Saturday, November 8, 2014

The Guitar Synth Works

The cable arrived today so a big wet kiss to Sweetwater, although I'm sure that would not be their first choice from me.  I didn't even look today as I thought there was no chance on the week-end.  Wow.  And they even put little candies in the bag.  High style.

This was a huge gamble as the cable was fifty bucks, there's nothin' until Monday, and the only song my wallet knows is "Stormy Monday."  Whoa, whoa, whoa, I got them blues.

No, I don't.  It works.

There is damage but it's been some years of hard-riding.  The guitar synth has been with me the entire time as I never gave up on it, I just didn't have the money to do anything about it.  I still don't but I figured, screw this, what's more important.

There is some inaccurate translation taking place and previously it was extremely precise.  It's been a hard road out there with a mouse and a chicken.  Nevertheless, despite periodic inaccuracy, the performance overall is very good.  The strings that were not sounding previously now sound most of the time.

The test was with the Roland GR-20 guitar synthesizer floor box set up for a synthy sound and the Korg keyboard synth set for angel voices.  With that combination, playing three simple chords (plus embellishments as I like), the sound is like really good Indian food when the spices in the food come at you at different speeds and the taste changes while you eat.  So, yah, it's like Indian food only with angels ... or something like that.

It seems likely the failing is in the GR-20 as that's what I was twisting the most to get any sound at all.  Maybe there's a factory reset or some such.  It's not over as it's about $700 worth of kit so replacing it means I have to go back into prostitution.

(Ed: say what?)

You have seen the pics.  So someone should buy this?

There is one nag as the GR-20 plays a mis-translated note and so does the Korg.  Logically, that eliminates the GR-20 as the source of the problem as otherwise it would be the only one screwing the note.  It's more complicated than that as it's possible the GR-20 screws the note and then sends it screwed to the Korg.

Aha - the diagnostic:  go to Guitar Center and ask to demo a current guitar synth.  If translation is accurate, yahoo, the xtSA is fully vindicated.  If MIDI is screwed inside the xtSA, it will take a very high techie to fix it as Godin techs are sometimes hard to find ... but ... I'm pretty sure Steve Lamb is Godin-certified.


For now I just wait for nightfall so I can turn on the lights and do this some more in that world of surrealism.  The only way to really let you get a taste of the sound is a video but right now I just want to play, get the feel for the kit, blah, blah.  There's a switch on the guitar that lets me change patches on the GR-20 without getting up and down so I want to screw with as many voices as I can just to hear what they do.

The thing I'm saving is to play with an arpeggiator sequence set up on the Korg.  I don't know the precise musical definition for an arpeggio but generally an ascending sequence of notes, a lead run maybe.  An arpeggiator knows the sequence of note and it takes whatever note you play and makes that the root for the arpeggio.  That restarts with each note you play.  This part I will save the for the lasers.  If it seems like I'm even close to the trail of something cool, I'll at least try to record audio.  I don't want for the moment recording to get in the way of relearning it and getting the feel of it.  If that sounds like sex after a long time apart, hey, fair enough.

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