VG-99 - How to set it up

Started by Jim Williams, November 08, 2009, 04:15:40 PM

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Jim Williams

I Have found some good sucess connecting to my laptop.
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

Jim Williams

I will be posting some Ideas to help you along with this. To start get a good VST host. I sugest Forte you can assign program changes and it will also host dxi softsynths also.
Jimmy
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

A2theT

HEAVY on the METAL
Axe-Fx II, Roland VG-99 + FC-300, Roland GR-55, Digitech Jamman Stereo, Ibanez/ESP/Jackson Guitars

Jim Williams

Lets start with setting up your guitar and the VG-99. Roland disigned the Vg for use with the GK3 pickup in mind you will have trouble with peizo pickups. I use the exsternal model only to avoid choppining up my les paul but the internal model is the same. when you set up the tracking start at 20% for each string and adjust in small inciments. this setting will work for guitar sounds as well. the setting for the distance between the saddles will only have effect on guitar sounds (mostly for the tone of the guitar models) it will have no effect on synth tracking.

You may want to setup more than one pickup setting and set your pikup selection to patch so you can have some differnt feels for differnt applications(electric guitar, Accoustic guitars, VG synth models and your synths). However I have one setting for all it keeps it simple. when you need a little more for the guitar models you can increase the livel in the guitar model settings.
Jimmy.
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

Jim Williams

Hay A to the T,
I am useing a hacked version of forte ensemble 1.6 I like it so much I am going to buy the new 2.0 it will be money well spent.
Jimmy.
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

Jim Williams

Setting up the VG-99 is simple most of you settings will stay at factory defaults. In your sysntem\midi turn off you program change messages but in the guitar to midi system keep them on. turn on thin midi bend. connect to your computer with the usb connection and use the roland AISO driver. This is important because it sends your synth sounds back to the VG-99(The VG-99 becomes your sound card. then dis able and shut off everything you don't need on your computers OS. I have a corduo processer so I don't need to disable everything but it helps cause audio takes alot of processing power. on your AISO driver the smaller your buffer size the less latency you will have, however you my havd audio dropouts so you have to find a happy medium (make the buffer size larger but not to large).
Jimmy
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

Jim Williams

Now getting host software uggg!!!!! There are alot out there. There are some freeware ones but they lack features all the free ones don't have the ability to program change(not very useful for live perfomance).Cantabile is nice but it won't support DXI soft synths and it lacks the ability to have a single rack call up and change programs within a single Vst. V-Stack is good too But again it lacks program changes. I recomend trying out some differnt ones and decideing wich one meets your needs or  you could just buy Forte Performer 2.0 the producer has more features but you wont need all that especialy for almost 400 bucks. Teh performer is only about 150 bucks. I think it may also be avible in 64bit but I'm not sure. The one thing to get used to is thease programs are more geared for keyboards and not guitar synth players.maybe in the futuer they will make an option in the prefrences for fretboards and keyboards. But for now you can figure out keyboard ranges (hint: for a A440 normal tuning low E is Key E3 or #40 and your hi value would be be E8 or #88).When you want to bend notes you have to do 2 things. First on the VG-99 set the comatic to off and second in your soft synth you need to set your bend range to -12 and +12(some will have differnt paramiters but it will still be around 12). Some do not have this feature so you have to use a differnt cromatic option. The synths I commonly use are True Pianos, Dimention pro, Rapture Cakewalk TTS-1 and korg Legacy collection. I have many others that I use in my home studio to play around with.

