From: pturner@sedona.intel.com (Pete Turner)
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.bass
Subject: Peavey MidiBass
Date: 19 Nov 92 00:08:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: ichips.1992Nov19.000803.29995
Organization: Intel Corporation
Originator: pturner@sedona


I just got a message from a friend of mine about the new Peavey MidiBass 
bass guitar/midi controller system. He said Electronic Musician mag just 
did a review in the latest issue. It's got some pretty revolutionary 
methods to it!

When I first heard that Peavey was going to produce this sucker, the first
thought I had was "gee, I wonder if I can get the pick-up, and install it
on my Ibanez". IMPO, I just don't like the way that Peavey basses play; a
less "kind" friend of my refers to them as "railroad ties"...in any case,
using the pick-up/system on any other guitar is out (the reason will be clear
after the next paragraph). 

It seems that Peavey has found a new approach to solving the note decoding 
problem. If any of you have played the original Roland bass synthesizer 
you know this problem already. It's called "tracking". As I understand it,
the traditional method of analog wave (the note played) to it's electronic
equivalent required two cycles of the wave to pass through the decode 
circuitry. Putting this into perspective, to decode a low E tone from your
favorite bass (at a frequency of 41.2 Hz), it would take 50ms! -- this is
average delay value of your favorite "long echo" effect, meaning it is also
well within the useless range for playability (if I have my numbers right,
it's about 10ms that the ear starts to detect the variance of a delayed
signals; below that, your ears seem to ignore the delays). It seems that 
Peavey's bass is well within that mark...how? The frets are hot! It would 
seem that they run some amount of low current to each fret and through the 
bridge. So, play a note, complete a circuit! The detect is as fast as that! 
How fast is that? Well, I'll say this: you can get logic gates to move at 
nano-second speeds, and current will move at the speed of an electron -- I 
forget exactly how fast that is, but it's much faster than 50ms! The neck
has the typical wooden neck with the truss rod routing, but between the 
fretboard and the wooden backing, there's a circuit board with (this is a
guess) connections to each fret and decode logic right there!

So, bottom line: if this bass plays half-way decent (I won't condemn it before
I actually play one), this sounds like a promising difference!

...I'll bet the "boyz" at Roland are bumming out!

	Pete

-- 
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 Pete Turner              | "I'm not looking back -- but I want to look
 Intel Corporation        |  around me now"
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 pturner@sedona.intel.com | "...yeah, I've been to Phoenix...they call that
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 Zeta Psi - Gamma Chapt.  |  -- Some unknown late-night comic
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