Jump to content

high tech guitar effects?


samal50

Recommended Posts

  • Members

Does it exist? Seems as if the rock sound is stuck in that same old loud and distortion sound. If rock music wants to progress, I think something high tech and something that will catch peope's attention the way the EDM sound has caught up is to have that sound that grabs people's attention. Just my opinion. Production and playing technique may come in play but I think a different soundtrack is long overdue. Then again anything that may sound too high tech and inorganic may fall under "electronica" and not "rock". But how do you keep it in "rock" mode? I think the problem with rock music is that bands are still trying to play and sound like their heroes and some attempt to sound retro. That seems like backwards instead of moving forward. There's some good rock bands out there but it isn't enough for a new invasion. Lots of music are weak these days, I think it's time for rock to make a real comeback.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Outside of changing guitar tones to something new / modern / fresh, what do you think it would take for rock to make such a comeback?

 

As far as new and different tones, have you experimented with a guitar synth controller at all? Yes, you can go "EDM" with that, but it also opens up an entire world of new and different sounds to a guitarist.

 

What sorts of new sounds are you envisioning? :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

If anything is esoteric sounding it becomes "obscure" or "experimental". I guess I don't really know what the sound I am looking for that could make an impact and "modernize" the guitar sound.

 

1001gear, I'm trying to envision "tones that do what you want in real time", how do you "tell" the "tone" it is what you want? By where your finger is on the fret board and which string and so on? An effect that is intelligent enough to recognize and therefore mutates in tones depending on which string, fret, and or speed/strum your hands are doing?

 

I could think of a sound where if the lower your tone is, the heavier it should sound, effect wise, then the higher your tone is, it becomes lush (?) without sounding cheesing or too esoteric.

 

Phil, almost all distortion is a distortion, and a wah is a wah, etc. I can't quite think of a new sound since it hasn't been made so I won't know how it will all play out. I don't know why companies still put out "latest" pedals that all have the same things I owned 10 years ago in a different box and different marketing strategy.

 

Maybe the guitar is not meant to make a big giant leap as I'd like to imagine it. Maybe production and playing technique is what determines contemporary or modern.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Control might be a slight issue although numerous physical as well as rudimentary EEG/VR type interfaces exist. The problem is the tones and sounds themselves are "mono" algorithmic. They only have rudimentary response - vibrato, volume, filter, etc... regardless of control source. Extrapolate to the FX level and you have basically the same do nothing, thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I get fresh guitar tones anytime I plug in.You really aren't even trying if you think the tone bank has been robbed. Through untold unrehearsed combinations of synth, multi-fx, single pedals and looper tech, I push the known envelope everytime.No this isn't EDM, and

High gain is the only other ingredient.You don't have to be rich to innovate, but you do need to be persistent.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

With midi a guitar doesn't even have to sound like a guitar any more. Same with just about all keyboards too. They can produce any instrument tones including percussion.

 

I do think you have to separate music genre for musical tone in this case. Its true, if you want music to sound like its vintage, the easiest way to get that is by using vintage sound sources. But music is more then just the tones. Rock music is a specific genre and there are certain elements in the musical composition that give it a rock sound. You may use the same instruments and tones in other types of music from jazz to blues, to alternative and metal.

 

I think rock is simply a combination of many other bits and pieces of other musical types. Even the original Rock and Roll came form bands copying the Big Band stuff. When they didn't have horns they copied the horns with their voices and got the doo wap thing going.

 

All music has earlier roots and much of it contains new elements based on the new players playing it. There are very few pure strains of music that are not influenced buy others. Bach and Mozart had their competitors during their time and many would copy or attempt to borrow elements of each others music. If they were lucky they stumbled upon something new in their time that made history. If not they wound up being no more then performers popular during their time and quickly forgotten.

