Live setup: using a guitar synth these days??? I guess so!

[BlackHatHunter]

Had a gig last night - my 8th in 11 days - and I needed something new. As the lead singer I'm basically tethered behind the mic, which is OK since I have ZERO dance moves

 

I use a TC Helicon VoiceLive GTX pedal and a Godin ACS-SA with nylon strings.The pedal provides both vocal and guitar effects.

 

Yesterday afternoon I stopped by my storage unit and stumbled upon my Roland GR-20 guitar synth. So I brought it home, and about an hour later I was gigging with it. Reactions:

 

1. It was fun playing All of me w/ a piano patch and seeing people in the bar looking around trying to find the piano player

2. Since the Godin comes w/ a built-in 13-pin connector, it's a clean look on the guitar and it interfaces perfectly w/ the synth.

3. Playing with a pick FAR increases the ability for the GR-20 to track the notes being played. I normally play only with my fingers but for this gig I changed it to accommodate the synth. It was worth it.

4. My favorite thing remains to mix a synth patch w/ the guitar tone. It "thickens" the sound. I play three-hour gigs, and I don't want people to listen to the same dang guitar sound all night. They're already stuck with my voice all night, for Pete's sake.

5. I love how changing patches is made easy because the Godin features two buttons - UP and DOWN - right on the guitar top. No need to crouch down and touch the GR-20.

6. My favorite patch was having an organ sound at about half the volume of the guitar sound. On slower songs it really gave it a nice full sound.

 

Would I use it again? I think so. I'm gonna give it another shot Wednesday. I have three gigs this week so it'll give me a better sample.

[pinyowat]

Awesome. Thanks for sharing. By the way, if you don't mind, can you take a clip of your next gig using the synth?

 

I have a Godin ACS as well. My synth is a GR55. I always have trouble with piano patches so I never use it live. Thanks for the tip about playing with a pick.

[aliensporebomb]

Cool story!

 

I use a lot of tech and quite frequently the sounds you hear from my guitar live go WAY beyond electric guitar. It gives more tonal variety and by adding synth type pads below chording on the guitar you get a thicker fuller lusher overall sound that makes for a bigger overall sound in general.

 

I'm using a Fender Strat with built in GK pickup into a Roland VG-99 with a Boss FC-300 looper for most of the stuff I'm doing but these two tracks came from a gig I did at an Art-Crawl where a lot of people were walking around looking at art they were thinking of buying:

 

This:

https://soundcloud.com/aliensporebomb/absolute-territory-live-at-art-a-whirl-2014

 

and this:

https://soundcloud.com/aliensporebomb/clouds-of-crowds-live-at-art-a-whirl-2014

 

By using a looper I can sound pretty much like most of a band or a one man Pink Floyd as one audience member called me.

 

 

 

[Ancient Mariner]

Nice going - it's fun to make people do a second take.

 

I used a GR33 with an xtSA for a while. My favourite approach would be to either use a patch with a slow volume rise, so that faster rhythm parts would suppress the synth until the notes were allowed to ring, or to use wind instrument patches and try to solo like a sax or flute. Never could get the hang of piano parts though - just couldn't get the right chord shapes, my technique was too messy & it would glitch too much.

[BlackHatHunter]

I think that adapting your phrasing to the target instrument is key. Lucky me, I was a sax and piano player before I was a guitar player, so that's helped me better understand how I would play a part on the target instrument.

 

Thanks for the links to recorded music. I'm dying to use a looper as well, but it's starting to get awful crowded on the floor

[AlamoJoe]

Cool story!

 

I use a lot of tech and quite frequently the sounds you hear from my guitar live go WAY beyond electric guitar. It gives more tonal variety and by adding synth type pads below chording on the guitar you get a thicker fuller lusher overall sound that makes for a bigger overall sound in general.

 

I'm using a Fender Strat with built in GK pickup into a Roland VG-99 with a Boss FC-300 looper for most of the stuff I'm doing but these two tracks came from a gig I did at an Art-Crawl where a lot of people were walking around looking at art they were thinking of buying:

 

This:

https://soundcloud.com/aliensporebomb/absolute-territory-live-at-art-a-whirl-2014

 

and this:

https://soundcloud.com/aliensporebomb/clouds-of-crowds-live-at-art-a-whirl-2014

 

By using a looper I can sound pretty much like most of a band or a one man Pink Floyd as one audience member called me.

 

 

 

I couldn't access those tunes from the link, but I think that just may be IE. I've heard both of them from Soundcloud though, where I follow you alien...Those tunes were all YOU???? Wow...Now I'm even more impressed than I already was!