Anyone using a GR-55 or VG-99B in live situation??

[chubrocker]

I've become obsessed with the Roland guitar synths. I'm taking serious thought to getting a GR-55 (or the VG-99) and getting the GK pickup for both a guitar and bass. My fear? It'll just become a toy to play with in recording and not use live.

Any of you using it live in a band context? I'm in a trio and this might be a good tool for some looping sounds, etc.

BTW, how are the bass sounds? Not many things to view/hear on YT or other places in regards to the bass sounds---at least on the GR-55.

[gastric]

I have a small collection of bass related GR-55 sounds. Check my sig.

I'm attempting to use it for bass synth in an electronica type band. Triggering is taking a learning curve to adjust to, and am considering purchasing some piccolo strings and running it in "guitar mode" as that mode appears to have superior tracking and latency. Bu then I'd lose a good regular bass sound due to the lack of the lower octave. But if I'm doing 80% pure bass synth and 20% regular sounding bass guitar that may not matter if the PCM synth performance can be increased.

Gumtown uses his GR-55 for pads and background filling sounds from what he's said and finds no issue due to those sounds having slower attacks, thus masking any perceived latency completely.

GR-55 is very new, not many bass users that I am aware of. VB-99 has a lot more users due to the age of the product.

Note there are LARGE threads in this forum dedicated to each of these products. You should really post there for more info and answers.

[Ba55Man1ac]

Used & loved my V-Bass live for many years & have recently taken the step up to VB-99. I never cease to be amazed by the sound quality, flexibility and pure joy these puppies bring me!

[fokof]

I always use my VB99 live.
I still discover new stuff even after 2 years.

In a live situation in a blind test , no one would be able to tell the real basses from the sims in the VB99.
Yeah , that good.

The GR55 is a slimed down version of the VB99 with limited controllers and options.

The tracking of the VB99 is glitch free with playable latency down to the lowB

[Vakmere]

I have the GR55 and it's not a bass player thing. Better off using stomp boxes for effects. Guitar players are enjoying it because it's for guitar with bass mode thrown in for - what I think - more sales of the unit. Before the defenses come up, this is not a poorly made unit nor little thought put into it. Obviously not a plug and play toy either. Players who are not as savy about words like latency, tracking, COSM, and what ever other abreviated wording, will find tweaking every little thing to get what they want time consuming and tedious. Making lots of oopsies along the way and forgetting to write down every little thing you change can also be frustrating. (Where was that patch and bank I saved that string sound to? ). So, if you get one and dont have previous experience with this type of effect and the massive amount of levels and sub levels that pushing the edit button will take you, expect to not only do lots of reading and emailing people who know how to get deep into this units functionality, what you can expect is that it will not be something you take out of the box today and play with on stage this weekend.
For bass, as far as I'm concerned and have found after having this unit 5 weeks already, is what will I really be doing with it after all this time learning how to tweak it? Jury is still out.

[gumtownbassman]

If you are looking for something to use on guitar and bass, the GR-55 will be the unit, with it's dual modes.
The VG-99 is only for guitar, and the VB-99 is only for bass (usually).

The GR-55 modeling and effects section can be seen as half a VG-99 and half a VB-99, with limited effect chain routing options,
plus two PCM synths (like having 2 GR-20's).

The GR-55 also has limited usable pedals, compared to the GT-10B or VB/VG-99 with foot controller
(unless you add an extra midi foot controller).

For me, the GR-55 works very well, as Gastric explained, i use it for the odd bass models and mostly as re-enforcement for Rock type songs,
either as an effects only unit or syhth/pad type backing or song intros..
it has done well for live gigs.

Before i was using the GT-10B and a GR-20, and the GR-55 does the same + more,
and is more compact and light weight.

The other feature of the GR-55 i really like is the USB memory stick music file player,
I load it with all the music to practice with, and can quietly sit in the corner with headphones on,
only with bass and GR-55.

[pmaraziti]

I don't have one, but I love the concept. I think though from what I read here that the execution is improvable, e.g. latency (physics also get in the way).

Look up Gary Willis in youtube, he uses it live (together with a lot of other effects/laptop simulation)

[gumtownbassman]

The GR-55 also has a USB thumb drive *.wav file player built in,
and last weekend i tried it out with phrase samples loaded into it,
which can be controlled with the foot pedals.

Freakin amazing results !!!

[henry2513]

Dredging up an old thread, I just played a 3 hour set with my GR-55. On stage the COSM modeled basses don't sound great but wow, listening to the recording now and they sound pretty spot on.

I still have to work out on how to deal with volume differences between patches though.

[gumtownbassman]

I have now modified my GR-55 and drilled in two jack sockets for an external loop for the normal pickup tone,
which inline i can use a Tech21 VT-Bass pedal,
and also plug my bass preamp inline with the normal pickup,
and then send the GR-55 output to the bass amp/stack FX return (known as 4cm or four cable method).
This setup allows the external bass amp's preamp & VT-Bass pedal to affect only the bass tone while the synth tones are direct to the power amp section of the amp.

Still to date the GR-55 and VT-Bass pedal are my main setup.
I also have a Boss GT-100 which (IMO) is better than the GT-10B for bass, but using all of that gear together is too much for me.