Live Performance For MIDI-Enabled Acoustic Guitar

Sunday Synth Jam: Berlin-based guitarist and inventor Robin Sukroso shared this live performance of Moonshine, arranged for for MIDI-enabled acoustic guitar.

The performance was filmed as a single shot, at the abandoned Institute of Anatomy in Berlin-Steglitz. In the performance, Sukroso plays an acoustic guitar that’s been augmented with his ACPAD, right, a wireless MIDI controller that he uses to control looping, effects and to trigger sampled sounds.

In addition to being a powerful performance, it’s also technically impressive. Here’s what Sukroso had to tell us about the technical details of his performance:

ACPAD sends wirelessly onto Mac. For purpose of making it look good, I kept my laptop in guitar bag, kept it a little bit open (put rubber space beside touch pad and taped it 🙂 in order to receive MIDI data over Bluetooth.

The software is our own standalone software ACPAD Replay (which is out since 2 weeks for MAC).

I use an (RME) Babyface as audio interface (you can see a cable going into the guitar bag). The Babyface doesn’t need a power supply, but powers via USB cable from Laptop.

Sukroso said that he wanted the video to demonstrate the possibilities of the ACPAD + ACPAD Replay combination, including:

  • mobility;
  • looping functions of audio;
  • effects (delay and distortion are used in the video); and
  • triggering sounds which come along with ACPAD Replay.

Details on the ACPAD & ACPAD Replay software are available at the company’s site.

5 thoughts on “Live Performance For MIDI-Enabled Acoustic Guitar

  1. This is fantastic!!

    First, of all, it’s a very natural sounding 5/8 (10/8) meter, that he plays with utter precision. (For noobs, it’s a 2 or 4 slow-beat phrase, where each beat is divided into 5 subdivisions– in this case it’s 3 + 2, which means there’s little accents on 1 and 4 of the five. Backbeats are put on the 1 of the 2nd & 4th beats.)

    Secondly, he plays it seemingly unedited as he walks through a cool vandal-scape, self-contained, recording into his guitar case.

    Thirdly, he makes tasteful use of the MIDI features of that guitar rig.

    He’s wonderful.

  2. i was more impressed how a run down building looks cool in a music video.
    would have liked to hear some haunting vocals as well.
    i guess this is the new one man band for the modern era ,not my cup of tea and i would suggest guitarists will get even bigger ego’s .
    anyway i’m not sticking that thing on my gorgeous accoustic.

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