I’ve been interested in this for years, and have contacted
Richard McLish at least once a year about the fanout box… his response is
always that he is having trouble getting quality manufacturing lined up. I don’t
think his heart is in it, and I doubt we are going to see any more RMC fanout
boxes on the market. Too bad, because it is exactly what you’re looking
for and a great product.
That said, others have noted that there are instructions online
for how to build your own. They are at the Unfretted site: http://www.unfretted.com/loader.php?LINK=/profs/breakout.
Me, I’ve never wanted to devote the time to becoming
really good at the skills required to make such a thing. I joined mfg.com at
one point, looking to post specs and drawings and solicit prices for making
some of these, but never pursued it. If anyone were interested in ganging
together to facilitate that, I would be all ears.
As for hexaphonic pickups, I can testify on a broad range. I
have a Casio NG-500, two Godins with factory-installed RMC systems (Multiac and
LGXT), a custom classical with RMC system that includes the outboard processor,
a PRS with a Ghost Graphtech system, and a beat up Fernandes Vertigo with a Roland
GK-2. The Casio output is straight MIDI, and surprisingly good. All the other
instruments go into a Roland GI-10 to convert the 13-pin to MIDI. The GI-10
is viewed as slightly primitive, particularly by Axxon fans, though I think in
terms of response it is the equivalent of the more frequently used GI-20.
The Axxon AX100 (I think that is their top-of-the-line model) is expensive, and
I occasionally look for a deal on one on Ebay, but honestly most of the time I
find the GI-10 adequate for what I do. In my opinion, RMC and Graphtech are equivalent,
and a well-set-up Roland GK-2 or -3 is close. One last note – I use
a Peavy 1600x and made a patch to change parameters on the GI-10… it is a
godsend, makes possible very swift reassignment of basic channel, sensitivity
settings, mono vs. poly, octave, etc. How you would do this with another
MIDI controller, I don’t know, but maybe you are not really concerned
about MIDI anyway.
Which leads to the question, Erdem, for what do you want this system?
Super-accurate translation so you can generate scores with very little
after-the-playing corrective work? Or are you just looking to split your
string signals?
Note that no hexaphonic pickup system has a really wonderful
guitar signal output. Typically the guitar signal is separate; some systems
can blend the hexaphonic pickup output (summed) with your guitar pickups’
output. That said, Erdem, I imagine you are going to be mangling the sound form
each split-out string, so having the best possible guitar signal may not be
really important, however much you might wish for it. you can still have
your regular pickups providing that “best possible sound”.
From: Toby G
[mailto:carpet8@mac.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 6:22 PM
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Re: hexaphonic pickup
There
are cheap gk-2 pickups on ebay. You could get access to the wires before
they enter the processing card on the triangular boxy part.
-----
Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, October
08, 2009 3:13 PM
Subject: Re: hexaphonic
pickup
I'd recommend Graphtech and you can build your own breakout
box easily enough. Also, check out Keith
I am looking for a hexaphonic pickup with a breakout box
with 6 outputs. will connect these outputs directly to my laptop-audiomulch
setup for processing the individual guitar strings seperately. any ideas about
various products?
found this on the net. but i am not sure how good it is.
"wounded breath album will open you up to new
experiences and
allow you to explore worlds previously closed to you."
Blogcritics, Richard Marcus
"wounded breath is an outstanding acousmatic record,
period."
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