I don't know if there are any other guitar player sample geeks in this tribe, but I've got a question/scenario that can also apply to keyboardists. I just purchased a Yamaha E-Z EG, a guitar shaped synthesizer that Yamaha intended as a learning device for aspiring guitarists who didn't want the challenges of sore fingers. It's a very inexpensive MIDI controller that can be played like a guitar. There are buttons for each fret and short strings for right hand velocity/note on control-no pitch to MIDI conversion, just straight up MIDI informationI'm very excited, as I am not very comfortable on keyboard, but quite at home with guitar.
My question is: what sorts of parameters and external devices are people on this tribe using for expressive effects during live performance of sampled instruments? I'm running halion as a main sampler program and using a Behringer MIDI control pedal that has two expression pedals and ten stomp pedals for control changes/note on options. I've been playing with MIDI Ox to allow for using one string of the Yamaha guitar synth for key switches (each string is sent on a separate MIDI channel). I'm interested in being able to add melodies and improvisations with as much expressiveness as I possibly can. So far I have not gone much beyond using one expression pedal to control volume/velocity/timbre, a pedal for legato phrasing (switching to a preset of the same sample with a different attack envelope) and key switches for different articulations of the same instrument (I've mostly been playing with orcheastral instruments, but I think all these ideas can apply to any set of samples).
Any other tricks or approaches people want to share?