Guitar synths - ever used one?

[Phil O'Keefe]

If not, what has kept you from trying one?

 

What are the biggest concerns you have about guitar synths?

 

Any particular favorite models?

 

Whether or not you've tried one, what features would you want in your ideal guitar synth / controller?

 

 

[Les Paul Lover]

The only synth I've sort of tried, and bought the pedal especially for it, is the digitech supernatural for its shimmer effect.

Mixing the synth octave up and reverb makes for great ethereal sounds.

 

Using synth in general with other calls for a lot of practice, and they usually are only useful for very few parts.

Electro harmonic has a few ones on offer, but it's pretty pricey to the overage guitarist to use on perhaps one or 2 songs in a set.

 

Which one are you reviewing?

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

Which one are you reviewing?

 

I didn't post with any particular guitar synth in mind - I have reviewed a couple of the EHX pedals you mentioned (the B9 Organ Machine and MEL9 "mellotron" sim.), and I recently did a review of the EastWest MIDI Guitar library (Volumes 1-5) for the Fishman TriplePlay controller.

 

 

[Les Paul Lover]

I say pretty pricey for one or 2 songs in a set..... and I haven't managed to incorporate the Supernatural into a song yet..... working on it!!!!

[Etienne Rambert]

If not' date=' what has kept you from trying one?[/quote']

 

Guitar synths sound unique. But I'd rather use keyboard-triggered synths. They cost less & are much more powerful.

 

What are the biggest concerns you have about guitar synths?

 

Cost/benefit. See above.

 

Any particular favorite models?

 

No. But Roland makes good gear.

 

Whether or not you've tried one, what features would you want in your ideal guitar synth / controller?

 

 

Never tried one.

[gardo]

Never tried one. I did have an interest in an organ synth but it would only end up in the drawer of unused pedals after about a week ..

I like the clean sound of a guitar. I might like a synth that actually sounded exactly like a tenor sax ?

But it too would end up in the drawer after a week or so

[catscurlyear]

i like the idea of thishttps://www.jamorigin.com/ i once tried it on the pc and it works ,there is a bit of latency, although i may not have spent enough time on it to get the full potential out of it but i like the idea of not needing a midi pickup or controller to get synth sounds . i do a bit of recording on cubase and i do like to have synth sounds when i feel like it . i have a guitar midi controller pickup shadow sh075 it used to be fine but has started playing up a bit recently so it may time for a change. i like the idea of the stepp guitar synth or synth axe where the notes are triggered by your fret hand and the picking is for touch sensitiveness ,the B9 Organ Machine seems a bit limited in sounds to dedicate an whole amp to it ,

[Grant Harding]

I've tried a couple, but that was years ago. The tracking didn't sound or feel right to me. I'm sure they're miles better now.

 

My take on them is life many things - right tool for the job. I've never liked "guitar" patches on synths either. I prefer my "out there" guitar sounds to still be firmly planted in the guitar world, so a hex pickup is not for me.

[badpenguin]

ok, used the Roland G300, G700, Gr20, GR33, and currently use a GR1. Really considering a GR55 right now.

​I have some experience with them as you can tell. Out of the used, I LOVED the G300 the best for tracking. You couldn't make it mistrack, no matter how hard you tried. BUT it was monophonic. Also used the VG8, but found the modeling lacking. Although it did have some really cool tones.

​The current one I am using, the GR1, I think has some nice tracking, and some decent tones, considering it's 20 years old. And there is always MIDI, for adding voices.

​I do have a Roland GR700 Controller guitar, (yea, the funky thing with the arm) and also use a 73 Aria 1922 SG copy, with a GK3 pickup.

 

​I just love the fact I can bend a piano, or create arpeggios at the touch of a button/footswitch.

[bookumdano4]

My first guitar synth (shut up if you're calculating my age) was a brand spanking new Arp Avatar and hex pickup which I drilled into one of my strats. This was 1978...maybe 1977.

 

Needless to say, it sucked. Don't let anyone fool you... even the stupid fuzzbox effect via 6 pickup poles malarky was......sucky. I soon abandoned the idea of using the guitar and instead, used the Avatar as a slave Odyssey via cv/gate connections on it (since the Avatar was basically an Arp Odyssey).

 

I was/am a keyboard player anyway, so it didn't matter a lot... other than the three thousand dollar price of the Avatar.

 

I took a breath and in 1990 or so, bought whatever the Roland thing was with its hex pickup and floor module... which was basically a crummy sounding sc55 sound canvas as far as the available sounds. I screwed the pickup onto a Les Paul for that trip.

