GR-55- Is there ANY way to make it work?

Started by realiee, September 12, 2015, 03:14:48 PM

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Elantric


Mauri60

#26
Hi. First i hope with this post, to didn't cause any flame, or some kind of fights, this is NOT my intention.
I have too many years of field work with guitar synths, since 1993 when i decide to spend time and money to buy my GR1. I'm not a pro with instruments and i receive from my gear basically what I'm in grade to do to with it...  ;D house speciality is to give a personal interpretation to songs with my peculiar way to give expression and character to my notes,chords,intervals. i never pretend to replace a keyboard or piano player, only to complete them. i cannot pretend to strumming piano patches up and down with pick, because i obtain only a creepy, horrible results, so first thing i try to change is my instrument APPROACH.
when i play guitar synth i have to put myself into instrument i have to imitate as good i can these instrumens...( imitate??? hahahaha ! )
i have radically changed my way to play, after that I'll try to comprehend settings and machine capability.
maybe this can be frustrating, but it's only way i knew to go at point and have gratification from my instrument.
another poor example. if i play a saxophone sound trying high pitch notes, is quite normal to have a TRUCK HORN and not a sax... every instrument have a certain pitch scale to give maximum realism.
this may change fastly rating overall vote to machine.
picking technique is very important, cord gauge, tunings. is obvious, but if i want to play piano or celesta with a heavy metal iron pick I'm crazy...
i want to summarize...
is very important to proceed with little steps, change point of view and playing techniques, convince yourself that you have NOT a guitar in your hands, and be ready to adapt yourself to your machine (not the other )
final notes... this is only for share my personal experience, i don't want to teach nothing to no one!
and remember... settings may works for me, but it's not for sure, they works for someone else...
Nothing is impossible,if someone else will do for you.

realiee

Thanks. I think I've changed my approach a bit during this month. I understood I won't shred using a piano patch. xD But... what about lead synth patches? They are like... to play solos or something, right? And you know, it happens very often, that solos are a bit fast and stuff. And even some lead patches have issues when I play fast. And I'd say that sucks. I deal with it creating guitar distortion patches and putting synths to the background, but is it a solution? I guess I'm less frustrated now, because recently I don't have much time for playing recently.

By the way, I don't know if I can ask in this thread, but I'm just doing it, so sorry if I can't - how to set an alternate tuning turning on by the CTL pedal?

chrish

#28
Quote from: realiee on October 07, 2015, 08:42:05 AM
But... what about lead synth patches? They are like... to play solos or something, right? And you know, it happens very often, that solos are a bit fast and stuff. And even some lead patches have issues when I play fast. And I'd say that sucks. I deal with it creating guitar distortion patches and putting synths to the background, but is it a solution? I guess I'm less frustrated now, because recently I don't have much time for playing recently.


It may have been said already, but i think that everyone who has experimented with guitar pitch to midi conversion has experienced something simular to what you are feeling. That is why many of  have switched to the vg's and the sy300 for lead sounds. Those machines give a guitarist a better feel of responce. Personally, i gave up the notion that i want my guitar to sound like a piano or a sax, etc. I simply don't have the time. However, the sample based machines still have their uses as i enjoy slower ambient soundscapes and sampled nature sounds. If you want to talk slow responce time consider this. I recently purchased a moog slim phatty module. It has a midi to control voltage converter setup in order to trigger the two analog oscs (unless you use a voltage keyboard). So now i have to convert my guitars pitch to midi (gr-50) and then the moog has to convert the midi to voltage in order to produce a synth sound. No shred leads there, but the moog is teaching me about synth sound creation and it has alot of lights and buttons. :-)

Litesnsirens

If you choose a synth tone in the modelling section as opposed to the PCM section you can do synth lead tones and it will keep up with you.  Anything you find in the PCM banks is going to have that ever so slight latency which becomes more noticeable the faster you try to play. 

realiee

Yeah, but COSM synths don't sound as good as PCM ones. I guess it's impossible to play fast using any PCM tone, huh? That kind of sucks.
I know you guys are probably sick and tired of me, but I'm not gonna give up. Maybe there's a guitar with a 13-pin socket, dedicated to be used with guitar synthesizers, without tracking issues?

Litesnsirens

I don't necessarily agree that the PCM synths sound better.  I think there may be extended parameters to control but I've gotten good sounds from the modelling. At the end of the day you're looking for a good synth tone that you can play fast.  If you aren't able to dial in a good model synth tone, try using the modelled synth tone and layer a PCM tone or 2 over top of it.  You'll still get the attack from the modelled synth but the PCM might help thicken it up or whatever you think it's lacking.  If you find that the PCM is sticking around too long due to latency, try shortening the release time.

realiee

Alright, I'll try with the modelling again tomorrow.
Is it possible to have two COSM layers? Like, I want to have lead distortion guitar and lead synth at the same time. Can I do that without PCM?