I check my posts often and If you have any questions please reply or leave a message.
Thanks Jimmy.
P.S. I will be posting some mp3's soon. 8)
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

Jim Williams

hear is an mp3 of a Vg-99 12 string with vst hammond in dimention pro useing Forte performer 2.1 the drums were a second track added in sonar 8.
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

Jim Williams

Here is a short peice I recorded starting with a VG-99 accoustic guitar model with a B3 in the background. I then put down some sax, strat guitar model and a TTS1 flute. I am running windows 7 with no audio tweeks with Forte 2 and Sonar 8 at the same time. As you can see there no glitches and the tracking is very good as a matter of fact I found I get less latency that when I use my hardware synth. My laptop is a gateway duo core 2.0 (intell) with 4gigs of ram on a 32 bit OS.
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

Jim Williams

another multitrak sample to show how much more you can do with the VG-99 and a computer as a synth mod.
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

Jim Williams

Here is a sample of true pianos VST.
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

bob e

Good work!  Thanks for sharing your stuff.  I trigger external sounds in a Roland Sonic Cell and while they sound fantastic, I do get a few minor glitches periodically.

Bob E. AKA MIDIme

Jim Williams

Bob, I was going to get a soniccell but I couldn't aford one so I decided to exsperiment with stuff I mostly already had. the only thing I bought was Forte 2.1. I tried some other hardware synths and found the software synths responded much better. the key is the computer you use (week laptops don't work so well) think dou core 2.0 and all the ram it will take. I am frustrated with roland for not makeing thier software for 64 bit. Roland is holding me back from makeing the jump to 64 bit.
Jimmy
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

bob e

I couldn't afford a new sonic cell either.  I searched Ebay for a week or two and won a mint "used" one for about $500.  Did you know you can save a search and receive a notification when something you searched for becomes available on Ebay?


I have a HP laptop running Vista but haven't tried useing it  w/any music software other than the VG editor.  I'm stupid with computers but being forced to learn in order to use the editor/librarians.

MIDIme

A2theT

I was intrigued by the SonicCell discussion so I went to check it out at Roland's website and the demo music that plays when you first hit the page http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.php?ProductId=897   reminds me of J-Roc's music from the Trailer Park Boys. lol.  So funny.  They must have used a SonicCell.   What I would really like is something that is combination SonicCell, combination sampler, combination looper, combination track player.  So I guess I will have to stick with my laptop and a bunch of apps.
HEAVY on the METAL
Axe-Fx II, Roland VG-99 + FC-300, Roland GR-55, Digitech Jamman Stereo, Ibanez/ESP/Jackson Guitars

sheguitarplayer

I won a sonic cell on evil bay for £309. It sounds great. Not wanting to hijack the thread but can any of you sonic cell users tell me how to sort out the pitch bend on it? Please see my thread here..
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php/topic,2097.msg11831.html#msg11831

Jim Williams

hey A to the T, what apps are you useing to do all this?
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

Jim Williams

Great news for thoes useing Windows 7 X64 Roland has put up the 64 bit driver for the VG-99!!!!!
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

Jim Williams

Sorry for the excitement the driver is crap
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

Jim Williams

I have the vg99 windows 7 x64 driver that is updated and works 100% I got it from one of the other country sites. I serfed around so much I forgot what site it was so I am posting it here....enjoy.
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

mesaman

Looks good!  Installed and I have MIDI functionality again.

Jim Williams

For all you soft synth players I have found that your most useful synth is Demention Pro it is agreat all pourpose synth. Korg legacy collection is good to.
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

Jim Williams

Hey y'all
I have been hard at work trying to get the best out of my VG-99 and I have found some new controle assigns for midi messages and some other ideas for writeing patches. Through exploring and being creative I have found many cool ideas. so many infact that it's hard to put them down in one posting so if you have a question I will try to answer then as best I can. It is just easier tto deal with one topic at a time.
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

Jim Williams

Here is a short clip of smoke on the water. the B3 organ is a native instroments B4 softsynth recorded on the same track as the guitar.
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Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

bob e

---Well, you asked for it...

When using sonic cell and vg, here is my immediate problem.  Whenever I select a new patch in the sonic cell the expression pedal/controllers of the sonic cell all return to default settings.  Where is the system setting for assignment hold or whatever sonic cell calls it?

If you can help me with that then I've got another problem.  When using the VG as my MIDI converter evertime I change VG patch everything resets in both units.

Thank you