 

This brings you back to music writing in all cases. Its highly unlikely during this age to be considered a great artist unless you write at least some music. You can play copy music forever and can be locally popular but what do you leave behind? If you like Rock as I'm sure many others do including myself, there is likely a big market for it. Writing something truly new in that genre may not be easy but its where the new sounds that accompany it come from. You can intrepid other peoples music if you want too giving it new tones as well.

 

How far you can go making something new, is really a limitation of the instrument itself. Go too far and it no longer sounds like a plucked string. Get too strange and peoples ears cant relate to it. Make the instrument too complex to play and you limits the players who can perform the music and diminish the number of listeners who can appreciate the difficulty of the performance.

 

Back in the 60's when I was growing up, the pop stations had everything including the kitchen sink thrown in there. The music was no longer local, it was global. You have the local Hippie flower power thing going, you had music from Britain, Sitars from India, Latin stuff from Mexico, Urban Motown stuff, corny bubblegum popper stuff, Movie themes, Folk music and folk rock, all thrown into the same blender churning out songs of all kinds making recording companies and artists big bucks.

 

That's the thing that doesn't exist any more. You don't have big recording companies with hundreds of artists being supported to make hits and collaborate together. What we have now is the ME generation who think they can do all of that one their own. The recording contracts are gone, the competitive edge to get those contracts are gone, and the collaboration and experimentation that brought about all those unique songs and tones for those songs no longer exists, and hasn't existed for decades now.

 

When I was a kid, in the 60's - 40's and 50's music was the old stuff. Very few young musicians played it. They were too busy playing the current rock of the 60's. When the 70's came around, the 50's stuff was for old grandpa's and 60's stuff was already retro. By the 80's you'd think something new would come along and replace rock, but Disco didn't cut it for most rockers. Rock nearly died during those years, only kept alive by the hard core lovers of the music.

 

Late 80's 90's there was a reemergence with head banger hair music and later punk rock that kept the genre alive. After the 90's the internet took over and its been stagnant ever since. My grand kids listen to the same rock I did when I was their age. Go figure, no more generation gap, and no rebellious kids saying something new about their generation any more. There's some rehash out there but very little new stuff that hasn't been done before.

 

There is very little hype over new bands any more. The hype and the money makes have moved from recording companies to getting stupid people to stand in line for the latest cellphone instead of the latest concert tickets.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Phil, almost all distortion is a distortion, and a wah is a wah, etc. I can't quite think of a new sound since it hasn't been made so I won't know how it will all play out.

 

Good point. :)

 

I don't know why companies still put out "latest" pedals that all have the same things I owned 10 years ago in a different box and different marketing strategy.

 

Companies keep putting out similar things largely because that's what there's a demand for from their customers. Not that they don't innovate anymore, but in many cases it's a matter of developing and making incremental improvements to successful, established products, or combining features in new ways. For example, a phaser and an envelope filter both already existed, but Xvive recently released their W1 Wave Phaser phase shifter pedal that combines elements of both, and in the process made a pedal that's not quite like anything else - while it isn't completely groundbreaking (we've all heard phasers and auto wahs before), they did create a phaser with some cool new sounds and tricks.

 

Maybe the guitar is not meant to make a big giant leap as I'd like to imagine it. Maybe production and playing technique is what determines contemporary or modern.

 

Well now you're starting to get into my other area of expertise - no, not technique (mine is fair to middlin' :o ), but I am a humble recording producer/engineer, so I have a pretty decent idea of how production can affect tones and even genres. I would certainly agree with you that how a recording is produced can have a significant effect on the sound and how the instrument is "presented" and how "modern" it sounds, and technique certainly makes a ton of difference too. What was popular in the 1970s when I was in high school wasn't the same as the stuff that was big in the 80s, and certainly the technique and different playing approaches of guys like Eddie Van Halen had a lot to do with that. The same can be said of the prog to punk switch in the 70s, and there are plenty of other examples too.

