GR-55 - George Harrison - Slide Guitar

Started by riggy, February 03, 2014, 07:36:01 AM

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riggy

Hello all

I recently asked my guitar tutor to show me a few tricks on playing with a slide.  He asked me if I had a non-GK guitar that he could tune to G so I took one in last week.  He suggested that I would benefit from heavier strings which soon became more apparent once I started practicing on my own (it unfortunately sounded like cats being strangled) but I was well aware it was going to be a challenge.)  So I changed the strings from 10's to 11's and I got a much better result, nowhere near perfect but certainly a marked improvement.

Incidentally, I had Wayne Joness ship his UX-20 over to the UK a few weeks ago.  It's a fantastic addition to my setup and have been happily playing my slide guitar through the GR-55 but I am looking for a specific sound and as I am still fairly new to the 'World of Roland', I hope some of you guys might be able to help me out here.

The sound I am going for all centers around a couple of great little tunes by George Harrison that I am addicted to:

If You Believe:

That's The Way It Goes:

Some of you may remember the second song was played at the Concert For George by Joe Brown and the Bruvvers:



Any help appreciated, thanks for reading, Rich

Elantric

My trick for slide ( and my main interest for DSP Alt Tuning - regardless if GR-55. VG-99 or Tyler Variax) is Tune the real guitar strings to an Open tuning - for George Harrison that would typically be Open G - And i would kick on a Compressor for Slide Solos. This allows me to play Open Tuned Slide guitar parts with much sustain - but when the Slide solo is over, I use the DSP Alt tuning to convert my Guitar's Natural String's Open G tuning back to a DSP generated "Standard EADGBe Tuning"  - which allows me to play Rhythm Guitar in standard tuning.   

DF400

Quote from: Elantric on February 03, 2014, 09:56:17 AM
My trick for slide ( and my main interest for DSP Alt Tuning - regardless if GR-55. VG-99 or Tyler Variax) is Tune the real guitar strings to an Open tuning - for George Harrison that would typically be Open G - And i would kick on a Compressor for Slide Solos. This allows me to play Open Tuned Slide guitar parts with much sustain - but when the Slide solo is over, I use the DSP Alt tuning to convert my Guitar's Natural String's Open G tuning back to a DSP generated "Standard EADGBe Tuning"  - which allows me to play Rhythm Guitar in standard tuning.

Brilliant - Hadn't thought of this trick!

whippinpost91850

Yeah I love this idea and gotta give it a try

Cricket

+1 on the compressor... very important for a lot of slide folks, including George.  I believe he favored the MXR Dyna Comp.

He also used open E and open D a lot, as well as plain ol' standard tuning.

As I understand it, Lowell George used to use two compressors for his "singing" tone.  That might be worth a try too.

riggy

Thanks for your replies...

I don't want to sound too stupid here but I thought there would be a similar sound that I could develop on the GR-55.  Although my tutor did tell me that the George Harrison sound is hard to achieve, if he favoured using a compressor, then I had better think about adding one to my setup.  I noticed there are three Dyna Compressor's available - are there any significant differences between the M132, M102 and the vintage CSP028.  It's all a rather steep learning curve for me but then again if it weren't for this forum I would guess I'd look even less intelligent...  ;)

Rich

Elantric

#6
If you own a GR55, im sure George Harrison tone can be coaxed out of the blue Roland with no need to buy more gear. Gr55 has compressors built in.

Open the PDF  GR55 manual and use search for "compressor"

And be sure to download the recent zip /rar file of 'All VGuitarForums GR55 patches" several there land you in Harrison Slide tone territory.

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3684.0

Cricket

If you are still looking for a place to start, maybe try this patch...

Just a clean strat set to C+F, a touch of delay and chorus, and, of course, the compressor.  More of a starting point but still kind of "George."

He seemed to like the R+C and C+F pickup settings a lot.   Some of the LIPS settings on the 55 work nicely too, I think.

A little sample attached.  My slide is metal, so there's a bit more "zing" in the tone than there should be.  George usually used glass.  Most of the "zing" would get lost in a mix, though.  This plain recording reveals all the sins  ;D