GR-55 - What type of amp?

Started by 3dognate, February 08, 2011, 07:59:23 AM

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Elantric

I have a pair of the D12Ds

Be careful with rattling metal speaker grills on the  D12D, and they are not quite as smooth sounding as my pair of JBL EON 15P

Although my favorite amp for VG-99 / GR-55 is still the Traynor K4


musicman65

See....the anti-stereo guitarists are still out there!!! Lol. Some old guy told me stereo is impossible live too.....but it sounds so much better. I trully believe its a myth. Question authority and trust your ears!!! We're already breaking ground with vg guitar and synth....why stop there?

musicman65

ZenSonic

I get dimension and sonic spaciousness going stereo that I don't get going mono.

ddlooping

The main benefit of using stereo monitoring, as I see it:
If it sounds better than mono to the player, it'll make the player play better. :)

Diaz Guitars (work in progress)

Halexx

I never played live with a stereo set-up, my question is:

When you feed the sound man a stereo signal, won't he place you left ot right to separate you from the singer?

I probably would, if i would mix it.

If yes, does'nt it annihilate the advantage of stereo set-up?

How do sound man treat keyboard player, do they set them right in the center of the mix?

musicman65

No, the sound man DOES NOT pan you left OR right....he pans your 2 signals 100% left and 100% right. Your device has 2 outputs, Left and Right. When you listen through headphones, the left and right are fully seperated...by your head. lol.

Roland engineers spent 1000's of hour perfecting the sonic nuances of stereo in your GR-55, why waste it? Your sound will be equally centered in the mix even though the outputs are dedicated to left and right. Stereo used to be about panning a sound to one side or another but our ears work more on the principal of THE TIMING...when a sound arrives to each ear and thats why headphones sound so big with good stereo recordings. The ambiance of a sound is from different frequencies being delayed on left and right...like the sound in a cathedral bouncing around, making you "feel" the room. That has very little to do with panning (volume shift left or right) and EVERYTHING to do with timing of the different components of the around.

So, even though the 2 channels are panned hard left and right, they carry the same sounds with slight delays from ambiant stereo effects like reverb, chorus, delays...which make your sounds "feel" like the aren't just blairing from both speakers along with everything else, but have space and placement in the room. The beauty is that its all there, just run 2 lines and pan left and right, just like headphones.

musicman65


ZenSonic


Halexx

Hum...interesting.

Let's get it more complicated.

What if you are two guitarist running stereo?

Will he pan the two of you center?

In a recording mix, i think he would be largely tempted to route one left, the other right, the get a better separation for  the two instruments. He may also do it to leave the center channel for the vocal, with bass, bass drum and snare.

I don't want to say that it's not a good idea to play stereo live, but while mixing you learn that what may sound good in the mix don't necessaraly sound good alone, and vice versa.

And it seems that what sound good on a recording may not work live: i remember seing a show in a large outdoor venue, and walking from one side of the stage to the other made some instrument appear or disapear due to a too extreme hard pan mix at the console.

polaris20

Has anyone tried the Behringer K900FX? I'm looking for something I can pipe the GR-55 and a laptop with POD Farm through for church services.

3dognate

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on a pair of the Behringer B215D powered speakers. The rest of the band's monitors are 15's and not overwhelming in the low end, and the cost of the 15's over the 12s was negligable... Plus as a bonus even if I only use one of these live... Between my little mixer and the pair of these (I got some stands too) I'll have a decent little Party PA for running a vocals only band gig or DJ setup with a laptop.

Cool... Ill report how they work out.
>>> http://www.tddRocks.com <<<

My live rig consists of:
-Noel Custom Guitars both GK and Ghost Equipped
-Digitech GSP1101 + Control2
-Roland GR-55 Guitar Synth
-EV ELX112P FRFR monitors
-Gator Cases
-Miller High-Life

ddlooping

Diaz Guitars (work in progress)

musicman65

Quote from: Halexx on February 14, 2011, 06:24:43 PM
Hum...interesting.

Let's get it more complicated.