 

Stick around. I suspect the guitar is far from played-out. Someone will be along shortly with new innovations - either in the design and capabilities of the instrument, their technique and playing approach, the music they create - or all of the above. Ten or twenty years from now, it is going to look and sound a lot different than it does today. Personally, I look forward to hearing what everyone comes up with. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I recently had a muse that IF I was to go down the pedalboard route, it would take more than a dozen pedals to accomplish what I am after as a sound designer,

{and as a practical motivation for a live rig }....

{Which would make a lot of sense if I had a 3 MOVIE DEAL coming my way...} {otherwise, and on the other hand, a 24 stadium Tour!?!, would suffice...}

Lions & Tigers and Bears....OH MY!!!

 

So, my list of choices for pedals {including the actual boards, cases, & switchers, but not power supplies or cables....}

 

1. EHX Turnip Greens {Soul Food OD + Holy Grail Reverb}

2. EHX Satisfaction {fuzz} in the Turnip Greens fx loop.

3. MXR UNI-VIBE {Chorus/Vibrato}

4. EHX SUPER PULSAR {Tremolo} + EXP PEDAL

5. Source Audio NEMESIS {delay}

6. EHX Stereo Polyphase {phase shifter} + EXP PEDAL

7. EHX Electric Mistress {flanger}

8. EHX RAVISH SITAR+ EXP PEDAL

9. DIGITECH WHAMMY DROPTUNE {Pitchshifter/whammy/wah}

10. EHX Q-TRON PLUS {ENVELOPE FILTER}

11. EHX WORM {Phaser, Tremolo, Vibrato, + a Neo-modulated Wah} + EXP PEDAL

12.TC ELECTRONIC DITTOX2 {LOOPER}

13. EHX RING THING{RING MODULATOR,POG} + EXP PEDAL

14. Roland GR55 {guitar synth and then some}

15. MXR SMART GATE {2} ONE ON THE FRONT END, ONE ON BACK....

Plus a couple C.M. Octaswitchers,{would probably wait for the next one, V3...}+ all required power and cables, are a few G at least...to be a GUITAR GOD...

This modular approach, while allowing for virtually endless possibilities, would be expensive, fairly large footprint and time consuming to make. I envision all this fitting on two boards, one larger 3.75"H x 16"D x 32"W., and one smaller 3.75"H x 16"D x 24"W

Pairing all this with a GR55/GK3 equipped guitar to a pair of separate sends and heaven sends it's regards straight into my head...

I currently get away with about 70% of these possibilities with my current rig, and all that money laying around would be an attractive prize for a kook ass thief...still...to be able to command any tone of any player at any time would be truly special...

I'm better than halfway there now...lol

$4,650.00 BEFORE TAXES, POWER SUPPLIES AND CABLES,

KIDS, DONT TRY {YOUR PARENTS }

THIS AT HOME...

RAD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I've been running a VG-99 since 2008 and there isn't a sound that box can't make - basses, guitars (acoustic and electric), synth type sounds, unclassifiable type sounds, even percussion and drum sounds. But it's not a guitar synthesizer per se, it's a hexaphonic guitar processing system with a ton of effects.

 

At the same time, I also use other devices as well and have a conventional type rig too.

 

But the thing is, labeling music as rock or techno or EDM or kind of limiting ones self. I try to use a combination of a lot of things to maintain interest. There's a whole universe of possible tones, why not use them? For guitar, even six string electric guitar there is a ton besides just distorted metal guitar that can be "rock". Try some!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • Members
Even the original Rock and Roll came form bands copying the Big Band stuff. When they didn't have horns they copied the horns with their voices and got the doo wap thing going.

Wow, I never knew that. But now that I've read it, I can see it's true.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

So this [video=youtube_share;GNZBSZD16cY]

should really be called neo-doowop :p

 

But getting back to the original post, Adrian Belew in the '80s did ground-breaking stuff with guitar and FX (check out "Elephant Talk" and "Thela Hun Jinjeet" and his tutorial video "Electronic Guitar." Frank Zappa had his "Bagpipe Technique," and Steve Hackett uses ebow, and that guitar with the idea of ebow built into it to produce unusual sounds. If you stand on their shoulders while you yourself innovate, then we will all benefit from your discoveries.

