Post by PestolestoIo per il MIDI aspetto di provare la squier nuova.
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Ahimè, una prima review non pare molto promettente...
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My son just got the last of his Christmas presents, a Fender Squier
midi guitar. In general he is not thrilled by midi guitar (he is a very
good electric and acoustic player), but he does play Rock Band, and that
Stratocaster brand got to even his iconoclastic heart. I have a good
deal of experience with midi guitar: I have a GK3 mounted on a Schecter
classic, a Godin xTSA and a YouRock Guitar. I use them (usually through
a VG99, but also through a GR20) to trigger a variety of hard and soft
synths, including Dimension Pro, Rapture, Camel Alchemy, Korg
Wavestation, Karma, M3, and a Roland JV2020.
The Squier is a real guitar with 25.5'' strings, a wooden body
covered with the usual Fender plasticized surface and ugly guard and a
wooden neck but plastic fretboard. The frets are slightly indented
between strings and the frets are metal only under each string. This is
presumably how midi notes are distinguished. There are 6*22 fret
conductors. There is apparently one pickup hidden under a white plastic
cover. The guitar is light, but shaped in the classic Stratocaster style
with a real guitar feel. The strings are light, 0.009 to 0.042 guage.
These are flimsy to my fingers, used to Ernie Ball Skinny tops and Heavy
bottoms, which I use on both acoustic and electric guitars. Fender
insists that you use these strings.
As an electric guitar, the Squier works alright. It has a volume but
no tone knob, and no toggles for pickup settings. Strings can be bent
despite the slight indentation of the frets between strings. So you can
play blues guitar and so forth. If you want an electric guitar get a
Godin , Schecter or Strat. But the Squier is not painful to play.
**A serious, probably terminal flaw is that if you attempt to play
midi and electric at the same time, the electric sound gets some nasty
little clicking noises in it. This limits the professional usefulness of
the guitar compared to a GK3 equipped electric or a Godin synth ready
guitar.
Since the thin plastic fretboard is hollow, it even puts out a small
acoustic sound which might be annoying or useful in practice, depending
on your day.
As a midi guitar it has a couple of charms, and several flaws.
Unlike the You Rock guitar, the long strings feel natural to the
fingers, although you might get slightly better midi note recognition
when you raise the muting pad that replaces the Strat's neck pickup.
(This pad is apparently necessary for Rock Band use). There are a couple
of buttons that allow program changes and octave changes, but no mod
wheel. Instead, the orientation of the guitar effects pitchbend and
modulation. One serious flaw is the default setting of 6 midi channels
1-6, starting with 1 at the high E. This will annoy the hell out of
anyone who wants to work with a hardware synth. Also, compared to both
Roland and You Rock, there appears to be no way to change the string
sensitivity settings or Midi Feel or any other parameters. There may be
secret ways to change parameters, but if so they are well hidden and not
mentioned in the thin booklet that accompanies the guitar. Most
problematic of all, there appears to be no easy way to change the
guitar's firmware. No midi in. No USB port. This is an unprofessional
lapse by Fender.
Any midi guitar requires some adjustment in playing style. I have
not found the best picking approach yet, so I am still getting missing
notes and glitches. It may also be that finger-style guitar does not
work well on this guitar, especially since there appears to be little
way to adjust it (except for raising the pickup with the usual two screws).
We have not yet tested its Rock Band effectiveness. We did also
purchase the midi-Wii converter (which can also be used for
midikeyboards or drum kits and beatboxes), but my greatest interest was
the midi controller features.
The guitar would be a plausible choice for someone learning guitar, and
it is possible that there are some hidden useful secrets in the Squier's
software, but at this moment, for most purposes a Godin synth-ready
guitar far surpasses the Squier. The Godins also cost 3x the Squier. The
Yourock guitar looks and feels much more like a toy than the Squier, but
their team chose to use easily upgradeable firmware, and the You Rock
software already appears to allow greater adjustability.
Patrick
***@csus.edu
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Ciao
Alfredo