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Roland GR-55 Sound Demos

S

snogaws

Oct 25, 2008
630
3
Chicago
#1
As requested, here is where I will post sound demos from my Roland GR-55 Guitar Synth. All recordings were made using just the GR-55 using a Modulus Q6 TBX. I attribute all tracking glitches to the fact that I had to put the pickup farther from the bridge than what is recommended. It still tracks awesomely.

I take requests; let me know what you want to hear!

Demo 1
Patches played:
  1. Forgot what the patch was originally called, but I call it 'Ambient $#!+'.
  2. Synth 1
  3. Upright Bass
  4. Vibraphone
  5. Marimba
  6. Alto Sax
  7. Clarinet
  8. Flute
  9. Bassoon

Demo 2 - Ensemble Strings (sorry it's kinda quiet)
Patches played:
  1. Strings 2
  2. Marc. Str
  3. Hybrid Str
  4. PizzicatoStr
  5. Oct Strings


Demo 3
Ok, so it's not really a demo. It's me playing along to the jammy part of the Grateful Dead song 'Playing In The Band' using my Marimba with Reverb patch.
 
#2
Thanks for those.

Can you please demo some of the following: synth bass, ensemble strings, synth leads, synth pad/strings, and pulsating patches? I know it's a lot to ask but maybe a few (or a lot :)) of your favorites within each category.

Thank you snogaws!!!

subbed
 
#11
snogaws said:
Don't worry man, I've been just been really busy with school. I'll try and get another one posted tonight.
Click to expand...

How is the pitch to midi traking on the GR-55? I'm using a VB-99 for live performance using both the onboard FX and for running midi soft synths
YouTube - tough guy eh? - MEN IMITATING MACHINES
this is me using the VB-99 live to play soft synths in Ableton Live. I have been about 90% happy with the tracking.

Can you please possibly do a video using the pitch to midi function??

cheers
 
#12
Added Demo 3.



imitation said:
How is the pitch to midi traking on the GR-55? I'm using a VB-99 for live performance using both the onboard FX and for running midi soft synths
YouTube - tough guy eh? - MEN IMITATING MACHINES
this is me using the VB-99 live to play soft synths in Ableton Live. I have been about 90% happy with the tracking.

Can you please possibly do a video using the pitch to midi function??

cheers
Click to expand...


The tracking is great! It might be slightly worse on mine because of how I have the pickup placed, but it still tracks really well for me.

The only camera I have for recording video doesn't handle low frequencies well, but I guess I can try making a video.
 
#15
Not stealing any thunder. But I've had this GR-55 page up since I received it. I haven't added to in in quite a while, but it includes a LOT of PCM tone demos including one where I step through all of the bass synth PCM tones.

Chris Graham - MUSIC - cgraham.com

Note this thing has a TON of potential. A lot of the non-bass tones sound excellent as bass synth once octave shifted down 1 or 2 octaves, or adjusting the filtering. Additionally, you can get awesome tones by blending two synths such as one with a short decay/sustain with another that has a longer sustain so you get that percussive attack with an interesting sustain.
 
#16
Doesn't it have some COSM bass patches as well? I'm looking for both. Anything bass-related actually. It has patches for guitar such as LP+Stack---isn't there a Pbass thru SVT type patch? I need to review the patch list again, but recall seeing a M-man patch and P-bass.

snogaws said:
by bass sounds do you mean the PCM bass patches? (e.g. synth bass, fingered bass, etc.)
Click to expand...
 
#17
This is helpful!

gastric said:
Not stealing any thunder. But I've had this GR-55 page up since I received it. I haven't added to in in quite a while, but it includes a LOT of PCM tone demos including one where I step through all of the bass synth PCM tones.

Chris Graham - MUSIC - cgraham.com

Note this thing has a TON of potential. A lot of the non-bass tones sound excellent as bass synth once octave shifted down 1 or 2 octaves, or adjusting the filtering. Additionally, you can get awesome tones by blending two synths such as one with a short decay/sustain with another that has a longer sustain so you get that percussive attack with an interesting sustain.
Click to expand...
 
#18
When running in Bass Mode there's a variety of COSM bass guitar models available. However, there is not any good bass amp sims in my opinion, and certainly not any Ampeg sims. Nor any bass specific effects. Specifically all of the excellent stuff you find in the GT-10B is not in the GR-55 at all. No bass compressors, no bass drive effects (and no blends or bottom features, no wealth of bass amp sims just some really basic/generic low/mid/high gain bass amps, a flat amp, and a bunch of guitar amps.

When running in Guitar Mode, which I'm currently doing via piccolo strings, I think the tracking seems faster and more responsive with less lag, but there's only a P and Jazz COSM bass and I don't think they sound as good as a bass in bass mode. However, the guitar sounds via my bass in this setup sound excellent... if you want to sound like a guitar. :) There's also a variety of PCM electric, fretless, and acoustic sounds. Picked bass, fingered, slap, etc. And with the wealth of PCM controls you can easily set it up for string splits so you get appropriate slap sounds on the lower and upper strings, and should be able to make it so if you play soft you get fingered PCM bass sounds but play hard and get picked or slap sounds, etc. Lots of modification opportunities to the PCM sounds without having to press buttons, just configure them to your playing. Adjust cutoff by envelope strength, or decrease cutoff by envelop strength, increase cutoff with note value, and on and on and on... and on.

I just added a couple piccolo-bass-in-guitar-mode sound clips. http://cgraham.com/chris/music/bass/gr-55/
 
#19
I found the tone list.

I'm most curious about fretless bass and slap bass. Storm bass? Monster bass?

In a nutshell, I might be looking to use the GR-55 with guitar and bass and need something to go back-and-forth with guitar tones, bass tones, acoustic, plus other tones of course. In my mind, having one instrument (via GR-55) to do this would be the best/easiest way.
 
#20
The PCM tones sound identical regardless of the instrument triggering them. Remember that's all they are, triggered synth sounds. So playing a PCM tone set to -1 octave with the guitar will sound 100% the same as playing it with the bass with no octave shift.

However, the COSM stuff is vastly different from my experience. And overall the normal pickup amps and effects sounding much more authentic with guitar than with bass.
 

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