What if you are two guitarist running stereo?

Forget the concept of "panning" for stereo. Thats how it was done in the 60's....drums left, vocal center, guitar right....YUCK! Modern stereo devices like the VG and GR output the same VOLUME to left and right generally speaking. Some tones may pan but that is a specific effect. With equal volume on left and right, the sound is centered. The ambiant stereo effects shift the TIMING around a few milliseconds to give the aural illusion of position, space, and dimension without actually panning.

Yes, you do pan the signals of a stereo device 100% LEFT and RIGHT....but the device has equal volume per channel so the sound is centered. This misunderstanding is the basis for people not taking advantage of modern stereo devices.

My band runs dual guitars in true stereo, both guitars having L and R outputs from stereo modelling pedals, both panned 100% L and R at the mixer. Neither guitar is louder on either side but both have deep, rich, spacious tones.

Those that know.....run stereo! lol.

musicman65

musicman65

somehow, I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall....so please, everyone, keep running mono....lol! It just makes those of us crazy stereo guys sound better than the rest!  ;D

sonnyv

so, musicman, would you say the same concept applies to recording? If so, do you believe, for example, laying down gr-55 stereo electric guitar, stereo acoustic guitar, and stereo piano tracks is viable or would that end up too unmanageable or inflexible in the final mix? Depending on the patches, of course, i'd guess that several optimized stereo patches together might not "pan out" (i.e. conflict with each other).

i recorded demos 25 years ago with a 4 track (classic teac 3440 i believe) by laying down a stereo vocal and guitar track live first and building from there. Those are still among the best demos i've recorded. Since then, i have, occasionally, layed down guitar and piano tracks using stereo patches but, generally, i accepted the concept that i should create the stereo spectrum instrument by instrument. Those demos did seem to come out flat in comparison.

musicman65

I'm no expert on recording but I see no reason why stereo optimized virtual instruments shouldn't be recorded in stereo. In my home studio, I usually use a short delay or time offset one of side of the stereo track to control the position in the stereo mix. That way the track isn't panned per say...but if you close your eyes and listen, its sound position is off center.

Live, its more important to have equal volume from both sides of the pa so the audience isn't cheated. Spatial stereo effects use timing and generally don't affect LR balance much so listeners located between the speakers get the full benefit and those located on the perimeter still hear a full mix.

musicman65



sixeight

On panning in LIVE situations - depending on room size and speaker placement about half of the crowd will only hear one speaker properly. So full left-right panning may leave out part of the sound for a large group.

Panning on recording - if you record several stereo tracks and pan them fully left and right it may be hard to distinguish between them. I may pan the left channel to Left-63 and the right channel to Left-30. That way it is still stereo, but the instrument is panned to the left.

Always keep playing with panning. It is a very important element to a good sound.

musicman65

Again, the GR-55 and VG-99 has Left and Right outputs and both carry the same amplitude of sound....so panning hard left and right at the mixer DOES NOT cause any sound to be lost on either channel at the mixer or either side of the PA unless you pan the sound inside the patch itself!

I am amazed how misunderstood this is...put some headphones on and listen to the GR. Thats what you'll get with a hard left right pan on the mixer of the stereo outs.

musicman65

gumtown

i have noticed using the panning controls on the GR-55 that there is some sort of compensated log volume curve thing going on, which actually works very well (while wearing headphones).
There is a slight gain peak in the 'half way' regions, where some analog devices may slightly lose a bit of gain.
Free "GR-55 FloorBoard" editor software from https://sourceforge.net/projects/grfloorboard/

HCarlH

Quote from: ZenSonic on February 14, 2011, 02:43:00 PM
I get dimension and sonic spaciousness going stereo that I don't get going mono.

