VGuitar plus organ style pedal foot controller

Started by hineana, May 07, 2017, 08:55:30 AM

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hineana

Given that -

1) Gig pay doesn't cover transportation so gear has to be inexpensive.
2) Breakdown/setup has to be fast and reliable
3) Metal normal guitar is awesome, and Vguitar enhances the sound.
4) Vguitar _or_ bass pedal need to create synth tones
5) Roland specs guitar out should route through the 13 pin for grounding. But that cable introduces white noise on high gain normal guitar.
6) Live, spontaneous music, is more important than playing to a track.
7) Stereo is good

Here are my solutions. What have you done for the same?

For all, a solid state stereo amp is used for pedal board stereo out. Line6 provides stereo XLR to the sound man.

Option A) GR55 stand alone, normal guitar through the 13 pin.

COSM modeling is OK and internal synth tones good. Compact, reliable with a wide array of tones. It doesn't have XLR out for the PA. It does have pro audio level output to drive a solid state power amp. Line6 does not. The line6 requires an Art CleanBox to bring the audio out up to pro level from consumer level. Unfortunately the GR55 cannot act as a sound module for a foot controller.

Option B)

The Line6 boards have better modeling tones. Take the GR55 out into the CD in of the board. Guitar direct out goes to the Line6. This sounds awesome but there's no foot controller.

Option C)

MIDI of FCB 1010 -> GR30, Line6.

GR30 tones are OK. GR30 out to CD in of the line6. Music that requires guitar but no synth guitar, and a melody played by foot is possible because the GR30 can be booted into local mode. So this can be done per piece of music, but not spontaneously. (Roland gear is amazing and it's ironic the older unit is more versatile than the newer in this way.)

Option D)

MIDI of GR30 -> FCB 1010 -> Micro Synth; micro synth audio to CD in of line6.

An infinite array of fantastic tones from the Micro Synth. RF interference is noticeable on high gain, a MIDI timing click carried back to the Roland GK adapter near the normal magnetic pickups. But this is solved by grounding the external synth to the Roland (done with patch cable from an extra audio out to guitar return on GR30). Relief! Because the normal guitar out is on a normal guitar cable to the line6, line6 audio ground connects to the micro synth on the CD in. But where is the MIDI kill switch? To play only from the foot controller, put the GR30 into edit mode for MIDI channel selection. Pressing S1 or S2 will change the channel. I was super happy to find this option. Audio quality is excellent with little interference on high gain normal guitar.

Option E)

MIDI of GR55 -> FCB1010 -> Micro Synth

Only routing normal guitar through the 13 pin reduces RF interference but this also introduces white noise for high gain. I haven't found a practical way of controlling MIDI out of the GR55 short of turning it off. Awkward to do in the middle of performance. Most of the time the tone of guitar and/or vguitar is fine, but at times I want different notes from a foot controller.

Summary

The Behringer FCB 1010 makes patches accessible without odd foot combinations on the four GR buttons, or limiting S1/S2 to program select. Make sure the Micro Synth supports MIDI Volume. It's nice having the 1010 volume and mod control the pedal-less GR30. 1010 Note on/note off doesn't have velocity. But Organ style bass pedals are expensive although they would be my preference. Some might have a built in synth and that would solve the trouble of controlling the GR MIDI output, but the second synth then requires a mixer or more setup for the sound man and monitors. (Line6 foot switches are unreliable, if I'd a do-over, I'd get a rackmount version.) A "MIDI kill switch" would solve some of this, but a proper one needs a CPU to handle all notes off.