My understanding was that the game assumes 22 fret guitar if it does not see the 17 fret Mustang controller’s Sysex message. There has been a long-standing bug in the YouRockGuitar’s firmware where it sends the wrong Sysex message and it ends up getting detected as a Mustang controller. So the game displays 17 fret version charts even though the YRG has 22 frets. The product’s engineers never bothered to fix this even though we clearly described the problem to them and they’d only have to change a couple bytes of data at most (the actual Sysex message hard-coded in the programming). There was a workaround discovered where if you connect the MPA in guitar mode (with the YRG NOT running) and start a chart, the game will force itself to assume a 22 fret guitar is connected (because it gets no Sysex message) and it will stay this way for the rest of the Rock Band session, so you can then connect the YRG and its incorrect Sysex message is ignored by the game and you get to play the complete 22 fret charts.

Ok, that’s very clear for a YRG device.

I am rather wondering what happens with other MIDI guitars or regular guitars with a MIDI pickup, because that would be my most likely option. From your description it sounds like the game should work even without receiving SYSX messages. So why does the third link you posted before seems to suggest that a special software running in a laptop is required? Shouldn’t a direct connection from the MIDI pickup to the MPA already work, assuming the pickup has a 5pin MIDI output* and is using standard MIDI messages?

*although now that I checked, it seems the one I was looking at has a 13pin output

Even MIDI guitar pickups won’t immediately work with RB3.

Ok thanks. This is the point of my question. Basically I wanted to know if some MIDI pickup might work.

My problem is that I don’t know how a MIDI pickup works internally. I thought that such pickup would output MIDI events. Otherwise why would they call it a MIDI pickup?

But now I am not even sure of that. Roland GK-series MIDI pickups don’t seem like you can plug them directly into anything else than Roland VG modules, so you can’t use the pickup itself as a MIDI controller of another device which expects MIDI input. Fishman TriplePlay MIDI pickups might work better but they have USB output so a laptop bridge is inevitable.

If there’s no way to avoid having a PC in the signal chain, maybe it’s just best to investigate a completely software solution i.e. MIDI conversion software. Although I can imagine that RB3 expects notes to be played exactly on a specific string & fret, right? For example, say you have to play a low A note, I guess the Pro Guitar chart says e.g. 6th string + 5th fret, and if you play an open 5th string then it counts as a different note -> fail, even though musically it’s the same A. I expect a MIDI conversion software to be able to detect pitch but not string/fret combination.

At the very least you’d have to have a small PC (ie. a Raspberry pi with custom programming) in your signal chain to send the MIDI signalling in the way the game expects. MIDI conversion of the signal sent out the guitar’s quarter inch jack is not likely to ever be good (since the sounds from all of the combined strings interfere with signal detection) compared to per-string hardware level pitch detection the way MIDI pickups work. The link to my thread on the FoF forum gives some example MIDI signaling sent by RB3’s pro guitar controllers, ie. events sent when a fret is simply pressed or released so the game can give you visual feedback of your fingering. That in particular is something that MIDI pickups can’t do and can only simulate, so instead of feeding the raw MIDI events generated by the MIDI pickup (or whatever MIDI module it feeds into that generates the MIDI events), it has to generate a set of events for RB3 like:

1. Fret # pressed on string #

2. String # picked

 

Instead of just sending an event along the lines of “MIDI note # played”.

Clearly, fret-pressing detection is never going to happen unless someone uses RB specific controllers i.e. the RB Squire or RB Mustang.

But is fret-pressing detection really necessary for the game to work? I am quite convinced the answer is no.

In fact, even with the solution in the third link you posted (which might be based exactly on a Roland GK MIDI pickup, if I see it right from the picture*) the guy specifically says that one of its drawback is that it doesn’t provide finger-placement information to the game. Of course this is a pity, but it’s not a dealbreaker for me.

It is definitely possible that anyway the game wants those fret-pressing events one way or another, and played notes events are not enough, so whatever software acts as a bridge has to insert those additional events at the latest when (or just before) the note played events. It’s kind of a bummer if this is how they implemented the MIDI interface for Pro Guitar. With all this sorts of limitation, no wonder why the whole Pro Guitar/Bass idea failed and was discontinued in RB4.

*It wasn’t clear to me at all what is the software bridge doing, because the GK MIDI pickup itself used by that guy does not really even output MIDI events apparently… If I read right, you can’t plug the GK MIDI pickup into a generic MIDI input port and use it to control a MIDI brain or synth, because the pickup itself doesn’t fully convert, that’s why you generally also need to buy a Roland VG pedalboard which contains a real converter. So for what I know, the guy’s bridge software must be doing also something about it. Other pickups like the Fishman TriplePlay do include a converter and can be used to directly control a MIDI device.

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The full-software option (using a guitar-to-midi converter software) is a long shot, and it can’t tell which fret on which string is being played, only which musical note i.e. frequency.

This is why I was asking if RB3 requires specific string/fret combinations to be played, or if it allows to play the same note on a different string/fret on the guitar neck. Having never played Pro Guitar, I just don’t know. If it requires a specific string/fret each time, then this software idea would never work.

On the other hand, some of those MIDI conversion software are pretty good by now in terms of latency and accuracy, and can be polyphonic. The main advantage is that the cost for just testing the idea out is only ~20-30 bucks to buy a guitar-USB interface cable, since the software itself usually have a free trial version, while the MIDI pickups hardly cost less than 150, and there is still no guarantee they will work at all, judging from your comments.