And that matters when you're playing Brown Eyed Girl and Mustang Sally   
GR-55 (or) Fishman TP + Kemper Profiling Rack -->> 
QSC K10 -->> FOH
Fender Squier Stratocaster Bullet (w/GK3), Ibanez AM93 (w/FTP pickup),  Stratocaster (w/FTP pickup)

Telecaster, Charvel SoCal ProMod, Gibson Les Paul, PV Wolfgang,

ddlooping

Diaz Guitars (work in progress)

pjmuck

Truthfully, I don't know what I'll end up doing because I don't use FR monitors on stage, I use in-ears. My guitar amp has been a GT-Pro generating COSM amp sims through an Atomic Reactor FR 50w amp with my GR-33 synth sounds out to the PA, but the lack of routing options on the GR-55 has me wondering how I'm going to employ using my in-ears since I will no longer have independent level control of COSM and PCM instruments for setting up a personalized headphone mix.  ???
Live gear:

Boss GM-800
Boss GKC-AD
Boss Katana Artist 100
Fender Mustang GTX100
Roland GR-33
Liquid Foot Jr. midi foot controller
Boss EV-5
Godin LGX-SA guitar (lefty)
Line 6 Variax 500 guitar (lefty)
Carvin LB50 w GK3B

3dognate

Quote from: hcarlh on February 16, 2011, 08:33:01 PM
And that matters when you're playing Brown Eyed Girl and Mustang Sally   

HA. I use a Steel Drum PCM sound, An Acoustic guitar... plus the straight clean guitar for Brown Eye'd Girl... I could totally do a cool strereo mix for that song...

We only do Mustang Sally at Weddings for the old folks now... They usually only have one good ear anyway.....   :o
>>> http://www.tddRocks.com <<<

My live rig consists of:
-Noel Custom Guitars both GK and Ghost Equipped
-Digitech GSP1101 + Control2
-Roland GR-55 Guitar Synth
-EV ELX112P FRFR monitors
-Gator Cases
-Miller High-Life

ddlooping

Quote from: 3dognate on February 17, 2011, 07:53:14 AM
We only do Mustang Sally at Weddings for the old folks now... They usually only have one good ear anyway.....   :o

He he :)
Diaz Guitars (work in progress)

3dognate

The Behringer B215D speakers came today... I did just an initial test... and they are going to work out great I think... way louder than I'll ever use live and surprisingly not harsh. I tried them out with some metal, some Black Eye'd Peas and stuff that we play. The bass stays pretty tight... so that's good.  I've got a FRFR monitoring choice now, as well as a small PA... Sweet. I'll pull a gig with these as my monitors on the 26th.... we'll see how they work out.
>>> http://www.tddRocks.com <<<

My live rig consists of:
-Noel Custom Guitars both GK and Ghost Equipped
-Digitech GSP1101 + Control2
-Roland GR-55 Guitar Synth
-EV ELX112P FRFR monitors
-Gator Cases
-Miller High-Life

3dognate

Well, I used the GR-55 and the Behringer B215D speakers as wedges last night and they both did stellar... It was nice having control of my guitar AND synth sound on stage... I could never get the sound guy to get me a good monitor mix of the GR-20 when I was using it... but mixing and monitoring my own mix and sending the sound board a summed mix was great... The sound guy said I was very simple to mix, no problems at the mixer.  The Behringer speakers have a truck load of volume... more than anyone would ever use in a monitoring situation so they aren't working hard at all.

I mixed all of my patches at gig volumes to make sure that all my patch levels were consistent. DO NOT set your patch levels with headphones. The levels will be all over the place if you mix from headphones... (add compression or limiter to any acoustic guitar patches too...use that to help keep them from clipping the level.)  I had tried mixing my levels via head phones and the levels were not consistent at rehearsal then I tried via studio monitors and got them fair... but after mixing them at a decent vol through the B215Ds I got them mixed well and the sound guy confirmed that my levels were consistent. And the band was pleased with my stage vol and sound on stage... I think my gear my just stay just like this for a while I'm very pleased with my first gig with the GR-55 and my B215Ds.

>>> http://www.tddRocks.com <<<

My live rig consists of:
-Noel Custom Guitars both GK and Ghost Equipped
-Digitech GSP1101 + Control2
-Roland GR-55 Guitar Synth
-EV ELX112P FRFR monitors
-Gator Cases
-Miller High-Life