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RE: Roland guitar synth future



After 15 years or more using guitar synths, I agree with all of this
although it all becomes second nature and I don't have ton think about it
much.

EXCEPT the 'slurs, pull offs, hammer ons, rakes, and bends, and even most
strums' all do work for me with a correctly setup Axon AX100 system. 
Scrapes
and percussive noises don't, but all those tricks that result in a change 
in
pitch of the note do. As for piano and organ sounds, with pitch bend set to
retrigger notes at every semitone, bends come out well as typical keyboard
slurs.

Nik

--------- Original Message --------
From: billwalker@baymoon.com
To: "Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com"
<Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com>
Subject: RE: Roland guitar synth future
Date: 12/02/06 23:32

What I came to early on in my guitar synth experience was to play
to its strengths. I try to stay away from idiomatic guitar playing. I try 
to
play to the sound, and always use my fingers to apply myself more like a
keyboardist. I tend to use more long envelope pads sounds where precise
timing is not such an issue. and I love the sound of my nylon string guitar
with synth strings swelling underneath. I won't set up a piano patch with
pitch bend activated, so I can play blues bends with a grand piano sound.
I've tried it and it sounds hokey, and its more glitchy. If I play a piano,
marimba, or other percussive sound, I don't try to out run the tracking 
with
an overly fast tempo, and I usually blend the sound with guitar to minimize
the tracking issues. I'm also more apt to use my GR30's arpeggio function
for up tempo and dance stuff, any way, as I can have the unit track well at
any tempo. When recording, I minimize dead spots on my Roland equipped
guitar by using a groove tubes fat finger on the headstock, to provide more
mass and sustain, and help prevent glitching and yodeling ( the term I've
heard used for the spontaneous octave leaps at the end of certain notes as
they decay). I learned that long ago, when the first Roland guitar I had (a
white 2 humbucking guitar made for Roland, probably by Ibanez), had a 
couple
of horrible dead spots that kept making the Gr300 yodel as the sound
decayed. Some one suggested putting a c clamp on the headstock, and sure
enough that guitar sustained for days. Being somewhat impractical to have a
c clamp on the headstock, I eventually got a graphite neck made by Hohner 
to
put on it and that really cured the dead spot problems. These days I have 
an
internal gk pickup on my parts strat that has a huge maple neck that is 
very
stable. I also have an RMC in my flamenco guitar, and an external unit
mounted to my renaissance RS6. The last thing I wanted to mention regarding
the guitar synth in general, is, because the tracking is not so forgiving, 
I
find that I have to concentrate more on the little technical things to not
get frustrated. These include being more aware of correct finger placement,
more even in picking hand attack, using more care when moving from one 
place
to another on the fret board. But the reality is, all of the cool scrapes,
slurs, pull offs, hammer ons, rakes, and bends, and even most strums
guitarist are so fond of, don't work on midi guitar. But there is a world 
of
cool things they do, and the good news is this is relatively inexpensive
technology to dive in to if you don't mind buying used. Its just not for
everybody.
Bill

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