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My VG99 Experience.....


aliensporebomb

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Okay.

 

Here we go. Crossposted from another forum but very appropriate to the

subject.

 

So, twas at a family birthday party for yours truly and found myself expecting the unexpected.

 

After getting a bunch of gag gifts I got this:

 

expecttheunexpected.jpg

Holy moly, I didn't see that coming. Not at all. I'd shown the wife the unit at Guitar Center once some months before but I hadn't actually expected her to buy the damned thing. Apparently the whole family went in on the thing which brought a tear to this asb's eye.

 

entirerig.JPG

The real concern once I got this monster set-up was what guitar was going to get modified or molested to get the GK3 pickup attached. I did some real quick thinking: Ibanez? I didn't want to mar the top and I wanted it on a guitar with a whammy and I wanted it to be removable so it could go back to stock.

 

That left Heartfield or Jackson.

 

ex2-body.jpg

The distance from the bottom of the body to the tremelo allen screws was too short. So scratch the Heartfield then.

 

That left the Jackson. From what I could tell, the space between the bridge and the treble pickup ring was too short. Kinda sorta. I also wanted to be able to go back to stock so that meant no screws or bolts involved.

 

guitarincase.JPG

 

The guitar body had sufficient distance to accommodate the GK3A hardware, the treble pickup issue wasn't a problem once I removed all four screws and moved the pickup ring and pickup several millimeters to the north. Tonally there was no change at all.

 

guitarbody.JPG

 

I'm using clear packing tape as a temporary way of affixing the hex pickup in place - then it is keeping the treble pickup in that "few mm to the north" position. I don't want to reinsert the screws since that means I can't go back to stock if I want.

 

I've found this guy:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Pickup-mounting-plate-...93%3A1|294%3A30

 

It's a replacement pickup mounting ring with an extension so you can screw the hex pickup onto it then screw the pickup ring in place. I MIGHT go this route but then again I might not.

 

closeviewofgk3mount.JPG

Looking again, the GK mount is held in place at the bottom of the guitar by the strap pin. The front of the guitar is protected by two LARGE foam pieces.

 

Honestly, I want to remove these pieces and just have the GK more flush with the front of the guitar body - the underside of the GK's backside has a kind of soft fabric to hold it in place. But if I found a foam piece with half the thickness that would work better...

 

As it is it's well padded however.....

 

This way? It sits kind of high on the guitar and I've had to resort to using the original case for the guitar (I did a little switcheroo: the Heartfield is now in the Jackson [nicer] case and the Jackson is back in the case for my old Charvel Model 4) so the case can be closed with the GK3 mounted without damage to either the GK3 or the guitar.

 

Another view more "to the rear of the body":

gk3mountrear.JPG

 

From the top:

hexpickuptemporarymount.JPG

 

Okay, so you all are wondering what this sounds like - click away:

http://pod.ath.cx/vg99/Rigsby%20Reloaded-24-final.mp3

 

This one is "Rigsby Reloaded", a re-working of an existing tune.

© 2009 Todd Madson all rights reserved.

 

The entire session is:

-drumloop from my original "blues for rigsby smith" track.

-First guitar track is the distorted rhythm/lead while simultaneously having a kind of ambient synth-guitar tracking along. That also means when the lead happens there's a synthy echo tracking along with it like a subtle doubling.

 

Check the fast part of the solo, if I dig in and play harder you hear more of the synth alongside, lighter playing just regular guitar.

 

-Second guitar track is bass guitar from the GK on the low E and A string of my guitar. Sounds a lot like the bass part I played on the original with a six string bass, just on a different guitar/device.

 

-Third guitar track is kind of a doubled clean regular guitar with a piezo type guitar sound alongside.

 

-The clean guitar is squeaky clean if you solo it in the track, the original version of the track was really kind of noisy.

 

-Post-solo there's a descending chord progression with the distorted guitar, ambient synth, clean guitar and piezo guitar all playing the same part,

sounds nice and thick and choclatey.

 

That's just FOUR stereo tracks (two pairs) because the distorted guitar and ambient synth were happening at once and the clean/ambient was

another stereo pair.

 

So this whole session was a stereo pair for the drum loop, a stereo pair for the distorted guitar/ambient synth, stereo pair for the clean/piezo guitar and another for the bass guitar part.

 

In fact, with my regular guitar rig combined I've got two sets of stereo outs going into a mixer and the mixer is digitally connected to my computer for recording.

 

If I had to play this live, being able to layer and "self overdub" will be a great way of sounding bigger and more powerful in a mix.

I could definetely go play live with just a drummer and have guitar, bass, synths all going at once from this box.

 

I've barely scratched the surface of this box, it's going to be GREAT for recording and the sound quality is only going to further improve my music.

 

 

Check it out!

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Congrats on the VG-99. I had one since they were introduced and they are the king of processors. I have to admit I sold mine a couple of months ago and dove in on the VG-Strat sell out and bought a GT-10. But I miss some the simple tricks you can do with a VG-99 to help on stage.

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I thought about the VG strat but to be honest there are many things the VG strat should be able to do but cannot (GR300 emulation, synthy stuff, MIDI

output, etc).

 

If the VG strat had the full capability of the VG99 I might have gone that direction.

 

But, as it happens I'm very happy with what I've got now. Lots of things I can do now that I would have had to do with massive layering - my

music can be laid down much faster now due to the built in layering in the box alongside my existing rig.

 

So, there's a possibility for the live aliensporebomb experience to really have that thick layered overdubbed thing I do on the studio side but live.

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I thought about the VG strat but to be honest there are many things the VG strat should be able to do but cannot (GR300 emulation, synthy stuff, MIDI

output, etc).


If the VG strat had the full capability of the VG99 I might have gone that direction.


But, as it happens I'm very happy with what I've got now. Lots of things I can do now that I would have had to do with massive layering - my

music can be laid down much faster now due to the built in layering in the box alongside my existing rig.


So, there's a possibility for the live aliensporebomb experience to really have that thick layered overdubbed thing I do on the studio side but live.

 

 

I agree that the VG Strat is much more limited. My issue was that I had no quality guitar, matter of fact I had pretty junky guitars. So selling VG-99 and accessories and buying a closeout VG Strat/GT-10 combo gave me a great American Strat, and it cost me no money. Plus I get to use my old effects pedals too, some of which I way missed.

 

The things I miss the most out of the VG-99 are odd little things: The ability to totally mute strings out, which helps TONS on live performances where you want to show a little more motion on the stage but don't want unwanted strings ringing. The polyphonic distortion is missed too sometimes. I also miss the PDS-10 stand. I liked having the VG-99 hip-high.

 

Good luck with your VG-99..I miss mine, but at the same time I'm happy with my rig now.

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