Guitar synths (Don's rant)

[tomg]

The cool stuff...
I don't know what sort of processing the gr-1 and it's sibling use but
everything works. I just stuck the gk-2 on a old van-halen model
strat. Pull-offs, hammer-ons, bends, trem-bar (all 6 strings at once),
bla bla bla.... It all works..I can even play slide! Some of the cooler
stuff is splitting the strings into instruments (one for each string) or 
instrument groups (say bass on the 6,5,4 and moog-lead on 3,2,1).
What it's really good for is playing soft string pads behind gently
played cords....just beautiful... and bass of course..

The bad stuff...
Used with it's own internal sounds or sequencer it's fine. Used with 
external units it's slow, not unusable but slow.   It's not as smooth 
as I would like. The resolution zippering can be very obvious 
when bending a note or using the bar jumping too many notes trying
to catch up, slide does not really slide...but hey these are minor 
complaints. The thing works and all (mostly) of the guitar tricks 
work.

The conclusion....
After owning a guitar synth that works for about 5 years now I
can say without hesitation that my dreams of using it as a midi
controller are pretty much dashed. I thought I wouldn't play
the keyboard nearly as much....well...because I am (was?) a 
better guitar player. This was wrong. I play keyboards even 
more. Frankly it doesn't sound right played on guitar. Hey! one
of the fun things is triggering drums from guitar but it's just for
fun. If I'm recording a song I use a keyboard.

So what's it good for?
It's great for controlling it's own sounds live. You want to 
play that Yes solo from "owner of a lonely heart", a Styx
style OB lead or accompany yourself with grand piano
or bass. This works.

Is it worth it?
When I bought it, I thought so...If I was in a guitar band
It would be great for covering keyboard parts. There
have been lot's of times I wished for one. 

I don't know of a DIY path to something like this. To get
all of the nuances from a 6 pole pickup probably requires
many processors and tons of code.

Tom