Re: Hex Pickups {was: Re: OT: Check out the Robot Guitar!}

["Mark Smart" <marksmartus@gmail.com>]

Bill, I believe the Anderton unit you are talking about is called the Quadrafuzz.

 

I think hex distortion is pretty cool, too. Sounds like Queen. A while back we got into a discussion/argument about this on the jazz guitar newsgroup and I made some recordings with my Roland VG-8's hex fuzz to show how it sounds very different from regular fuzz:

 

http://www.marksmart.net/sounddesign/guitarsounds/VG8/HexFuzz.html

 

The earlier Roland synth guitars like the G-202, G-303- G-505, and G-808 had hex fuzz built into the guitar. This then got sent over one of the lines in the 24-pin cable to the synth (GR-300, usually) where it could be mixed with the actual synth sound. Wayne Jones has some pages up about that:

 

http://www.joness.com/gr300/index.htm

 

A useful tool for this kind of application is the RMC fanout box:

 

http://www.rmcpickup.com/fanoutbox.html

 

I don't have one, but you could plug your GK-2a compatible synth pickup into it and run each string through separate distortion. I was thinking about doing this before I got the VG-8, which does a really nice job of it. On the VG-8 you also can take some or all of the separately-distorted strings and pitch shift them. I like to do this by shifting the D string up an octave while leaving the others the same (there is an mp3 of this on my page). Then when you play drop-2 chords on the top four strings, it comes out sounding like 1930s-style close position big band chords being played by Queen.

--
Mark Smart
http://www.marksmart.net