Boss GR-D V-Guitar Distortion & Boss GR-S V-Guitar Space

Started by Orren Merton, November 01, 2012, 02:48:20 PM

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oddguitar

The demo's sound cool.  I've ordered up both pedals, a GR-55 & a US-20....can't wait to try them out!

-oddguitar

Elantric

#126
QuoteMy VG99 is dead to me(due only to Roland's lack of support),

QuoteThe demo's sound cool.  I've ordered up both pedals,

Must have money to burn - not trying to start a fight, but i fail to see  / hear anything in the GR-S or GR-D that cant already be achieved with superior results with your VG-99 and careful programming.

We know the VG-99 will never get any more updates, but that does not diminish its current capabilities - it remains the flagship 13 pin processor for a reason.

oddguitar

Quote from: Elantric on February 13, 2013, 08:52:19 PM
Sound Demos of the new GR-D  / GR-D

This product contains eCROS integrated software platform of eSOL Co.,Ltd. eCROS is a trademark of eSOL Co., Ltd. in Japan.

I wonder if this is the new technology that the Roland demo guy was telling me about when I called support?  His take was that the new pedals sound better through an amp than previous incarnations of V-Guitar gear.  I'll guess I'll find out for myself when they arrive.

I'm hoping they will release a third GR modeling twin pedal with the basic functionality of the G-5/G-5A, albeit with many more tuning options.

There's no question the VG-99 remains the flagship, but for me there were too many redundancies with the GR-55 to justify the investment (I may pick one up used down the road however). These two pedals give me some polyphonic effects, the freeze function as well as some dual COSM sounds that aren't available on the GR-55.  They're also easy to incorporate into an existing traditional pedalboard + amp rig.

-oddguitar

Elantric

QuoteI'll guess I'll find out for myself when they arrive.

I look forward to hearing your real world thoughts / review of these new pedals.

Piing

If Roland would had released an upgrade for the VG99 and promote it at  NAMM 2013, they would probably had boosted-up the sales of the VG-99, and had much more profit than selling this couple of expensive and limited pedals.

Kevin M

Quote from: Piing on February 14, 2013, 05:03:44 PM
If Roland would had released an upgrade for the VG99 and promote it at  NAMM 2013, they would probably had boosted-up the sales of the VG-99, and had much more profit than selling this couple of expensive and limited pedals.

I think, based in the report, a new version of the VG99 is seen as a money-loser.

Now_And_Then

Quote from: kmaus10 on February 14, 2013, 07:11:33 PM
I think, based in the report, a new version of the VG99 is seen as a money-loser.

I think Piing has a frimware update in mind. In which case the immediate costs for Roland in releasing such an update might well offset the damage done to Roland's reputation in the minds of some users (such as myself) by their refusal to support their products in any meaningful way compared to other manufacturers. But Roland seems not to value that reputation very highly at all.

Kevin M

Here is where some of Roland's real technology investment goes:



If any have followed these kits over the years, you can see that the leap in technology is pretty impressive!

Piing

Quote from: Now_And_Then on February 14, 2013, 11:55:42 PM
I think Piing has a frimware update in mind. In which case the immediate costs for Roland in releasing such an update might well offset the damage done to Roland's reputation in the minds of some users (such as myself) by their refusal to support their products in any meaningful way compared to other manufacturers. But Roland seems not to value that reputation very highly at all.

Exactly: I mean a firmware update. That, together with a presentation made by a good player and good presets (like the ones you can find at this forum) would make a revival of the VG99 sales.

That video about the V-Drums is great!!!  "I notice inmediately that this snare is like a real instrument because of the real natural feeling" Why don't they say something similar about the VG99? Instead, they only care about "guitar hero" COSM amplifier simulations that are years behind other modern modellers, like Fractal Audio. At other guitar forums you can find hundreds of guitarists that still believe that the V-Guitar is like a midi syntheisizer that triggers sounds like a keyboard! Not fair.

Elantric

#134
QuoteAt other guitar forums you can find hundreds of guitarists that still believe that the V-Guitar is like a midi syntheisizer that triggers sounds like a keyboard! Not fair.

So true - actually there are quite a few folks here at vguitarforums who remain clueless regarding what the VG-8, VG-88, and VG-99 are capable of (with their real time no latency response to ALL your playing dynamics)   - yet still remain convinced a GI-20 and a 20 year old MIDI Synth can do everything those can do (and more) .  ???
Its become a source of humor for me, and my only explanation as to why this phenomena persists is directly due to your local Roland Dealer's complete cluelessness about the V-Guitar COSM technology , VGuitar In Store Demo Stations that never worked, which is a direct result of incompetency of Roland Corp, from the regional sales manager, to the zero attention span of the Roland US telephone  technical support specialist in LA.

aliensporebomb

The AxeFX makes it a bit easier to zero in on things because (1) the company is super responsive to ideas from its user base and (2) there seem to be exponentially many more people who work on creating patches that are close to "the real thing" and (3) there's lots of people who have come up with patches and shared them.

The 99 can do it, I've got a new patch called "Experimental" and it really sounds and feels like an amp to me.  Kind of a Marshally sounding amp but with a little warmth so it could pass for a few things.