 

Also, you don't need electronics or DSP to make new FX (like a speaker pumping into a hose in your mouth). INVENT SOMETHING. As my wife told me once "You are not a Wannabe; You're a Gettinthere." We can all come up with new things.

 

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly. So, start with your best shot, and if it's bad you can make adjustments: Start - Do - Notice - Think - Start - Do - Notice - Think - Start - etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • Members

Mchad, that's the most interesting guitar pedal effects I have seen in a long time. Made me drool. I just received an e-mail notice regarding this thread topic and from the looks of it it's got potential but it's $700! I could sell of my ROLAND GR-20 which is barely used due to me not being able to figure out the pickup installation. It makes a good sound module though. LOL. I'd have to wait for the SY-300 to be on sale hopefully by black friday plus I need to read some reviews and how it is compared to ROLAND GR-20. I'd assume the Boss/Roland affiliation mean they both have similar sound engine but the fact that the new BOSS SY-300 could be used for bass and other instruments makes it more interesting as well and without the need for a pickup. Curious if some tones will sound like EDM but guitar controlled rather than keys as in the keys on synths and keyboards, we shall see...

 

Also if anyone can find it cheaper new and or with a good coupon discount let us all know! Usually a good product never gets priced lower than the MSRP example Korg MicroKorg always stayed at $399.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

In a way you can call it that. I think at the interface level, the process is mechanical at best; ie something that can be fished out your head is subsequently converted to the language of the destination device. The sounds and algorithms themselves can be designed to respond in the desired manner.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
With midi a guitar doesn't even have to sound like a guitar any more. Same with just about all keyboards too. They can produce any instrument tones including percussion.

 

I do think you have to separate music genre for musical tone in this case. Its true, if you want music to sound like its vintage, the easiest way to get that is by using vintage sound sources. But music is more then just the tones. Rock music is a specific genre and there are certain elements in the musical composition that give it a rock sound. You may use the same instruments and tones in other types of music from jazz to blues, to alternative and metal.

 

I think rock is simply a combination of many other bits and pieces of other musical types. Even the original Rock and Roll came form bands copying the Big Band stuff. When they didn't have horns they copied the horns with their voices and got the doo wap thing going.

 

All music has earlier roots and much of it contains new elements based on the new players playing it. There are very few pure strains of music that are not influenced buy others. Bach and Mozart had their competitors during their time and many would copy or attempt to borrow elements of each others music. If they were lucky they stumbled upon something new in their time that made history. If not they wound up being no more then performers popular during their time and quickly forgotten.

 

This brings you back to music writing in all cases. Its highly unlikely during this age to be considered a great artist unless you write at least some music. You can play copy music forever and can be locally popular but what do you leave behind? If you like Rock as I'm sure many others do including myself, there is likely a big market for it. Writing something truly new in that genre may not be easy but its where the new sounds that accompany it come from. You can intrepid other peoples music if you want too giving it new tones as well.

 

How far you can go making something new, is really a limitation of the instrument itself. Go too far and it no longer sounds like a plucked string. Get too strange and peoples ears cant relate to it. Make the instrument too complex to play and you limits the players who can perform the music and diminish the number of listeners who can appreciate the difficulty of the performance.

 

Back in the 60's when I was growing up, the pop stations had everything including the kitchen sink thrown in there. The music was no longer local, it was global. You have the local Hippie flower power thing going, you had music from Britain, Sitars from India, Latin stuff from Mexico, Urban Motown stuff, corny bubblegum popper stuff, Movie themes, Folk music and folk rock, all thrown into the same blender churning out songs of all kinds making recording companies and artists big bucks.

