[sdiy] Guitar Synth boards ready...

[john mahoney]

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there. :-)

I didn't know about Roland's pickup patent. How the heck does that not fail
the "non-obvious" requirement for a patent? Ludicrous, IMHO. (Similarly
off-topic, I can hardly believe that Gibson successfully sued Paul Reed
Smith for making a Les Paul style guitar. Maybe they will go after Roland
for humbucking, now! Feh...)

In any case, anyone can use the Roland pickups. What's not to like about
them? They are expensive, they use expensive and fragile 13-conductor
cables, and they come in your choice of models -- one is easy to install but
litters your guitar with add-ons, while the other requires a lot of routing
(i.e. permanent changes to your guitar). Yes, I am being sarcastic. The $60
cable with its 13-pin DIN connectors is literally the weak link of the
system.

DIY content: Roland can't stop you from making you own humbucking hex
pickup, so winding your own is always a DIY option.

The VG-88 is not tweakable in the DIY sense. While surely there is some
analog circuitry, most of the work is done by COSM, Roland's
probably-patented DSP technology. Most people call them guitar synths, but
they really aren't synths -- that would be the Roland GR series. I've
started describing it as 6 Pods in one (one per string), and people "get it"
then.

One VG trick that I used last night was an open A tuning. Retuning your
guitar to an open tuning by simply stepping on a footswitch is amazing,
liberating, cool, and just plain fun!
--
john


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "harrybissell" <harrybissell at prodigy.net>
To: "john mahoney" <jmahoney at gate.net>
Cc: <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2004 12:38 PM
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Guitar Synth boards ready...


> john mahoney wrote:
>
> > -But... I'm not interested in DIY for this because I think Roland have
done a
> > great job with the VG-88. In fact, last night was my first live gig
using
> > the VG-88. :-)
> >
> > The best filter to use? A cheap one! :-) Since you need one effect per
> > string, the cost of everything is multiplied by six. Band pass is a good
> > idea. The M'fooger filter pedal uses an LP VCF switchable between 12 and
24
> > dB, and it sounds good in both modes. I guess that more choices are
better,
> > so maybe you can use state variable filters -- if the cost can be kept
down.
>
> LOL... yes thats true.  A full system would be more complex than an
Oberheim
> SEM six voice unit.  however, DIY would give you the ability to control
cost
> quite
> a bit.  Hacking a Matrix 1000 is one approach... there are others.
>
> My only sadness is that the Roland patent of the Hexaphonic HUMBUCKING
pickup
> KILLED
> the market for guitar synthesis totally (well - killed it for everyone
else :^)
> The hex humbucker
> is the missing link, the major reason why everyone else's systems
performed
> poorly.  I would have
> liked to see a more open market.
>
> OTOH the VG systems are quite interesting... but they don't do quite what
I want
> (not hackable enough).
> My simple hex fuzz ran 90 ICs so you need to be a REAL diy he-man  (or in
> Cynthia's case she-man :^)
>
> H^) harry
>