Re: OT RE: FC300 and VG-99

[Mech <mech@m3ch.net>]

At 9:07 PM -0400 9/25/07, James Richmond wrote:
>
>I would really like to hear about your VG99 experiences as well.
>I have been planning on getting one and would love to know your 
>expert opinion.

Okay, it looks like there are at least a few people interested in 
this data, judging from the responses both on- and off-list. 
Hopefully this isn't quite so OT that it'll get anyone bent out of 
shape (BTW, there is a Hold Delay in the effects section which can 
act as a Looper, so the device itself is actually peripherally on 
topic ;).  Here are three reasonably long messages that I sent over 
to the VG-99 list detailing my experiences with it so far.  I'll 
break them up so that each has it's own post.

One quick point: As I said previously, I'm really quite impressed 
with the box.  I'm concentrating on a lot of the quirks, though, so 
that people will know what they're going to have in store.  Sometimes 
I might sound a bit frustrated, but there are really more positive 
points than negative.

Also, I'd remind anyone replying to the thread to please remove any 
extraneous text you're not directly quoting, as a favor to those 
posters on the Digest mode.

That said, let me know if there are any specific questions about the 
VG-99, and I'll try to address them.

Here's the first note:

>Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2007 22:58:10 -0500
>To: vg-99@yahoogroups.com
>From: Mech <mech@m3ch.net>
>Subject: Quick(?!?) First Impressions....
>
>Okay, I've finally spent the past day going through and making a 
>cursory tour of the 200 factory presets.
>
>My first impression, in short?  <beavis&butthead> Huh huh!  This is 
>cool! </beavis&butthead>
>
>I got home night before last, and called my luthier to see if my Vox 
>was ready for pickup (I'd dropped it off before leaving town to have 
>the stock pickups replaced).  Unfortunately, he still needs a couple 
>more days.  So, not wanting to wait any longer, I grabbed my Stick 
>and ran through the presets using the GK on its Melody side.  The 
>worst thing about that is I usually have to tweak my patches to 
>sound their best when played by the Stick (it can get a bit too 
>percussive sometimes).  That, and I tend to lean toward the clean 
>patches when using that axe, so it's not as fair to the other patch 
>types.  So, all standard disclaimers apply.
>
>That said, this thing is freakin' awesome!  The clean patches sound 
>pristine; the distorted patches have got some nice crunch; the synth 
>patches are good enough to go up against most of the current model 
>GR patches.  At first blush, Roland have really done a good job 
>addressing the majority of wants and needs for almost anybody 
>playing strings out there.
>
>Here are just a few random data points....
>
>The overall quality of tone has a very "finished" sound to it. 
>Right out of the box, you sound like you're copping licks off a CD. 
>Noise is practically non-existent.  I was monitoring through a pair 
>of AKG K-271 studio-grade cans, so there shouldn't have been any 
>significant coloration from my listening environment (in other 
>words, I wasn't running it into a cheap guitar amp).
>
>Tracking is excellent.  I've been playing all the way down to C 
>below a low guitar E, and have noticed only a bare minimum of 
>glitching (good news for those baritone players out there, I think). 
>The algorithms which have exhibited the most trouble (so far) with 
>this are Crystal and Pipe.  Crystal is problematic at the low end, 
>while Pipe seems to get thrown off by finger noise and scrapes -- 
>clean playing takes care of almost all difficulties on that 
>algorithm.  When Crystal glitches, it does the thing where it will 
>play the note fine, then possibly octave jump for a millisecond when 
>sustained after a while.
>
>I couldn't get the GR-300 to glitch on the low notes.  Good news. 
>Trust me, I tried; just couldn't get it to go wacky on the lows.
>
>Speaking of the GR-300...  It sounds good, and takes up the slack 
>behind the physical modelling tones of some of the other algos. 
>Very synthy, with that classic sound you'd expect.  I've never 
>actually owned a 300, though, so I'll leave it to some of the other 
>experts here onlist to determine exactly how well it matches up 
>against the original.  Personally, it reminds me quite a bit of the 
>sounds I've heard on records by Metheny, Summers, or Hackett.  In 
>other places (weirdly enough) it reminds me of some cuts produced by 
>Boards of Canada.  They have a way of capturing that dry, "public 
>service announcement", synth accent in their tunes, and some of the 
>synth patches here definitely gave me the same impression.