 

Sucked. I really hated that system. Tracking was terrrible, the sc55 sounds were terrible.....overall...pretty much no better than the Arp 12 or so years earlier.

 

I'm done with guitar synths, if for no other reason than I'm as great a keyboard player as I am guitar player.

 

It's like why use a Hoover to pick up a rock when you can just use your hand (r.i.p the "Hoover Suck(s)" thread)

[onelife]

I started with the GR-500 in the late '70s

 

 

I expected to be able to do 'anything' with it and kept working at it even though it was a mono synth (with a hex fuzz that could be dynamically filtered and blended with the synth sound) and required modified guitar technique to get glitch free synth sounds. I eventually sold it in wha turned out to be a futile effort to purchase a Yamaha Electric Grand piano.

 

In the mid '80s I was working in a music store and was invited to a Roland show where Michel Cusson of the band Uzeb was demonstrating the GR-700 with the 'hockey stick' guitar.

 

 

I was impressed with the GR-700 in the hands of such a fine player. I eventually joined a band that had a GR-700 (that was part of the reason I joined) and we tried to do the popular club music of the day. I had a Roland JX3P which has the same synth engine as the GR-700 so I was already familier with that aspect of it.

 

Although it was much better than the GR-500 for tracking and was polyphonic, it still required some adjustments to technique. As a piano player I found it much easier to access the full potental of synthesizers with a keyboard rather than guitar so I gave up on guitar synths for a while.

 

Several years ago a freind of mine gave me a GR09 and a guitar with Roland's GK1 pickup.

 

 

I began using it as a MIDI interface between the guitar (I eventually put the GK1 on a strat with a whammy bar) and my MacBook. The GR09 could be setup to output the MIDI information from each individual string on any MIDI channel. Omnisphere is really fun with different sounds on different individual or combinations of strings.

 

I've never used the GR09/MIDI system onstage and eventually took the pickup off of my strat - again losing interest in the guitar synth.

 

I have an iPad now so I'm considering getting back into it and using it with a band. A compact audio/MIDI interface for the iPad along with a Roland ready guitar and a few cables would be nice and tidy. I read where Godin claims their SA (synth access) guitars have the best tracking ever I decided to try one out.

 

I found a Godin XTSA Rosewood in a music store.

 

 

As guitar it was excellent. A good hybrid with Les Paul and Stratocaster personalities as well as a usable acoustic sound from a special bridge picukup system which also provideds the synth circuit with signal. One day I brought the GR09 into the store and I was really impressed with the Godin as a controller. I only played it with the built in synth sound but I routed the electric pickups through a Blues Deluxe, the acoustic through a Fishman Loud Box and the GR09 in stereo through a couple of floor monitors. It certainly seemed doable.

 

I went back to the store a week later to negotiate for the Godin guitar but it was gone. They brought another one in but, as a guitar, it did not speak to me the same way the first one did.

 

After reconnecting with my long lost SY85 keyboard synth I'm thinking more about keyboard access but I'm considering going the guitar route and I'm keeping an eye out for another good Godin (or equivalent) guitar controller.

[onelife]

I felt the same way (see my post below) but I'm noticing now, with newer and better technology, the the guitar synth is becoming a viable instrument itself.

 

I would not try to play keyboard parts on it - I would simply use a keyboard - but I'm interested in what can be done with different sounds, including some percussion, on each string.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Onelife, have you ever looked at the Fishman TriplePlay system? The tracking is terrific, and you can use it with an existing guitar... but you need to use a computer with it - you can't drive a module with it directly without using a computer.

[AlamoJoe]

All I know is I watched Jeff Beck performing not that long ago....And he did not have a keyboard player. He had a fellow playing all the keyboard parts on a Godin like the one onelife pictured above and the fellow was totally nailing the keyboard parts with it.

 

Traditionally, Jeff has always had some BadAss keyboard players. And this guy was killing it on that Godin.

 

[Mr.Grumpy]

I've always been interested in one, especially after hearing and seeing Pat Metheny perform with one. I've only gotten to try out a Roland setup once back in the mid to late 80s. I really liked it but it was out of my price range.

 

Big drawbacks for me are price and availability. It's really rare to see one set up in a music store to try out, in my experience. If I was going to take the plunge, I think I'd want a hexaphonic pickup. The newer guitar "synths-in-a-box" look promising, but I haven't tried one.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Big drawbacks for me are price and availability. It's really rare to see one set up in a music store to try out, in my experience.

 

And if you can't try one out, it makes it a lot more of a gamble to try buying one because you don't know if you're going to like it or not.

