Parker Midi-Fly

[SynapticGroove]

Who has one, used one, wants one?  I've got a '96 Deluxe, that is a great recording instrument.  Looking into the Midi-Fly.  The Moog is too costly for me at this time. I'm interested in mainly lush strings and eBow incorporation.  How well do the midi notes trigger slides, for example?

 

Thanks!

[captain insane-o]

If you are looking mainly for "lush strings" and ebow incorporation, it sounds like you aren't all that interested in MIDI data transfer itself

the MIDI data can be helpful is you are doing sequencing, scoring, etc...stuff like that where you are trying to actually capture the data, not just produce a sound effect.

 

If there isn't a specific synthesizer or something you are trying to trigger, but are looking for a TYPE (a certain character) of sound, you might want to consider the Roland VG series.

They aren't MIDI convertors (the VG-99 actually can, but the heart and philosophy of the VG series was a different approach), they don't try to figure out the note data - what they do is individually apply a bunch of processing to each string to get a bunch of different textures.

It's sort of a revisitation of the old GR-100.  It was the GR-300s little brother.  Instead of trying to get synth oscillators to "track", it took a shortcut and applied hexaphonic fuzz and did some filtering to give synth-like effects.

 

The EHX microsynth took that kind of approch, do some fuzzing and octaving to give some synthy waveforms to take the place of an oscillator, then VCF and VCA manipulation just like in a traditional subtractive synth design.

 

I'm not saying that the VG series is just a big ehx microsynth...just sort of reviewing how one approach to get "synthy" sounds is through processing.  I mean if you look at a classic subtractive synth really after the oscillators, it's basically effects processing.

 

I'm not sure the midi-fly is going to be any cheaper than the moog guitar, but i think the moog has been discontinued anyway, so it might not be that viable of an option and it didn't seem like it really got much traction in the marketplace.

  People have been clamoring for a hex susatiner for years and years, but then when the reality hit...crickets

It may not be quite as awesome in practice as the mind's eye envisioned

 

 

but I digress - you might want to check out the VGs since they don't actually "track", they just process.

IIRC - the VG-8 has more HRM (Harmonic Restructure Modeling) than the VG-88 where they hopped up the virtual guitar modelling side.  The HRM is the more "synthy" non-guitar sound stuff where the virtual guitar stuff tries to model different guitars/amps, etc

it sounds like the HRM might be more up your ally. 

and it's pretty damn cost-effective these days ("He says it's the best he can do. Since the XP-38 came out, they're just not in demand." - Luke Skywalker)

 

FWIW I find on nylon, the VG-8 is a better choice than the VG-88 (not so much because of 'problems', more about feature set), but your mileage might vary on steel

 

 

[The Audacity Works]

I have an older MIDI Fly and it's a great guitar, with two huge caveats:

• The editing software is only Windows '98 and I'm a Mac guy

• The MIDI engine's lowest note is the low standard E and nearly all of my songs are in drop D