Re: STARLABS ZTAR Z6S: WAS: Don't know who's still left here, but..

Hi All,

I know the feeling. I've gone back to playing nylon string guitar as I 
grew tired of hearing electric piano/vibes/organ/synth, etc. I think a 
lot of it has to do with the sound itself and having a satisfying 
experience. In general sounds coming from a speaker don't have the same 
presence as an acoustic guitar offers. A satisfying guitar-emulation is 
the toughest of all IMO as we're subconsciously comparing it to the real 
thing, which is going to fall short. That said, we were working on a 
Karplus-Strong soundcard board design that was very promising. Cool stuff.

But then you don't play synths so you can emulate guitar but rather for 
everything else. And for me, that meant getting into the head of the 
performers of the other instruments and adapting it to guitar technique, 
or tapping technique, a fabulous study, when there's time for that.

I admit, I've been lacking in providing a working forum for exploration 
of the special techniques the Ztar affords. Adding layers for subtle 
FX,triggering clips/chords within normal playing, triggering CC commands 
with notes, and several cool ways to format drum kits, a study in 
itself. Polyphonic chording features. Ableton setups. This kind of stuff 
is fun  but maybe doesn't pertain to us older guys like it did at one 
time. I don't know. Too much work. That said, a great grand piano sound 
that's expressive can be a joy to play. In particular when you try 
playing piano music right off the sheet music in two hands.

But, as the right hand is so important to guitar, I"ve put more 
attention into our string triggers and they're quite good now I think. 
Consistent. I should add that the high end Ztars may be disappearing as 
it's come time to port to a new processor and I don't have the $ to pay 
for the software port, about $15-20K, which would put us into a new 
high-speed modern CPU with all the bells and whistles. I've been 
focusing on a newer line of smaller inexpensive guitar controllers with 
the Gotar selling now and the new iTar R3 about ready to release after a 
solid year of re-design. It's nothing like the original prototypes which 
never made it to production. Is it a guitar? Well, sort of. It's as 
close as anyone is going to come for an all-electronic device, I"m 
confident of that. And it's going to take advantage of the power in 
modern mobile phones where I"m happy to say we've pretty much knocked 
out the latency problems.  Some new hardware features coming with the 
iTar which are in the works right now. I'm thinking all of this is 
specially fun and interesting for "electronic musicians" who combine 
beats/clips/soundFX etc. in their playing. Are these maybe players 
younger that I? Well, I'm trying to stay on top of it.

We built the Kitara-replacement for Muse (Madness) and that was an 
interesting project. That said, I can offer an upgrade that replaces the 
Kitara tablet with an iPad, our CPU and fingerboard, that fits into the 
Kitara housing. Lol. We now have an iTar app that does most of what the 
Kitara does.

Also, is anyone interested in MIDI over Bluetooth with no latency?

Anyway, I know the feeling of wanting to get back into synth stuff.
- Harvey


On 11/18/2016 1:23 PM, JAMES HARRISON [email protected] [midiguitar] 
wrote:
> I'm still by the channel but not doing anything with Midi now.  I need
> to get back into it; especially since I have a Starlabs ZTAR Z6S rig
> that cost over $5000 and I'm not using it.  Or I should sell it...
>
> Regards,
> James
> .
> .
>
>
>          Fri Nov 18, 2016 6:12 am (PST) . Posted by:
>
>
>        "richard brown" napravobg
>        <mailto:[email protected]?subject=Re%3A%20Don%27t%20know%20who%27s%20still%20left%20here%2C%20but%2E%2E>
>
>
> I also have an Axon 100 doing nothing except gathering dust .. :-(
> I must look it out and put a GK on a guitar for it.. richard
>
> <mailto:[email protected]?subject=Re%3A%20Don%27t%20know%20who%27s%20still%20left%20here%2C%20but%2E%2E>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
> Posted by: JAMES HARRISON <[email protected]>
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------------------------------------
Posted by: Harvey Starr <[email protected]>
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