Rock Band 3 Fender Mustang – The $125 MIDI Guitar

This video, via Nay-Seven, is a demo of using a Rock Band 3 Fender Mustang as an alternative music controller:

Here a patch I’ve made in Usine to use the midi guitar Mustang from Rock Band 3. With this patch you can use open tuning, run effects or samples with the buttons of the guitar and send Y and Z accelerometers to effects.

Patch will be available as an addon on the website.

The Rock Band 3 Fender Mustang control sells for around $125.

Features for musicians include:

  • 17-fret touch-sensitive neck with 6 buttons per fret – for 102 active finger positions
  • 6 low-latency strings for “authentic” note strumming
  • Advanced tilt sensor
  • Use as MIDI Guitar Controller when not playing Rock Band (compatible with most MIDI sequencers)

 

10 thoughts on “Rock Band 3 Fender Mustang – The $125 MIDI Guitar

  1. After watching the video I was thinking that the YouRockGuitar looks like it is easier to set up and has more features for a low cost midi-guitar/game controller (including direct USB midi). Definitely not as guitar-like as the Fender, but I like the embedded "strings" on the neck on the YRG better.

  2. Having used two YouRockGuitars over the past three months, I can't recommend it. With "hammer ons" turned off, it tracks so/so, but not good enough. This technology just isn't ready for prime time. I am excited about the sentientfx stuff, though. I hope it's not a let down like every MIDI guitar I've tried

  3. I bought one to try it out as a midi controller. Unfortunately, the lack of velocity and after touch meant it was too musically inexpressive as a controller for me. I ended up taking it back. I guess that is why "real" guitar midi controllers cost 40 times more!

    Still, it's a bargain if expressiveness isn't important to you.

  4. I bought one to try it out as a midi controller. Unfortunately, the lack of velocity and after touch meant it was too musically inexpressive as a controller for me. I ended up taking it back. I guess that is why "real" guitar midi controllers cost 40 times more!

    Still, it's a bargain if expressiveness isn't important to you.

  5. I bought one to try it out as a midi controller. Unfortunately, the lack of velocity and after touch meant it was too musically inexpressive as a controller for me. I ended up taking it back. I guess that is why "real" guitar midi controllers cost 40 times more!

    Still, it's a bargain if expressiveness isn't important to you.

  6. I bought one to try it out as a midi controller. Unfortunately, the lack of velocity and after touch meant it was too musically inexpressive as a controller for me. I ended up taking it back. I guess that is why "real" guitar midi controllers cost 40 times more!

    Still, it's a bargain if expressiveness isn't important to you.

  7. I bought one to try it out as a midi controller. Unfortunately, the lack of velocity and after touch meant it was too musically inexpressive as a controller for me. I ended up taking it back. I guess that is why "real" guitar midi controllers cost 40 times more!

    Still, it's a bargain if expressiveness isn't important to you.

  8. I bought one to try it out as a midi controller. Unfortunately, the lack of velocity and after touch meant it was too musically inexpressive as a controller for me. I ended up taking it back. I guess that is why "real" guitar midi controllers cost 40 times more!

    Still, it's a bargain if expressiveness isn't important to you.

  9. I bought a PS RB3 Mustang as a midi controller. It is plasticky, light, so don’t expect to be an axe you can slam around on stage. What it can do is quit surprising…

    On hammer on mode, it is true, it is not attack sensitive. Heck, 102 trigger buttons slide over and progress guitar scales with, are you kidding? Loads of fun. However in strum mode, it is attack sensitive (highest button + strum = note ON). Though the attack sensitivity may be a bit erratic for live use, it is actually useful for recording (with a bit of DAW correction).

    Each string is on it’s own midi channel which is interesting and offers many possibilities. For example, I can assign the bass strings to a, duh, bass. Interesting. As a pet project, I want to sample my acoustic with a good mic, string by string, and generate string specific sf2 samples that can be assigned to each channel.

    The accelerometers are wild. Try assigning pitch bend to one axis, but the others to other stomp box effects like wah, verb or echo and you may be quite surprised what this little game controller can do. I aint no dubstep fan but I was able to get some really wacky/trashy LFO wobble stuff going on, while using other buttons to trigger samples and beats all at once. This is the game this little controller may excel at, but not replicate an acoustic guitar with 100% input accuracy and fidelity.

    The PS wireless USB dongle really in the box really irks me. What a shame Mad Catz did not offer wireless midi, or nobody cracked that one. Anyone out there apt to map out an write a WDM driver for it? That would be AWESOME.

    The RB3 keytar looks really interesting as a good little inexpensive (disposable) controller, attack sensitive with a controller strip. The drums look interesting, good quality build, though do not appear to offer midi out. Maybe a hack of the wireless dongle could…

    Paul.

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