Fishman TriplePlay® is a wireless MIDI controller for electric guitar. You can directly control any USB compliant device capable of receiving MIDI input. TriplePlay will play any virtual synth or drum machine running in your computer’s DAW or work as a standalone live performance instrument playing any of the included soft synths.
The TriplePlay controller and its hex pickup mount on your guitar’s body and there are several mounting systems included to fit most guitars without modification or damage to the guitar’s finish. For the lowest possible latency, TriplePlay uses 2.5GHz ISM (industrial, scientific and medical) radio frequencies to transmit your performance data to a USB receiver dongle plugged into your computer. The controller itself has a USB-rechargeable battery and runs about 20-hours on a charge. The TriplePlay software is compatible with 32 bit and 64 bit Windows 7 PCs or higher and Mac OSX 10.6.8 or higher.
I mounted the hex pickup behind the bridge pickup of my Strat and after syncing to the receiver dongle, it all worked—first time. In fact, days later I just turned it all on again and it worked immediately without re-syncing. I found it to be very responsive, track accurately and sensitive enough to pick up string tapping. I ran it as a standalone performance instrument playing sounds from SampleTank 2.5 XT, one of five pieces of software that came with TriplePlay.
Besides SampleTank and the Fishman TriplePlay software ver 1.1 with over 50 improvements and new features, you get Native Instruments Komplete elements Reaktor and Guitar Rig; Notion’s Progression; and Presonus Studio One DAW. There is also a new Basic Enhanced Mode for iPad GarageBand users to easily activate Pitch Bend.
TriplePlay is the most modern, flexible and well-thought-out system yet. It sells for $399. Check out
http://fishman.com/tripleplay.
By Barry Rudolph
miniBio: Barry Rudolph is a recording engineer/mixer with over 30 gold and platinum RIAA awards to his credit. He has recorded and/or mixed: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Hall & Oates, Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart, the Corrs and Robbie Nevil. Barry has his own futuristic music mixing facility and also teaches recording engineering at Musician’s Institute, Hollywood, CA. http://www.barryrudolph.
