VG-8 - Tear for Fears using VG8 in 1995?

Started by bosetuno, December 13, 2018, 04:41:57 AM

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bosetuno

A recent auction in the UK showed some equipment from the Tear for Fears Kings of Spain Tour, and there where some VG8 on offer.

I´m not sure if they where using them on the tour, but I can see a hex pick up in this video

Smash


bosetuno


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#3






GK Pickups on both guitars

If that tour was summer 1995  -  yes they could be using original 1995 Roland VG-8

The 1st appearance of Roland VG-8 was 1995 Winter NAMM, and 1st articles were shipping that summer

by 1996 VG-8 was shipping in higher numbers

The Bowie Earthling Album with Reeves Gabrels on VG-8 (a VG-8 showcase) was recorded in 1996  - release Feb 1997
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthling_(album)
   


bosetuno

#4
In the Bowie Outside Tour Reeves Gabrels was already using it. The outside album was realeased in 1995, but unless Revees was given a prototype for the recording I dont think it was on time for this album. BTW, my fav album from the 90s! and my fav Bowie Album!!!



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#5
Quote from: bosetuno on December 13, 2018, 07:45:32 AM
In the Bowie Outside Tour Reeves Gabrels was already using it. The outside album was realeased in 1995, but unless Revees was given a prototype for the recording I dont think it was on time for this album. BTW, my fav album from the 90s! and my fav Bowie Album!!!





T 5:40 minutes - The "painted" VG-8 can be clearly seen at the feet of Reeves Gabrels in that video


Hes playing a custom Parker with GK PU   driving  the VG-8 & GR-09 with a US-20 A/B/Y Switcher
https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/digital-modeling-the-potiential-bowie-live-in-97-with-reeves-gabrels.1810865/
Quote from: jageya, post: 23818895, member: 145212i remember him making his presets avail for the vg8 group.....wish i still had them
Actually someone at the old VG-8 group purchased Mr Gabrels VG-8 patches in 1998 when he was selling them on his web site, then they shared them at Aure's VG-8.com site   -without authorization from Mr Gabrels.

He talks about this in old interviews.
and the reason Reeves Gabrels stopped using the VG-8 was because he felt very let down by Roland when he experienced repeated failure of the 13 pin cable, and nobody at Roland support could deliver him a spare cable in a timely manner mid tour.

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=17777.0






QuoteDuring that period I was using the Roland VG-8 with the Parker guitar I had on the cover of Guitar Player magazine.

reves and parker
(excellent detailed breakdown of his live VG-8 / GR-09 rig in that issue

It had a sustainer which solved the Note On/Note Off problem: one of the glitching problems with guitar synthesizers is that when the note dies it goes through the harmonic series, whereas if you use the sustainer on the fundamental, you get the Note On until you stop it.

That guitar didn't produce any analog sound (the humbucker was just to drive the sustainer) except for the transducer pickup, which I ran into an Prescription Electronics Experience Fuzz, into a DI, straight to the house board. That was a great sound if you wanted to go full on industrial.


From 1996 on, I started to think of the PA as my amp, even though I had two 600-watt power amps and four 4x12s on stage. The cabs weren't miked, they were just for monitoring; everything went straight from the VG-8 to the house. I had three VG-8s: A, B, and a spare. I rewrote all their presets. Since I got no help from Roland, I painted them so you couldn't tell what they were.

I switched to Parkers when I started with Bowie's solo stuff, because I knew Ken Parker from when I worked for Fishman in Boston, back when it was a two man operation. I was using the Parker prototypes when I did a record with David Tronzo (we are probably going to do another one after twenty years). Ken would give me a prototype and say, "See if you can break this. Tell me what's wrong with it." A DiMarzio Norton ended up in the neck by mistake; we had meant to put a PAF Pro there but we ended up liking the way the Norton sounded.

--
https://www.guitar.com/articles/reeves-gabrels-scary-monsters-and-other-nasty-noises

Here's another example of my e-commerce experience. I'm selling downloads of all my own VG-8 programs that I wrote myself and used on the albums with David - 65 of them for $49, as opposed to Roland's price of $150 for theirs. Some little twit bought them from my site [www.reevesgabrels.com] and now he's selling them on e-bay for $20. Hats off to him for being that inventive, for being that much of a little con man. The irony [Gabrels laughs] is that because I have to process people's credit card information when they buy things from my site, I know where he lives.