i2m with bass / guitar pro 6

The i2M musicport™ MIDI Converter & Hi-Z USB Audio Interface

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bonansinga
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 2:01 am

i2m with bass / guitar pro 6

Post by bonansinga »

Hello - just got my i2m today and have it plugged into a newish win 7 laptop, i've got both asio drivers (32 & 64) and did the latest firmware update.
So.. I'm a bass player. It's a Fender P bass (4 string, standard tuning), and I figured that I'd try the transcription function in Guitar Pro 6. Turns out that Guitar Pro only sees my G string... basically any note G and above including the 5th fret and up on the D which it transcribes as open G. I'm fine with that.

Problem is that GP is not getting / seeing anything F# and below. The box is in 5 string bass mode, and i even tried selecting 4 string bass from the desktop editor.


I see that when I hammer my E that the clip light goes red... so the box is getting signal at least.

Recognize that this isn't a GP support forum. However i am new to Midi and wanted to test the Sonus before I made an investment in Midi software.

So to my question please.

1) Does anyone know if there is a way to get GP to recognize my string input? (I suspect it's GP, based n inferring all the great Sonuus reviews).
2) To help validate (1) is there a simple software out there that can show me the i2m is in fact tracking my bass?
3) Could it actually be tracking? I tried slow and clean on the E and A strings and nothing.... Hmm.

As I'm sure you can imagine, I'm anxious to see this little marvel work.

Thanks for your time, and hello from New York.

Joe B
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james
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Posts: 1866
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2008 8:12 pm

Re: i2m with bass / guitar pro 6

Post by james »

To monitor what's coming from the i2M, try Midi-Ox (http://www.midiox.com/). This is a great utility to let you see exactly what's going on with the MIDI from any device.

I've not used Guitar Pro for a while, but I think that when a "MIDI guitar" is selected as the input device, it assumes each string will appear on a different MIDI channel. The i2M can't do this by default because it doesn't know which notes are on which strings (there is so much overlap on the notes/strings). So the i2M sends MIDI on a single MIDI channel. GP sees this as one string. Selecting a MIDI keyboard as the input may work better so that GP can work out (or guess) which strings the notes should be assigned to.

Another thing to watch is that GP ignores MIDI pitch-bend. The i2M uses this for both bending, and sometimes for correction of mis-detected notes. The result can be that some notes are 1 or 2 semitones wrong because the note is actually being bent up or down to the correct note. So, set the i2M to chromatic mode (by default this is one of the flashing presets (the sonuus logo flashes).

Above I said the i2M only sends on one MIDI channel. Actually, you can set up "splits" or "zones" so that different notes you play can be sent to different MIDI channels. Depending on what you are playing, this can be a useful way to get the string/notes assignment working better -- but I'd leave that just now until you get further with just a single MIDI channel.

FYI: I just did a video showing how to play for best MIDI conversion. It uses Guitar, but the same things apply to bass: http://youtu.be/0YGMZs72Gmk
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