A Distant Last

[horacejesse]

I have read this entire thread and was in awe the whole way. Everyone on here is so far ahead of me in the recording technology department that it is pretty intimidating.In fact I am so far behind that, alack, the thread cannot even educate me because far too much goes right over my head. Instead of jumping in and gobbling everything up all I can do is sit back and pick my spots, acquiring such disjointed information as I may until at some time in the future I will have enough pieces that will connect.The torturous odyssey of Slimcharm was worth the price of admission by itself. Who could look forward to the day they will have to go through that, even if they emerge on the other side with more knowledge?Like I said, my ignorance has such stature that it is difficult to know where to begin. There is so much knowledge on this forum of exactly the kind I do not have.I guess I could start with guitar synthesizers. I just bought a Roland GR-33, and so have a very modest understanding here.I imagine other folks on here have worked with guitar synthesizers before. What do you think of them in general? For what do you consider them useful and for what are they worthless?

[aubreyz]

Don't be discouraged. Just continue to read, listen, and learn. The terms and concepts will begin to make sense. You'll probably find that the "light switches" click pretty fast once they get going. There are really not all that many basic concepts to master. It's like looking at a mixer with dozens of channels - the sheer number of knobs and buttons can seem overwhelming, but in reality you only have to master the understanding of one channel - one column of knobs and buttons.As far as guitar synths... not my thing, but I'm sure you'll get some good input.Aub

[andreh]

Horace-Aub is right; one piece at a time, and it'll all come together. Besides, you don't have to know more than (or even as much as) anyone else to make great music; just know your own tools, and when you need something more you tackle those new tools, too.As for guitar synths, they serve two purposes in my view:1. To trigger non-guitar type sounds in your setup, so you can play, for instance, a piano line even though you only know how to physically play the guitar. Of course, the voicing, phrasing, rhythms, and other musical aspects of various instruments vary from one to the next, so you have to make efforts to play your guitar like the instruments you're emulating (which is not physically possible in some cases, but you can always edit your MIDI data [the digital representation of your performance] after the fact).2. To sound like Pat Matheny.Either one of these goals is a worthy endeavor! Andre

[davewalton]

Quote:The torturous odyssey of Slimcharm was worth the price of admission by itself. Who could look forward to the day they will have to go through that, even if they emerge on the other side with more knowledge?Slimcharm's Odyssey. Ahhh... those were the good old days. That was educational, informational, crazy and fun. An example of the Taxi forum at its best. My "odyssey", although I didn't go through it on these boards, was "virtual instruments". Coming from the analog 70's and 80's, the concept of having all my hardware now being non-existant and somehow inside my computer, mixing board, effects, synthesizers and all, was a real mind-blower. I sure wouldn't want to go through that again, but I'm glad I did. Speaking for myself, I know my setup fairly well and there is where my expertise ends. Even within my own setup, I only know it as a series of preset selections, only a few of which I've taken the time to experiment with and modify. So I can carry on a fairly intelligent discussion about Sonar, Reason, EWQL Symphonic Orchestra, etc and I've discovered how to make all that sound pretty good in my own little universe. I get lost very quickly in general discussions about things like compression thresholds and ratios. Anyway, you're off to a good start I think.Dave

[roughly]

Horacejesse,Like everyone else said, it all comes one step at a time. If you try to swallow it all at one time it won't stick. Just work your way up to where you need to be in order to be creative and sound good, you don't have to go much further than that.I'd love to hear your feedback on the GR-33. We haven't had too much luck with guitar synths, but we know people who are great with it. I'm sure a lot has to do with the player. We've used it before with string sections and had some luck with it. It helped the sound of the string section,but we had such a hard time setting it up and consistently working that it wasn't worth it. But i'd love to hear your experience with it.Good luck!Theresa

[horacejesse]

