Fishman TriplePlay Express USB-C MIDI Guitar Pickup

It works great. Two things: 1. be very precise setting up the pickup. 2. The software that comes with and your DAW may not recognize the pickup unless you start the software first, THEN plug-in the USB.On the MAC it did not work if the USB for the pickup was plugged into the computer before the software was started. So, launch the software, then plug in the USB.

First of all, it didn't fit on all 3 of my guitars. On a Gibson LP with Hipshot Tone-A-Matic bridge, it wouldn't fit between the bridge and pickup. On my PRS SE Mira and LTD Viper 201B baritone, it fit, but with it raised as high as possible, it was still far lower than it's supposed to be from the strings. It must be designed for Strats or Teles.So I jury-rigged a shim to be able to try it out... WOW... the tracking is unbelievably terrible! I played a slow, simple, 3-note riff into a DAW and it tracked as many as 24 different notes!!! (See pics. You can see which 3 notes were intentionally being played.)The software is terrible. It immediately crashed upon scanning my plugin folder during its first run (on a brand new PC w/96GB RAM and 14th Gen Intel i9 24-core CPU). It supposedly can send each string on a different MIDI channel, but I couldn't find any setting to accomplish this with. It does let you divide the fretboard into 4 quadrants that play different synths within the app, but there's no way to do this within the DAW, so what is the point if you can't actually do anything beyond playing around with it?!But even if all of that DID work, the tracking is SO bad, it's completely unusable.So I got the Behringer PP1 eurorack module (which requires a eurorack power supply module to use). This works SO much better at converting guitar to MIDI in realtime. The trick is to use the neck pickup and roll the tone all the way off to 0. I also have EMGs with a VMC variable mid control, and using that to further cut ~1kHz all the way, the PP1 actually tracks better than any other device or software I've used for this. It still gets a few stray or wrong notes, but not so many that can't quickly be edited. The problem with this is, you have to dial in the guitar to be completely muddy for it to track well enough, so you can't simultaneously play the guitar as a guitar thru an amp AND have it converting/sending MIDI to a synth. It's also monophonic.The TriplePlay is supposedly polyphonic, but it's SO BAD that it doesn't even matter... it's completely unusable. It's because it's taking a signal straight from the strings right next to the bridge, where a guitar is the most trebly and mid-forward. It NEEDS to hear ONLY the fundamental in order to track half decently. You have to use a neck pickup AND cut all the treble (and high-mids, if possible) in order to have ANY chance of a usable, reliable-enough, outcome.The PP1 can take a mic input and convert your voice (or anything you can mic) into MIDI. I haven't tried it yet. It also has CV and Gate outputs for integration with any modular synth devices.I've been underwhelmed, at best, by most Behringer products I've used, but the PP1 is the most usable realtime guitar -> MIDI converter I've used... The Fishman TriplePlay guitar MIDI pickup is the absolute worst guitar -> MIDI converter I've used.

I bought this unit less than 2 weeks ago and it has quickly become my go-to controller! I have used the Roland GR-33 with a Roland-ready Strat for years now and the Fishman 3Play out performs it hands down. Tracking on the Fishman is so much faster than the GR-33. I have not tried the GR-55 which is supposed to have better tracking so I don't know how it compares. But for a songwriting live performer like myself, The Triple Play is worth every penny! Yes, there are setup pains though not nearly as bad as I have read. Yes it would be nice if Fishman would just provide the software instead of making you download it. I'm guessing it saves the company money. But if you have a pretty fast internet connection it will only take an hour or less to download everything you need.The pickup did not fit on my PRS Custom 24, Gibson ES-335 or Jackson. However, it fit like a glove on my Fender Showmaster! I also gotta mention that I love being able to control plug-ins that I already own and with this unit. The GR-33 would never quite do this for me. I'm still learning what this unit can do and that's part of the fun! If you're a songwriter who only plays guitar this is a game changer. And if you play live but can't afford to hire any more band members, this device will be your horns, keys, bass or whatever else you may need!Thank you Fishman!

I was trying to decide between this and the Roland GK-3. This won for a few reasons 1) ease of install 2) wirelessInstallation took less than 15 minutes on my Strat. The package even came with an additional mount so I could move the pick up to another guitar if needed. By the way, once you have your two mounting pieces installed, you can swap this to any guitar with mounting hardware on it. That's another big win as I plan to use this on my baritone Tele as well.No wires! Once I got the Triple Play charged and paired with the USB dongle, I opened Logic Pro X and it immediately recognized the MIDI input from the Triple Play. What a relief! To even things out, I increased the velocity of the incoming signal for the track in Logic and it works perfectly. (Prior to that, some strings' notes were quieter than other strings'.)The tracking on this is pretty damn good. I had a YRG before and this tracks better and faster.If I ever (I'm sure I will) want to use this with any MIDI sound modules or trigger sounds from a keyboard, I can buy a MIDI USB Host box. The TriplePlay will then broadcast the MIDI information to the Host box once the dongle is plugged into that. Then the Host box will transfer the data to the sound source and trigger the sound. Can't wait.