in the MIDIFly does before outputting the commands via the 5 pin connector). For that purpose, the Roland unit is redundant to what’s being converted in the guitar itself.

The modern version of what the old Parker MIDIFly did is the Fishman Triple Play pickup: It converts the pitch of the guitar strings to MIDI commands for driving a sequencer as one would a keyboard MIDI controller. But the Roland GR guitar synths are a different technology developed in parallel with keyboard synths (specifically, they’re descended from the niche analog units popularized by King Crimson, Pat Metheny, and Andy Summers in the early 1980s.)

Was GOING to comment, but mmmguitar just said everything that I could say.
That was pretty thorough.

Awesome, mmmguitar!

I will add though that the GR 33 IS a midi device which can be run by the MIDI Fly.
The 5-pin midi in does access the sound module.
What was mainly wrong in the set up is that the GR 33 did not have an audio output connected.
Simply removing the midi out and adding a 1/4” out to the amp would result (if the GR 33 is turned on) in sound coming from the module.

Patzag wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 7:13 pm I will add though that the GR 33 IS a midi device which can be run by the MIDI Fly.
The 5-pin midi in does access the sound module.

That’s great! I looked into it, and it seems controllers plugged into the MIDI-In of some older GR units can be routed through the PCM soundbanks. I was under the impression that Roland using a 24 bit proprietary/non-MIDI process for the GR sound modules (due to trying to minimize latency and triggering quirks encountered in converting a GK’s hex analog signal to clean 7 bit MIDI commands) precluded anything else - But it seems that only became the case with my GR-55 when it was released (I got excited about plugging my M Audio controller into it).