>
>One thing worth pointing out about the GR-300 is that it doesn't 
>have the rumbling, punch in the gut, "oh gods, my bowels are about 
>to release" low-end that you can find on some classic synths 
>(vintage moogs, for instance).  It sounds more like synths (like old 
>Roland modulars) sporting lowpass filters with a 12db slope; as 
>opposed to the classic 24db ladder filters.  This is *NOT* a bad 
>thing, however.  The GR-300 has a nice, musical, mid-range tone, and 
>can even be pleasantly squelchy if you want.  Just don't expect to 
>emulate Taurus Pedals with it.
>
>Overall, the guitar models sound very good.  The Fenders sound like 
>their respective real-life counterparts.  The Gibsons -- 
>particularly the LP and P-90 -- sound very good.  I'm not so certain 
>about the 335, as I wasn't able to really plunk out any jazz 
>standards to test.  The Sitar and Reso models are really good, 
>although there are factory patches for those which sound both 
>fantastic and blase'.  Nylon string presets are sort of "eh!" but I 
>can hear the glimmer of something nice in there.  I think I just 
>need to dig it out with some extra programming and EQ.
>
>Also, I'm not really liking the P-bass and J-bass models right now. 
>However, I think the percussive attack on the Stick is bringing out 
>too much "clank" in those algorithms.  I tried strumming a couple of 
>low notes with my thumb (a rarely-used technique on a tapping 
>instrument) and it seems as if they would sound much better if 
>proper playing technique were used.
>
>Oh, and the Ribbon Controller rocks!  I didn't think I was going to 
>get into it that much, but it actually turns out to be an excellent 
>realtime control tool.  Also, the filter really shines when used 
>with it; it's very musical.  I actually want to see if I can work 
>out the routing for some parked filter patches.  The filter gets 
>boxy while keeping the tone interesting -- much more like listening 
>to a transistor radio than a speaker with a blanket thrown over it. 
>And when used with the Ribbon Controller, it sounds nearly as much 
>like a cool phase shift as it does a filter effect.
>
>The D-Beam is a bit touchy, but I expected that.  It probably 
>qualifies as an instrument in and of itself, so you're going to have 
>to work with it to get the results you want.  Freeze is a great tool 
>too, but the same caveat goes for that.  The biggest issue with 
>Freeze is that you've got to catch the frozen note at the level you 
>want, then adjust the volume of the sound you're playing over top of 
>it.  It's real easy to get the two out of balance.  But when you get 
>it right, things sound great.
>
>Pitch shifting is great.  It's natural sounding, and can produce 
>some great results.  The only concern I have is that I'm not really 
>that crazy about using the 12-string shift on the Steel acoustic 
>model.  Something about that one in particular is sounding 
>artificial and rather harsh to me.  I don't get that feeling on any 
>of the electric models, however, so perhaps I just need to work with 
>some of the settings.
>
>The Harmonist is actually much more inspiring than I thought it 
>would be.  There are one or two patches that use it, and it's 
>actually very easy to compose some interesting lines on the fly. 
>Also, if you're into Southern Boogie, there are a couple of Shift 
>patches you're going to love.  They've outright nailed some of the 
>two-guitar harmony leads made (in)famous by bands like the Allman 
>Brothers.
>
>As I've alluded in a different post, the control possibilities are 
>fantastic.  I haven't gotten the FC-300 hooked up yet, but that 
>should provide a huge number of extra permutations.  (Aside: Hey 
>Vance!  It looks as if your solution of switching Modes to control 
>both the VG and other MIDI devices will work.)  Just using the 
>Control buttons can add a great deal of creative options.  The Wave 
>Pedal alone can provide countless ways of manipulating the 
>parameters in realtime.
>
>Haven't gotten a chance to hook it up to the laptop with an 
>instrument connected yet.  That's the next item I've got on the 
>agenda.  One concern I do have is the possible latency when using 
>the VG as audio interface.  Using Ableton Live as a host, I've only 
>been able to get the latency settings down to 8ms input and 3ms 
>output, for a combined latency of ~11ms.  Even at those settings, I 
>haven't yet been able to determine if such low buffer settings will 
>cause glitching.  We'll see, perhaps tomorrow...
>
>Um, okay, that's an awful lot off the top of my head, especially for 
>having only played through the presets.  Any thoughts...?
>
>       --m.


-- 
_____
"the wind in my heart; the dust in my head...."