Week 129: Jamstik Meets SONAR If only guitar players could access the same wide world of sounds as keyboard players can with synthesizers and samplers…and they can, thanks to the perseverance of companies like Roland and Fishman that make MIDI guitars. But even the strongest MIDI guitar proponents know there are limitations—like tracking, glitches when trying to record into a MIDI sequencer, and cost.
Jamstik from Zivix is an interesting solution that flies under the radar. Although intended more as a way to learn to play guitar with the company’s apps, the way it accesses those apps is through MIDI. Yes…the same MIDI that speaks to SONAR.
THE BASICS Let’s get these out of the way first, and then cover some tips on why it’s a suitable companion to Rapture Pro and SONAR.
Jamstik is not a guitar. It feels mostly like a guitar because it has real strings, a neck, and frets, but it doesn’t make any sound—on the plus side, you don’t have to change or tune the strings. Also, given that it has five notes, it’s really a “first-position chords” guitar. You can’t go much past a barre G or first position A played as C, and of course, playing leads high up on the “neck” is out of the question. Also, it’s about $300, but you won’t find it at GC or Sweetwater; it’s more of an Amazon.com, Best Buy, Marbles, or buy direct sort of thing. And while the tracking is exceptionally good because really, there’s nothing to track (and the velocity response is good as well), the more cleanly you play, the better. Compare the screen shot below to what comes out of a MIDI guitar—big difference.
However, Jamstik is Mac-centric. Although there are iOS and Mac apps that let it do string-bending and adjust response, there’s no Windows-compatible app to make these features available. However, you don't need to app to transpose or change octaves, initiate a Tap mode, or change MIDI modes.
Finally, because it’s physically small, you’ll need to use the included strap, and it’s a little harder to work your way around the neck than a guitar. However, it doesn’t take long to acclimate yourself and if you want to lay down a MIDI part based on playing rhythm guitar, you’re good to go.
THE TIPS Jamstik generates a bunch of controller data that’s not relevant to what we’re doing. So, in SONAR you can disable everything except Notes under
Preferences > MIDI > Playback and Recording > Record to thin out the data stream.
Glitches really aren’t an issue, because the Jamstik uses infrared sensors to detect when your finger is on a fret. However, you can generate sub-20 ms notes that while not problematic, aren’t needed. Use the
Process > Deglitch function to get rid of them and clean things up.
And of course, the controller is only half of the MIDI guitar story; the synth is the other part. One reason why people have a hard time with MIDI guitar is that synth patches often can’t be programmed optimally, and this is why Rapture Pro is such a great companion. Jamstik is multi-timbral, so each string can go to its own Rapture Pro Element if under Rapture Pro’s Options, you choose “Set Program as Multitimbral.”
Program an element to give a cool sound with one string and under “Perform,” choose 1 for voices—then it responds like a real guitar, where a string can play only one note at a time. After you’ve nailed one Element, copy it to the other Elements. Or not…or lower some Elements by an octave, while raising others.
Note that you don’t have to use multi-timbral mode, so if you want to play something like a pad, you can create a layered sound in Rapture Pro and drive it in Poly mode.