 

If I was going to take the plunge, I think I'd want a hexaphonic pickup. The newer guitar "synths-in-a-box" look promising, but I haven't tried one.

 

The "problem" with some of the synth in a box stuff (like the EHX 9 series) is that you're often limited to what is in the box. Want more? Buy another box... With a hex setup, you're more likely to have a MIDI out on the box, so you can also use it to drive other synth modules or softsynths, so expansion is easier. If you just need to do some occasional organ, mellowtron or synth stuff, the EHX boxes are great... if you want to go deeper and expansion is important to you, they may not be the best avenue to take.

 

 

[Chordite]

OK I need educating here.

I have a couple of Korgs DSS-1 and M1 and would like to know:

If a midi guitar can drive them through a 'midi in' as if another keyboard (like pitch wheel signal for bends and velocity signal or if the whole midi guitar thing works in a different way?

[Phil O'Keefe]

OK I need educating here.

I have a couple of Korgs DSS-1 and M1 and would like to know:

If a midi guitar can drive them through a 'midi in' as if another keyboard (like pitch wheel signal for bends and velocity signal or if the whole midi guitar thing works in a different way?

 

If you have a guitar synth with a MIDI out jack on it, or a computer with the same (and a way to feed MIDI guitar into the computer, such as the Fishman TriplePlay), then you can connect it to your current keyboards and use the guitar instead of a keyboard to trigger their sounds. Pitch bend range and response (2 steps, octave, or whatever you prefer) would need to be set on the controller and on the keyboard too. It's no different than any other MIDI controller, except it's a guitar, not a keyboard.

[WRGKMC]

I had an old Fender made system which included a hex pickup and midi box which connected to a computer. Its was pretty much junk. It had major issues locking in on a string and the latency was horrible, nothing like the newer systems they have today.

 

One of these days I'd like to find one of those Keytar's which are a guitar shaped keyboard. I can play regular keyboards a bit but may hands were trained to play stringed instruments at such an early age. The notes on a keyboard are backwards for a guitarist. Its not too bad with the right hand but the left reaches up in pitch with the pinky and it reaches down in pitch on a keyboard. It takes me a long time to retrain my hand to work backwards.

 

I like the idea of having switches on the fret board instead of strings. There have been many attempts to wire the frets and strings into a switch matrix which I believe could be the best solution for midi instruments. I've seen some where the pick strings and fretted notes are separate too.

 

The cost is the biggest factor. The add on units have gotten good enough to where that's the best solution at this point. I'm surprised companies like Yamaha and Casio have done more to develop quality midi instruments. They made a few attempts but like their inexpensive keyboards they were mostly plastic junk. If they took a wood instrument and loaded the technology into it, it could be something that might endure the rigors of playing live. Maybe even have a matching amp and computer interface which integrates with the instrument via blue tooth. Today people want to be able to do it all, play live, record and shape things from portable devices.

[Chordite]

Found this guy using a Midi Guitar to drive a Korg Triton and a couple of other synths. To fast to get a feel for the responses but still interesting.

[video=youtube_share;OqUrKpaQA9M]

[onelife]

Here's an example from Michel Cusson with Uzeb from about 25 years ago.

 

Some nice 'Weather Report meets Mahavishnu' stuff in the second piece.

 

[video=youtube_share;nnCcv-LhIxc]

[1001gear]

This is my favorite synthy album.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Run

 

Has 5 keyboard credits though so I'm wondering if HE ever used one.

[Phil O'Keefe]

This is my favorite synthy album.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Run

 

Has 5 keyboard credits though so I'm wondering if HE ever used one.

 

 

I remember that record. Considering Lee's holding a SynthAxe on the cover, I think it's probably a safe bet that he used it on the record.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I had an old Fender made system which included a hex pickup and midi box which connected to a computer. Its was pretty much junk. It had major issues locking in on a string and the latency was horrible, nothing like the newer systems they have today.

 

 

Outside of their partnerships with Roland on various GK-ready Strats, I don't remember a Fender hex pickup based MIDI guitar... do you recall the name of it? I'd like to learn more about that one - not to own (especially since you said it wasn't very good) but just for the sake of curiosity.

[doublecross]

Started back when the Roland GR-1 came out. Mid 80s? Using the GR-55 these days, Nice unit, I can see no reason you cant edit any sound you want with it, Old fart like me keeps it pretty simple though, I think the biggest thing people don't realize is you actually need to play your guitar differently in many cases, Say if using a piano setting? Ever seen someone strum a piano?