Oh, that last question again - do you know anything about a dedicated synth guitar? With perfect tracking and stuff...?

Elantric

QuoteIs it possible to have two COSM layers? Like, I want to have lead distortion guitar and lead synth at the same time.


On GR-55 you can have Normal PU run through the COSM FX Amp modeling and have one COSM synth at same time

On VG-99 you can have two COSM synths running at same time.

realiee

Quote from: Elantric on October 12, 2015, 10:59:39 AM
On VG-99 you can have two COSM synths running at same time.

Wooo, this one will be mine.

Someone wants to exchange for the GR-55? xD

Elantric

VG-99 remains the "king" of GK13 processors




- find a gently used one on ebay


gumtown

Or you could add another GR-55, or a GP-10.
Free "GR-55 FloorBoard" editor software from https://sourceforge.net/projects/grfloorboard/

Litesnsirens

You could also try running your normal pickups, cosm modelled synth tone and 2 PCM1 synth tones on the GR-55.  Since I don't have my GR-55 in front of me right now I'm not sure off the top of my head if you could run normal pickups through the amp model and divert the cosm synth model around it.   There is a fair bit of flexibility in the routing but I've never tried this.

realiee

#38
Hey, looks like the price is similar, so I really could do a little exchange. :O

By the way, why is it so hard to get? They don't produce it anymore or what?

Elantric

#39
QuoteThey don't produce it anymore or what?

VG-99 ceased production in Spring 2012

VG-99 - The poor misunderstood VG-99
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=6083.0

realiee

#40
Ughm, why? So the "king" of GK13 processors is simply unavailable to buy (besides ebay and stuff)?

Elantric

#41
Roland VG-99 at $1499 Street price in 2012 had few Roland dealers signing up, and the GK 13 pin cable being branded as a "MIDI Cable" helped kill widespread use of the technology.

How the "13pin MIDI Cable" damaged the "Roland GK" VGuitar brand
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=14088.0

Today there are legions of Line-6 Variax users who simply lack the historical perspective and knowledge to understand Roland offered DSP Alt Tuning and Guitar modeling with several generations of Vguitar systems  - starting with the 1995 Roland VG-8, 2000 Roland VG-88, and 2007 Roland VG-99

Thats OK - it makes the VG-99 our "secret weapon"



   

realiee

It's not so cool anymore, as it doesn't even have Windows 10 drivers, meh...

Any other options for synth tones without latency? I really don't want to say goodbye to the GR-55, but if PCM = bad tracking, and I need good tracking, then bww.

szilard

The Boss SY-300, but it is more of an analog synth. If you want realistic pianos and such you won't want the ST-300. If you like analog goodness you can check out some of the threads on the forum in SY-300 section.

aliensporebomb

There's a like-new VG-99 still in box at Twin Town Guitars in Minneapolis as of a weekend or two ago.
My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

GK Devices:  Roland VG-99, Boss GP-10, Boss SY-1000.

chrish

#45
There was also a factory refurbished vg99 on ebay for 899 dollars from Alto music. Yea i've been checking those out also ever since i heard the synth sound demo (ASB) on the forum with the rc300 frippertronics setup that shawnb discovered. I've been reading up on frippertronics, and that rc300 setup should be called shawntronics. But i degress. You are not going to get piano sounds out of the vg stuff if that is what you're after. You could try the vg8 or the vg88. The vg8 can be had used for as little as a hundred bucks.. Or you could try the technique that has been discribed here where you use an attack transient sound to fill the latency delay gap. That works with the latency issue but won't help with midi mis-triggers which can be a bigger issue than latency imo.

realiee

Hm, BOSS SY-300 sounds pretty nice for me, I think I could leave piano stuff for perfect tracking of synth leads. But I guess I'd have to buy an expression pedal and some analog pedals (distortion and stuff), so it'd be like million times more than I paid for the GR-55. Meh...

gumtown

The SY-300 does 'distortion and stuff'.
You use the effects just on guitar, with the internal routing abilities.
Free "GR-55 FloorBoard" editor software from https://sourceforge.net/projects/grfloorboard/

realiee

By the way, I assume that you guys (with a few thousands posts) have the GR-55, right? Just tell me - how do you use it? I mean, what do you play? Maybe you use it just for some ambient strings or other atmospheric stuff, so that's why you don't have problems and I'm just an idiot wanting it to give me perfect tracking for fast solos? Cause I don't believe you set it up more properly than I did. I tried literally everything. Maybe it's just not for me?