Yeah, I was speaking to Andras Szalay the designer about it late last year on the MIDIguitar list. Nice to know someone is continuing with his pick sensing system. I asked Mr T to take a look at it at Frankfurt for me and what he saw was impressive (until the computer crashed and he ran out of time, so couldn't wait).

You realise it's a USB only device, right? That means you have to use it with a computer. So you're probably still better off picking up an Axon MKII off eBay or a GR-55 for a live setup. Plus it only works with it's own pickup, you can't plug a piezo equipped Godin or a Fender Roland ready Strat (or my Carvin Nylon string) into it. I'm also hoping they come up with a way to multiplex the guitar signal so you don't have to use a second wireless unit or a guitar cable.

Also it bears repeating that the system works best if you play with a pick - a fingerstyle player will not get the same kind of tracking speeds.

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: You realise it's a USB only device, right? That means you have to use it with a computer. So you're probably still better off picking up an Axon MKII off eBay or a GR-55 for a live setup. Plus it only works with it's own pickup, you can't plug a piezo equipped Godin or a Fender Roland ready Strat (or my Carvin Nylon string) into it. I'm also hoping they come up with a way to multiplex the guitar signal so you don't have to use a second wireless unit or a guitar cable.

Also it bears repeating that the system works best if you play with a pick - a fingerstyle player will not get the same kind of tracking speeds.

I did start a thread many moons ago on GF, where I discovered your wealth of MIDI experience (and articles), after reading & looking at the Roland and Axon gear I was concerned with the amount of tweaking & MIDI learning I'd have to do... :-[

But in the interim I've switched over to laptop based processing (Guitar Rig/Rig Kontrol) and also setup my roland TD-8 drumkit to chat midi nicely to the DAW (Reaper) and send midi control messages to my friends VJ'ing setup. So the learning curve isn't as frightening as I first thought, although I'm still a noob doing simple things.

USB only is okay for me, as I want to try and stick to a laptop based approach to my guitar processing (live and recording) and I'm more comfortable with a pick. Slightly concerned that USB2.0 won't have the 'bandwidth' to process both sound interface and Tripleplay w/o latency issues, but we'll see?

Already there seems to be rumours abounding that Fishman may release a 2nd gen that multiplex guitar signal with midi signal wirelessly - but as the threads mentioned, it's vapourware.

What is making me excitable is that I can turn a guitar I'm already comfortable with into a midi controller - I see this as a killer app for controlling VJ'ing filters/effects - luckily latency and sound quality isn't as big an issue for visuals. We used the TD8 at a small gig few months ago and it worked really, really nicely for syncing the VJ filters/effects with the DJ set my mate was playing.

Yebo - A bit bummed that I won't be able to use it on a nylon string :'( But perhaps by the time I do develop a reasonable Picado technique (2030 at this rate :?) there'll be something compatible...(fingers crossed).