MIDIbox of the Week: Bass Guitar with integrated learning help by Graham

MIDIbox of the Week
1

Graham wrote:

I’ve been working on a MIOS-powered project for a few years now and am

finally ready to share the results. It’s still very beta, but I thought

others might enjoy seeing the project regardless.

Basically, the idea is to provide a kind of “active tablature” right on

the fretboard of a bass guitar. MIOS runs an onboard sequencer module

which controls a bunch of LEDs embedded in the fretboard (125 of them!).

Currently, I have some (PC) software for converting MIDI files to

fingering patterns. This data is then sent via MIDI to MIOS which

controls the storage, loading, and playback on the LEDs. There is basic

support for features like pause/playback, tempo, track scrubbing, and

the ability to set A-B points. I’m still working to fix some bugs in

the time stamping code, but thought the community might be interested

anyway.

Here’s a link to relevant webpage:

http://www.ee.columbia.edu/~grindlay/active_tab.html

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2

Very inspirational project - great! I love it when MIDIbox is used for the not-so-obvious!

ilmenator

3

Simply Amazing.

Both technically, and how he constructed it using random bits of wood!

I cant help thinking that this will be cloned very soon,

and sold commercially as a musical education instrument.

4

Good work and nice idea!

I cant help thinking that this will be cloned very soon,

and sold commercially as a musical education instrument.

… I can remember that this was commercially available about 15 years ago and I had the same idea 20 years ago. When I was at GIT in LA, Gibson made a contest among the students. They wantet us to design the guitar of our dreams. The winner would get his guitar built by Gibson Customshop. Certainly they just wanted to collect our ideas for free. - The winner was a student with the idea of a 12 string mandoline… how stupid! But it probably was the cheapest to build and Gibson would get all the other brilliant ideas for free anyway ;-).

Part of my idea was also having the dot-LEDs to show scale patterns and as a show effect for stage performance (blinking patterns with a “tap” function to be in the same groove as the song).

I also requested Hex-Picups, each coil with independent volume and tone controls in form of trim-pots and the pickups were mounted on two steel rails to adjust azimuth and position. I also suggested a “feedback to the second humbucker coil” for sustain enhancement… which a few years later was sold by Seymour Duncan. There were several other gimmicks planned, which I can’t clearly remember anymore.

Ooops… sorry Graham, hopefully didn’t get too off topic.

Greets, Roger

5

Anyone remember these guys?

Graham’s is better though :wink:

6

This is a really really cool project!