The SY-300 Kicks A** for Experimental and Ambient Music

Started by Rhcole, October 09, 2015, 11:38:49 PM

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Rhcole

I will post the actual patches later. I just threw a couple of cables into my computer and recorded these. These are unconventional sounds which make the point that the SY-300 has some deep programming capabilities for people who like to make experimental and ambient sounds.

The thing is, using the underlying structure of these patches there are dozens of interesting variations that can be made. Two of the patches are built on the Ambient patch I posted before, but they sound quite different.

Really, it's a sonic playground.

JeffVolume


krysh

my 2 ct's, yours,

krysh

sy-300 newbie and bass- and guitarplayer from hamburg, germany

lab rat

Les Paul Standard
Native Instruments Kontrol S25
Presonus Studio One 3 Professional
Presonus AudioBox 22VSL

Rhcole

#4
All 4 patches uploaded. Enjoy.

Boss SY-300 User to User Patch Exchange
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?board=191.0

lab rat

Les Paul Standard
Native Instruments Kontrol S25
Presonus Studio One 3 Professional
Presonus AudioBox 22VSL

krysh

my 2 ct's, yours,

krysh

sy-300 newbie and bass- and guitarplayer from hamburg, germany

aliensporebomb

Cool.  I want to hear you use these in some compositions now!
My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

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

JiveTurkey

Replied in the Patch Exchange subforum. These are all top notch sounding! Good work!

chrish

Yes, the sy is great for ambient type drones and lead sounds. Here are some short clips. the first one uses your ambient fx path, reverb>reverb>slow gear> Delay+reverb.

Rhcole

I'm starting to think the SY-300 is the BEST BOX EVER for Ambient music. It is certainly a powerful sweet spot for it.

Elantric

QuoteI'm starting to think the SY-300 is the BEST BOX EVER for Ambient music

My vote stays with the VG-99 or VG-8EX

Brak(E)man

swimming with a hole in my body

I play Country music too, I'm just not sure which country it's from...

"The only thing worse than a guitar is a guitarist!"
- Lydia Lunch

chrish

The vg's haVe all that guitar modeling stuff and sound cleaner because roland used their highest form of guitar input tech (hex). So points for that. Once roland recalls all the sy-300's in order place an upgrade kit for a gk input the poly clean issue will be solved. (dear roland boss, it's a question of honoring your ad claims). A little fuzz fx on a real guitar tone  with an ebow and the sy-300 is the future winner for ambient. Wonder what kind of ambient sound the cello and the violin players are getting out of it. Is there a Vcello.com?

Elantric

#14
QuoteOnce roland recalls all the sy-300's in order place an upgrade kit for a GK 13 pin input the poly clean issue will be solved.

You understand that will never happen.

Quote(dear roland boss, it's a question of honoring your ad claims).

Post a Boss Sy-300  print advertisement where it says "Boss SY-300 supports perfectly clean 6 note chords"

chrish

From sweetwater ad: '' a powerful polyphonic engine delivers fat analog-style sounds with zero latency, SEEMLESSY extending the NATURAL expresiveness and familar FEEL of your favorite guitar.'' end quote. My favorite guitar can seemlessy play 6 note polyphonic, clean chords. Of course i'm assuming here that sweetwater, being an agent of roland, has roland's ad wording approval. But let me check rolands site later today to see what claims that roland made reguarding this product. 

Elantric

#16
You can not trust a Sweetwater ad - most are full of errors

Sweetwater online descriptions  used to indicate the Fishman Tripleplay could:

* Record Audio and MIDI Directly into your DAW, wirelessly " and  record audio wirelessly to an iPad

Which it cant
http://web.archive.org/web/20130218233600/http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/TriplePlayPU/


chrish

Just checked the boss site, same words except they say 'instrument' instead of 'guitar'. So, should roland honor their ad hype and offer a gk board kit? Or do we just say that it's ok if business ethics do not match basic human ethics like honesty? The concept of buyer beware does not apply if false claims were made. Or could the ad wording be subject to a different interpretation and no false claims were made. I should point out that i purchased a second unit knowing that it did not perform as claimed. So it doesn't bother me except from a business as usual ethical standpoint. The point is, if your press 6 keys on a 6 note polyphonic analog modeled keyboard, you get cleaness (all 6 pitches will sound as programed).