In my mind, I picture the 99 modeling like a block of cement where you chip away at certain things to get the right result - subtract here, polish there.  That way of thinking is kind of a Japanese subtractive approach and westerners tend to be a lot more impatient "I want this now!".  It's hard to argue with the Kemper modeling amp way of
doing it.  If Roland had done something like that on the 99 you could have had similar success.  But it can be really rewarding to come up with the sound you were chasing.

I can't think of too many guitarists who sit with their guitar and 99 and studio monitors and go "close, very close, okay try this, a little more here, a little less there" for long periods.  Lots of my patches have versions 1-20 because sometimes I stumble across something while searching for a specific thing that would be good for something else and
I can return to that later.

Again, we come back to the factory patches that I've referred to as "created by pulling an all nighter before a NAMM show".  That didn't really show what the 99 could do although there are a few patches that have some good ideas in them, they just didn't have time to subtract and polish to get it right.
My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

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

drjoness2001

Roland GR-D Review Posted:



For a pedal with four knobs, and four modes, the review actually is quite long, It was originally around 20 minutes, now down to 10. I'm going to post the full text on a page some time.

Pretty cool pedal, I think it has its place....

BTW: Thanks to Elantric for the "deal" post, I bought the LGX-SA from Amazon thanks to Elantric!

Elantric

#137
Thanks for the detailed review of the GR-D

I'm still not hearing anything here that the VG-99 can not already do - true, one must first master programming the VG-99 effects parameters first. You will not get these tones on the VG-99 " right out of the box" like you can with the GR-D.

drjoness2001

Right you are sir! As I noted at the end, the original VG-8 (1995) had all the GR-D features!

Elantric

#139
QuoteAs I noted at the end, the original VG-8 (1995) had all the GR-D features!

Which given the current used market price of $300 for a used VG-8, I would point out a Used VG-8 (or VG-88) might make a much better sound exploration investment than either of these new GR-D & GR-S

shawnb

Well, that settles it, I'm sticking with my VG-99.   I was hoping there would be some value-add to these.  Still, nice sounds, and the footprint is good.  But to add this to my existing rig would be redundant.   
Address the process rather than the outcome.  Then, the outcome becomes more likely.   - Fripp

Elantric

#141
QuoteBut to add this to my existing rig would be redundant.   

and costly - since it requires a separate US-20 GK A/B box for each new "GR-x" pedal you add.
Totally boneheaded for Roland to omit a "GK13 pin "Thru" Jack on these GR-S, GR-D pedals.

Just by adding a $2.00 13 pin DIN Jack, Roland could have made it a whole lot easier and cheaper  to drive your other 13 pin gear and definitely would have sold more of these new pedals to existing GR-55 users.

But its rather like the omission of a 1/4" normal Guitar Input jack on the GR-55, It only confirms  / reminds me the current direction of Roland is greed, and half baked ideas.

gandolf

Quote from: Elantric on February 19, 2013, 02:09:15 PM
But its rather like the omission of a 1/4" normal Guitar Input jack on the GR-55, It only confirms  / reminds me the current direction of Roland is greed, and half baked ideas.

gee-whiz.....i guess the image i have of eager Roland engineers product testing with "real life" musicians off the street, measuring customer experience of new products prototypes, etc,etc. is bit naive then....? another bubble burst.

drjoness2001

Roland GR-S Demonstration:



Yes, it is the same performance I used with Reaktor 5.0. I recorded the individual string parts to Digital Performer using the GK-Expander. Then just connected a GR-S and played the track back through the GR-S.

Elantric

Excellent demo Wayne  - Since you used the same pre-recorded multitrack as source, lets me compare apple to apples

aliensporebomb

There are ways to get the same patch on the 99 - make no mistake but that was kind of nice, kind of a harpsichordish tone.
My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

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

drjoness2001

OK!

A review for the GR-S posted, much more revealing of how the unit sound than the performance demo:


oddguitar

My GR-D & GR-S arrived and I got to play around with them briefly last night.  Both are very cool & I love the simplicity of just turning knobs until I find a sound I like vs. sifting through menu's.  I'm not sure how much redundancy there is with my new GR-55, as I'm still figuring out how to use it as well.  I definitely like the array of distortion/synth sounds available on the GR-D, especially VG Distortion 2, Polydistortion & Synth settings (the patch on the GR-55 called "polydistortion" doesn't sound as good as the one on the GR-D).  The ambient/spacey sounds of the GR-S are really cool as well, especially the freeze function.  Tonight I want to plug them into my KPA and see what that sounds like (last night I just plugged into a Fender GDEC that was laying around)......not sure whether to use the "amp" or "line" setting though.

All in all, I'm very pleased with both pedals....just have to spend some time with them as well as the GR-55.

-oddguitar

modalmojo

Hi oddguitar,

I am very interested in getting the GR-S, could you share your experience with your unit so far?  And does it do something unique or better than the GR-55?

Thanks!  :)

drjoness2001

After spending a bit of time with the GR-S, I would say it is much more like the VG-99, than the GR-55.

Most of the sounds in the GR-S sound to me like a layer of two COSM models, rather than the GR-55 which can layer a COSM sound with a PCM sound. And, as a COSM based synth, you do not have any tracking errors, or latency problems.

And the GR-S has the freeze feature for infinite sustain, a feature found on the VG-99, and not included in the GR-55.