Theresa,The GR-33 can be both rewarding and frustrating. It seems to be very good at some things and not so good at others.I really like it for drums and percussion of all kinds. It is also good at flutes and whistles.The pianos on it are excellent, though fraught with difficulties for the guitarist. It takes extreme care not to introduce unwanted sounds from the fingerboard, and sometimes that is not enough. By sometimes I think I mean usually. Keeping it simple and not too fast seems to be a key idea for the GR-33 pianos. I tried out the opening passages from Debussy's arabesque in E major on all the pianos, and it sounds great until...SQUAWK, BOING or some other unexpected sound jumps out unexpectedly. On slower pieces this is easier to avoid or at least limit.These random sounds can actually occur with any patch on the machine. Even its drum patches which I adore are not exempt. Everything is going great until...BOING or SQUEAK goes the snare drum. Sometimes these accidents are fortuitous and provide pleasant surprises in the music. But a kick drum that sounds like a bongo at a key moment is not one of those happy surprises.The patches are quite tweakable, sometimes providing a meausre of control over problems such as unwanted sounds. But overall I think a guitarist will simply have to live with these things and resign himself/herself to often doing things over until the accidents fall in happy places, because from what I have seen so far there is no avoiding them 100% of the time.The great shortcoming is stringed instruments, although I have not tried out the "string" sections yet. I don't like any of the guitar sounds so far, the banjo was so-so and OK as long as you do not try to get fancy. Pull-offs (a mainstay of banjo) are worthless and rotten.Well, I don't want to write a novela here. Thanks for your post and happy recording to you

[roughly]

Thanks Horace for all of the comments. It sounds like your experience is pretty similar to mine. Where you think it might be working and then out of the blue it does some crazy stuff. And when you try to recreate the crazy stuff it acts normal, go figure. We've actually never used the sounds on it so I'm not familiar with the tones of the unit itself. We've only used it to record midi into the computer and then use our own soft synths for tones. So we were at least able to fix the midi if it acted up during a performance. At first we thought it might have been the pick-up part that attaches to the guitar. We velcro-d it on because we didn't want it permanently on any one guitar. So we borrowed a Brian Moore midi guitar from the local music shop (it's great to be friends with the local music store) It might have been slightly better but we still had some problems. Then we borrowed the GR-33 too, we were using the GR-20 I think at first, but again, slightly better but not the panacea of MIDI-osity we were hoping for. So, long story short, the midi guitar stuff went back on the shelf to collect dust (luckily we didn't buy it, the GR-20 was collateral from a non-paying client, which I would much rather have been payed, but so it goes). But with all that said we have a good friend who uses the guitar synth all the time. He performs live with it and loops it up and plays piano tones with it. And you never hear a boing or squeak when he plays. He also practices guitar 6 hours a day for the last 25 years so that might have something to do with it. But until we get to that point or the hardware improves we'll stick with keyboards.Hope you are able to get some use out of it. Let me know if you ever find a magic button to make it all easier!Theresa

[horacejesse]

No magic buttons yet, Theresa. But I have read that a Paizo pickup will reduce unwanted sounds.A trick I have discovered for guitar players is to hold the pick so closely that your thumb and index finger actually rub continually on the string you are playing. Don't know why it works to reduce unwanted sounds but I can say that for me it has.I get a lot of use out of the GR-33. At this point I want to actually play the sounds I get. Personally, I do not want to use a bunch of loops.

[horacejesse]

Does anyone know of a unit which is not strictly virtual which does effects anything like the SpectraSonics Atmosphere? The impression I got was that "Atmosphere" is strictly virtual.Dave Walton introduced me to Atmosphere and I was well impressed with it and what he did with it on one of my pieces as an example.

[aubreyz]

Quote:Does anyone know of a unit which is not strictly virtual which does effects anything like the SpectraSonics Atmosphere? The impression I got was that "Atmosphere" is strictly virtual.Dave Walton introduced me to Atmosphere and I was well impressed with it and what he did with it on one of my pieces as an example.I'm not getting what you mean by strictly virtual. Are you looking for a piece of hardware as opposed to software?Aub