Elantric

#18

But IMHO the SY-300 is just another tone  box, there are more powerful tools out there that already DO support full 6 note chords  - but they rely on a hex PU

or they are an app named  "JamOrigin MIDI Guitar


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_(music)
QuoteA chord, in music, is any harmonic set of usually three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously.[

Nothing about Chords is stated at the Boss SY-300 product page here
http://www.bossus.com/products/sy-300/


Closest is this Boss SY-300 description:
Quoteexplore fat, analog-style polyphonic synth sounds
So its the word  "Polyphonic"  - which is open to interpretation  - the SY-300 does support 2 voices at once 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphony
QuoteIn music, polyphony is one type of musical texture, where a texture is, generally speaking, the way that melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic aspects of a musical composition are combined to shape the overall sound and quality of the work. In particular, polyphony consists of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody


chrish

This is from the manual. ''since the sy-300 processes the signal from your guitar pickups, its sound reflects the natural nuances of your playing''. Does it? Guitar players sometimes play complex chord forms. Does the sy sound accurately 'reflects the natural nuances of your playing'? Does it 'seemlessly extending the natural expressiveness and familar feel of your instrument' when playing complex chord forms and 6 note chord forms. In other words, is the note processing spot on using a 1/4 input from the guitar? Or would that ad language more accurately reflect what a hex pick up does so well on a hrm box? However, good point about polyphony. Generally a synth will state the note poly and state that when more osc voices are employed in a patch, the number of note poly goes down. But you are correct, Roland never stated anything about actual note poly with the sy. Instead they choose the flowery language already pointed out  above. Like i said, it's ad hype when a product does not perform as described. It was however close enough for me to purchase two. But for those folks who are not happy with the units claims, then a full refund is justified imo, and of course roland is not going to give us a gk board in order to honor the language of their ad hype.

Rhcole

I'm not going to rollover on the argument that the SY is one of the best ambient boxes ever. I owned a VG-99 and it was terrific; certainly much cleaner than the SY. But the SY-300 has a quirky weirdness that is inherent in it that really stands out for ambient patches. In fact, I might argue that ambient and other textural patches are what it is BEST at. It certainly isn't the best box going for classic synth/keyboard sounds. But some of the ambient spaces it can generate are top-end Robert Rich/Steve Roach dimensional universe sounds that are not easy to get elsewhere.

If (as it appears to be) it is not a rousing success in the marketplace it will be a revered cult box for years to come.

Brak(E)man

I'd say it has great potential but with the unclean chords and the harshness to the sound it limits my way of ambient playing to an extent I rather go back to my vg88 even.
swimming with a hole in my body

I play Country music too, I'm just not sure which country it's from...

"The only thing worse than a guitar is a guitarist!"
- Lydia Lunch

Brak(E)man

Quote from: Elantric on July 06, 2016, 03:07:00 PM
Closest is this Boss SY-300 description:So its the word  "Polyphonic"  - which is open to interpretation  - the SY-300 does support 2 voices at once 

It doesn't fully support 2 voices , some sounds with maj7 or -9 interval ( played only 2 voice )
makes the sound go mush and you can't really distinguish what interval is played.
It is pretty bad really

(and polyphonic when speaking about a guitar synth should mean at least 6 voices,
every other interpretation is semantics and shouldn't belong in a description of a product )
swimming with a hole in my body

I play Country music too, I'm just not sure which country it's from...

"The only thing worse than a guitar is a guitarist!"
- Lydia Lunch

JiveTurkey

I will take "unclean" chording for what I do over that d@mn boat anchor known as the GK pickup ANY DAY OF THE WEEK

To say I was screaming to be able to use any guitar without a hacking a d@mn GK pickup into it is pretty much my gear-related understatement of the decade.

If I want a true synth experience; I am going to buckle down and learn to play the synth. The reality of it is I am not a synth player; I just want to play guitar and approximate weird sounds/tones/noises and the SY is superb at doing that. It's not perfect and I kind of love it for that fact.

Brak(E)man

I on the other hand love the GK pick up and it's not unclean chording it's indistinguishable mush , I agree about synths I can play synths from a keyboard or a daw but a guitar is way superior to any of those when I comes to expression.
And I'm speaking about cosm and hrm synths
swimming with a hole in my body

I play Country music too, I'm just not sure which country it's from...

"The only thing worse than a guitar is a guitarist!"
- Lydia Lunch