Has anyone actually used the i2m on a nylon guitar successfully? Comments from the vendor in this forum just say it should work given a clean signal and appropriate playing technique. I'm worried that the difference in timbre on a nylon will make it worse. And the 2 comments I've found from a ukulele and nylon player don't sound good. Can anyone compare actual performance of the i2M on nylon vs electric? If I can find a local dealer (in chicago) i'll go try it, but otherwise can't risk it without someone saying that it at least isn't worse on a a nylon.
Really hoping it can work!
use on nylon guitar (vs electric)
Re: use on nylon guitar (vs electric)
I'll provide some of my own feedback, but still would love to hear from the vendor and other players. Went ahead and bought an i2m, used it all weekend on an iPad (with Animoog, awesome ipad synth) and macbook. My style is flamenco, btw. Have 2 nice nylons with pickups, and one crappy electric. Played with the i2m configuration software, mainly the level boost, will have to spend more time with all the settings possibilities.
Definitely a difference between using it on nylon and electric. With electric, it's easy. Can play really fast, just have to be clean and adapt technique to errors when they occur. With nylon it's a lot harder, all the harmonics and guitar sounds are just too much i guess. i2m jumps around a lot more, and some short ranges wouldn't get picked up at all sometimes. With my 2 guitars, each had different problem ranges. And of course finger noises and sympathetic vibrations caused more problems. I can damp and play, but might as well use an electric then. I spent most of my weekend with the nylons, when I finally tried the electric it was like night and day! Not 100% controllable, but huge difference.
Not sure if i'll keep the i2m, but definitely awesome technology for the price. Can't see ever using it for live performance, just too unpredictable (for live effects now, I use an EHX Freeze pedal, gives me perfectly controllable synth sound with a nylon, but not the flexibility midi would provide). For midi data entry into a DAW the i2m could have it's use, will try that some.
Still would appreciate some suggestions. I suspect that the i2m desktop software has lots of potential for tweaking the firmware settings. I've played with the level boost, that made some difference, but not much. Any other specific configuration options I should try?
Definitely a difference between using it on nylon and electric. With electric, it's easy. Can play really fast, just have to be clean and adapt technique to errors when they occur. With nylon it's a lot harder, all the harmonics and guitar sounds are just too much i guess. i2m jumps around a lot more, and some short ranges wouldn't get picked up at all sometimes. With my 2 guitars, each had different problem ranges. And of course finger noises and sympathetic vibrations caused more problems. I can damp and play, but might as well use an electric then. I spent most of my weekend with the nylons, when I finally tried the electric it was like night and day! Not 100% controllable, but huge difference.
Not sure if i'll keep the i2m, but definitely awesome technology for the price. Can't see ever using it for live performance, just too unpredictable (for live effects now, I use an EHX Freeze pedal, gives me perfectly controllable synth sound with a nylon, but not the flexibility midi would provide). For midi data entry into a DAW the i2m could have it's use, will try that some.
Still would appreciate some suggestions. I suspect that the i2m desktop software has lots of potential for tweaking the firmware settings. I've played with the level boost, that made some difference, but not much. Any other specific configuration options I should try?
Re: use on nylon guitar (vs electric)
One trick I learned from using sax with the i2M that may be helpful for you ... with electric guitar, there is a pretty pure electronic signal going into the i2M. The purer the signal, the less "guessing" the little box has to do, and the less potential for errors in the MIDI output. Thats to be expected given the complexities of audio-to-MIDI conversion.
With more complex, non-electronic signals, if you are able to treat the signal before it goes into the i2M, you can often go a long way into making it more pure. For example, I use a gate, a compressor, and EQ on my sax. The gate eliminates ambient sound, and finger and pad noise, the compressor levels the signal, and the EQ is adjusted to get cut really low and high frequencies. Hardware is best to treat the signal; if you rely on plug-ins you will introduce additional latency.
My resulting, treated audio signal may not sound that sax-like to human ears, but it works lots better with the i2M. Because I usually need a pure sax sound in my audio mix, I split the signal so the pure sax sound is available for a mixer channel, and the treated audio is just used for i2M input.
Its worth mentioning that it is not required for me to do all of this to get good results with my sax and the i2M (I got surprisingly good results right out of the box), but if you are trying to optimize your results for live performance, it is certainly worth experimentation!
With more complex, non-electronic signals, if you are able to treat the signal before it goes into the i2M, you can often go a long way into making it more pure. For example, I use a gate, a compressor, and EQ on my sax. The gate eliminates ambient sound, and finger and pad noise, the compressor levels the signal, and the EQ is adjusted to get cut really low and high frequencies. Hardware is best to treat the signal; if you rely on plug-ins you will introduce additional latency.
My resulting, treated audio signal may not sound that sax-like to human ears, but it works lots better with the i2M. Because I usually need a pure sax sound in my audio mix, I split the signal so the pure sax sound is available for a mixer channel, and the treated audio is just used for i2M input.
Its worth mentioning that it is not required for me to do all of this to get good results with my sax and the i2M (I got surprisingly good results right out of the box), but if you are trying to optimize your results for live performance, it is certainly worth experimentation!
Re: use on nylon guitar (vs electric)
thanks soundog! trying a gate was the next thing on my list, pretty sure that will make a difference.