 

That's the thing that doesn't exist any more. You don't have big recording companies with hundreds of artists being supported to make hits and collaborate together. What we have now is the ME generation who think they can do all of that one their own. The recording contracts are gone, the competitive edge to get those contracts are gone, and the collaboration and experimentation that brought about all those unique songs and tones for those songs no longer exists, and hasn't existed for decades now.

 

When I was a kid, in the 60's - 40's and 50's music was the old stuff. Very few young musicians played it. They were too busy playing the current rock of the 60's. When the 70's came around, the 50's stuff was for old grandpa's and 60's stuff was already retro. By the 80's you'd think something new would come along and replace rock, but Disco didn't cut it for most rockers. Rock nearly died during those years, only kept alive by the hard core lovers of the music.

 

Late 80's 90's there was a reemergence with head banger hair music and later punk rock that kept the genre alive. After the 90's the internet took over and its been stagnant ever since. My grand kids listen to the same rock I did when I was their age. Go figure, no more generation gap, and no rebellious kids saying something new about their generation any more. There's some rehash out there but very little new stuff that hasn't been done before.

 

There is very little hype over new bands any more. The hype and the money makes have moved from recording companies to getting stupid people to stand in line for the latest cellphone instead of the latest concert tickets.

 

 

I was one of those 80's Metal guys, I labored hard to keep up with the Satriani's, Malmsteen's, Vai's, Rhoads's and EVH's of that era. But I had some roots in 1960's / 1970's Rock ; The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Stones, Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, Robin Trower, Yes, E,L,P, U.F.O. and others.

Other players like The Edge, Steve Stevens ( Billy Idols's guitarists), Adrian Belew, Allan Holdsworth, John Scofield, Michael Hedges and others inspired me too.

Seems like today's music isn't as diversified like it was in the 60's, 70's and 80's. Music / Artists have become disposable and the art of music is now dead in the music industry. No more ground breaking music like; SGT. Pepper, Are You Experienced ?, Brain Salad Surgery or Relayer. No longer ground breaking music is being exposed to listeners anymore. As if the industry has given up on challenging the listeners ears and minds. I guess one bad side affect of Mtv in the 1990's, was the hijacking of the musical critical mind / ears, that wanted something of quality and substance that is lacking by today's music industry. But (sh)it sells.

Learning to use effects is vital, almost as much as playing it self. With effects, a great imagination and good guitar playing, you can create music/ sounds to dazzle the mind and senses. With today's M.I.D.I. implementation, you can create any sound imaginable and bring studio quality sounds , live onto a stage.

I was in a cover band 12 years ago, we did a cover of Ozzy's, "No More Tears". The guys didn't want to touch it, at first, because of the open tuning involved, piano and orchestrated parts of that song. I figured out the piano parts, synth parts and the solo while using the D,G,D,G,B,D tuning and the slide guitar involved. After figuring it at home and playing it for the guys at rehearsal, they really wanted to play it live. It was a show stopper on stage.

If you use multiple M.I.D.I. effects units, learn to used the M.I.D.I channels to link up the devices to be controlled by a controller board. Learn to edit individual effects parameters ( minimums/ maximums), assign CC messages internally/ externally to other M.I.D.I controlled effects units and your imagination will never be hindered. The learning curve will be an S.O.B. in the beginning, but once you understand it, master it, you'll wonder how you lived with out it .

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have yet to hear a good song or a hit song that used "phasers". I was never a fan of it. It's too sound effect sounding like a sci fi feel.

 

[video=youtube;0lv7pCotRIo]

 

[video=youtube;yPJ1ybWo09s]

 

[video=youtube;4A3pX_shcyU]

 

[video=youtube;Fhy76l7iOOs]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Nice. I'm mostly familiar with the Radiohead song. I couldn't make out the phaser because it was either tuned down a bit so it's not too much effect. How should one describe the phaser sound? Is it a mix of flange and chorus? It sure does sound like that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...