pickup simulator?

[hippietim]

Doesnt that Line6 Variax have pickup simulators?

it models specific pickups. they picked their favorite strat or whatever and modeled those specific pickups/guitars. it does not yet have the ability to model different brands.

[charvelguy]

Roland has it on their VG-8.... I'm pretty sure Oberheim has it on the GM series as well.. I'd have to look at the menus.. its not such a far thing off from cab sims and I'm sure most modeling type devices have it available now. They don't emulate brands, just 'single coil' 'humbucker' type of thing. I think Yamaha and Korg may also have it on their products.

[hippietim]

Roland has it on their VG-8.... I'm pretty sure Oberheim has it on the GM series as well.. I'd have to look at the menus.. its not such a far thing off from cab sims and I'm sure most modeling type devices have it available now. They don't emulate brands, just 'single coil' 'humbucker' type of thing. I think Yamaha and Korg may also have it on their products.

The VG-8 has Tele, Strat, Les Paul, lipstick etc. - similar to the Variax in that regard it's just that Roland did like 10+ years earlier.

[charvelguy]

I thought Roland was the first to do that.. it was quite cutting edge at the time.

[Newc]

There's a Digitech pedal (A300? or something like that) that has a pickup "type" emulator in it (the "single coils-sound-like-humbuckers" thing).

And Mark, that pic is friggen hilarious

[mm2002]

So the Purchased from switch... the ebay settings is basicaly a kill switch right?!? :ROTF:

I'll take two please.

Actually that setting emulates the tone of a guitar with a missing high e string, and rust on the other 5. It was a tough one to perfect, but it sounds good.

[hippietim]

Mark, I'd be all over that if it just had a Floyd.

[beaner]

With some effort, this is available. A buddy of mine was telling me about his set up just a couple weeks ago. I haven't actually seen it, so this is all second hand, but I've no reason to think he was shitting me.

He has a strat that he modified with a Roland GK3 pickup. The gk3 is actually six separate pickups under each string, and they come out to a 9 pin din connector. He runs that into his Roland VG-88. In the vg88 you set up the physical parameters of your guitar, string height from the pickups, etc, and the vg-88 uses that information to effectively back out the guitar and pickup "flavor" from the signal. Then you can apply pickup emulations from there. I specifically remember him saying that a Seymour Duncan pickup (don't know which one) is on the list. I don't know anymore details than that. If you're interested in going that route you could always look up the Roland info.

He mainly said he uses it live, where he can step on a footswitch to change tunings without having to actually retune. He said that isn't perfect, but it works great for something like on the fly changes to drop D.

[charvelguy]

Roland does allow drop tunings w/o having to retune.. it's available on some of their patches on the GS-10. If you can do that with the Vg-88, you could probably do the same with the VG-8 and a GK-3.

[hippietim]

The VG-8 can do alternate tunings. You can do much more with tunings with the Roland VG stuff than with the Variax. With the VG you can make anything a 12-string.

BTW, the quality of the alternate tunings on the GS-10 are nothing compared to the VG.

I've been using a VG-8 for a long time. I've owned a couple VG-88's but they never seem to do it for me. I need to pickup another VG-8 as a backup - they haven't made them in like 8 or 9 years. They go stupid cheap on Ebay these days.

The VG-88 has a mode where it works like the GT products and doesn't require a 13-pin GK compatible pickup - but you lose all of the capabilities that the GK pickup affords you. The VG-8 only works with a GK style pickup.

[charvelguy]

I'd like to get the GK3.. I do have an S1 upgraded VG-8 and a roland ready strat..got the whole setup with the guitar new in box for less than 500.00 .. which was a good way to go to get started into synth. I still have a 707 and 700 controller too. I don't have enough room to have a dedicated synth layout in my recording area. I loaded ultrasonics into the strat and haven't really played it much since. I thought a neutral. flat pickup would work well with the roland, but they tend to sound 'woody' to me...so I'll likely try something else.

[hippietim]

what guitar would you be putting the gk-3 on?

[charvelguy]

I'm leaving the Roland ready strat stock save for the pickups...so it depends on the mount... I have a few beater Charvels I could mount it on.. but I'm just musing at the moment... the whole synth thing needs to be overhauled and put into action this fall/winter. I had potentially planned on a midi interface with a Roland RS-5 for a broader range of sounds but I'm not sure if the trigger would be fast enough w/ a Gk2a, I still have to experiment with that.

[MichaelLitvak]

I know that line 6 makes their variax guitars.. and theres software for it and there you can build your own guitar making designs that cant be done in real life and then load it to the variax .. pretty cool

[hippietim]

I'm leaving the Roland ready strat stock save for the pickups...so it depends on the mount... I have a few beater Charvels I could mount it on.. but I'm just musing at the moment... the whole synth thing needs to be overhauled and put into action this fall/winter. I had potentially planned on a midi interface with a Roland RS-5 for a broader range of sounds but I'm not sure if the trigger would be fast enough w/ a Gk2a, I still have to experiment with that.

A GK-3 isn't going to be any better than a GK-2. The 3 is just a smaller form factor and accomodates guitars like Les Pauls better. I had a Roland Ready Strat - it should be fine. The only step up from a GK pickup would be to go with an RMC or GHOST piezo based system - that will cost upwards of 500-700 bucks depending on if you can install it or not.