MIDI Guitar 3

What it does

Turns a standard electric guitar into a polyphonic MIDI controller without a hexaphonic pickup, then plays that MIDI through instruments it hosts itself. Three parallel chains take up to six modules each: AUv3 instruments, MIDI and pitch effects, compressors and sustainers, neural amp models and IR cabs, feeding a mixer and a master chain. Tracking switches between expressive MPE, monophonic and a mode with no bends, and footswitches, pedals and breath controllers map to anything.

In the demo

Jade sets the interface and buffer first, then plays SoundBox, Pianoteq and a modelled saxophone from the guitar, showing that the bend range has to match between the app and the synth or the notes go strange. She maps an expression pedal, hosts it in AUM, then runs it standalone into Logic to capture a distorted guitar and a synth line in one take.

Worth knowing

MIDI Guitar 3 has since shipped on Mac and Windows at $149.95. The iOS version Jade uses here is still not on the App Store, so there is nothing to buy on an iPad yet, and MIDI Guitar 2 remains the one on sale there. The link goes to the developer.