Want to post a link to one of these terrible pieces of music then to back up your claim?ariston wrote:I have to be the one to say it: why on earth would anyone actually want to replicate that godawful sound? I have a lot of trouble explaining to some folks what a great musician Metheny actually is... when they hear THAT sound it instantly triggers their gag reflex. It reeks of supermarkets, elevators, and cheap leisure suits. It's a sound that says: howdy doody! It can turn even the slightest emotional expression into cottage cheese. It does for the guitar what Mantovani did for classical music. If the vision of music used as a weapon ever came true, it would be this sound playing the lead melody.
Whew. Carry on. Apologies.
GR-300 for Zebra
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- KVRist
- 447 posts since 26 Mar, 2014
Win 10 with Ryzen 5950x, Bitwig 5, too many plugins, Novation Circuit Mono Station and now a lovely Waldorf Blofeld.
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- KVRist
- 103 posts since 30 Jul, 2014
Of course it’s cheesy, but I enjoy that sound, much as I enjoy a fine cheese. I think it’s best used for epic horn-like solos like this one at 3m30s:
https://youtu.be/pYRTh7ivoGc
Do listen to the whole track from the beginning for full effect. Brecker’s and McCoy’s solos will get you amped up for Metheny’s cheese!
Another favorite GR-300 example is Metheny’s solo starting shortly after the 10-minute mark in this 20-minute odyssey (again, I heartily recommend the whole track, as this trio is great):
https://youtu.be/MRKUn6KnQ60
As others have mentioned, I think the character of this sound comes largely from the attack and Metheny’s pitch inflections. The tone itself is pretty straightforward to emulate.
https://youtu.be/pYRTh7ivoGc
Do listen to the whole track from the beginning for full effect. Brecker’s and McCoy’s solos will get you amped up for Metheny’s cheese!
Another favorite GR-300 example is Metheny’s solo starting shortly after the 10-minute mark in this 20-minute odyssey (again, I heartily recommend the whole track, as this trio is great):
https://youtu.be/MRKUn6KnQ60
As others have mentioned, I think the character of this sound comes largely from the attack and Metheny’s pitch inflections. The tone itself is pretty straightforward to emulate.
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- KVRAF
- 1683 posts since 29 Sep, 2013
You'r totally right, pitch shifting/glitch attack and Metheny’s pitch inflections.btw wrote:...As others have mentioned, I think the character of this sound comes largely from the attack and Metheny’s pitch inflections. The tone itself is pretty straightforward to emulate.
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- KVRist
- 235 posts since 5 Feb, 2014
I saw Pat Metheny live recently where he was a surprise artist at a concert in honor of bassplayer Eberhard Weber.
There were a lot of great improvisers (Gary Burton, Paul McCandless and more).
He played one solo and used his GR-300 sound and I must say he blew every other player out of the water.
This sound works very well live and his use to start slow then at the end switch the synthesizer
an octave higher works very well to create a lot of energy to grab the audience. Like a big crescendo.
For him this sound is a great tool to transmit his emotions to the audience.
The sound is very warm and powerful while containing some sorrow, like a flugelhorn played over a Marshall amp or whales talking.
People (me included) were touched deeply and jumped up after his performance.
I also never liked this sound on recordings, but live it is brilliant.
Also I never understood the hype around Jeff Beck. Being influenced by Al di Meola, Edward van Halen and Yngwie Malmsteen I always thought he`s a mediocre guitarist, listening to his recordings.
Until I heard him live, his play with energy is unmatched and he`s top of the list for me now.
There were a lot of great improvisers (Gary Burton, Paul McCandless and more).
He played one solo and used his GR-300 sound and I must say he blew every other player out of the water.
This sound works very well live and his use to start slow then at the end switch the synthesizer
an octave higher works very well to create a lot of energy to grab the audience. Like a big crescendo.
For him this sound is a great tool to transmit his emotions to the audience.
The sound is very warm and powerful while containing some sorrow, like a flugelhorn played over a Marshall amp or whales talking.
People (me included) were touched deeply and jumped up after his performance.
I also never liked this sound on recordings, but live it is brilliant.
Also I never understood the hype around Jeff Beck. Being influenced by Al di Meola, Edward van Halen and Yngwie Malmsteen I always thought he`s a mediocre guitarist, listening to his recordings.
Until I heard him live, his play with energy is unmatched and he`s top of the list for me now.
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- KVRist
- 153 posts since 4 Sep, 2016
I think the sound of that is used by Pat since he wanted a trumpet sound. His brother plays trumpet, but he can't and never could. When listening to Pat it seems that it is a - stand in - of some sort for distortion or high gain, high sustaining sound. He doesn't want to dabble with distortion at all, so he went for the GR-300. Mind you the funny bit, that although GR-300 is a polyphonic guitar, he uses it almost exclusively as a solo instrument and monophonically. I can swear I've never heard him play a full chord on it.
Ugly sound? An aqcuired taste for sure. So was the sax too in the beginning. It sounded "ugly".
Ugly sound? An aqcuired taste for sure. So was the sax too in the beginning. It sounded "ugly".
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Winstontaneous Winstontaneous https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=98336
- KVRAF
- 2351 posts since 15 Feb, 2006 from Berkeley, CA
Hmm, when I think of the GR-300 it's Andy Summers, Adrian Belew, and Robert Fripp who come to mind. IMO they deployed it as masterfully and creatively as any other electronic tool they got their hands on.
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- KVRist
- 153 posts since 4 Sep, 2016
"Although the sound palette of the GR-300 is very limited, the GR-300 has the fastest, most accurate tracking ever developed. Unlike much of guitar-to-MIDI pitch recognition technology, the GR-300 guitar synthesizer does not require the player to adapt technique to get astonishing results. It is not that the GR-300 ignores fret board misfires, or translates them into wildly inaccurate notes as some MIDI systems will. The GR-300 instead creates a unique analog synth equivalent. For example, the initial atonal pick attack is converted into a sound very reminiscent of the "spit" sound heard at the beginning of a trumpet phrase"
I think this is what separates the actual GR-300 sound from all the others. Neither GR-500 nor the GR-700 had these traits.VG-99 did a digital modelling of it, to great success though, but as it was/is, had digital tracking/triggering glitches to no end.
The trumpet comparison continues: the GR-300 has a waveform very similar to a sawtooth, but it's not a bona-fide pure sawtooth, with a brassy, aggressive tone. But the GR-300 waveform does something unique: it changes shape as the player moves up the fret board. An "E" played one octave above an open "E" string will not only be sounding at twice the frequency, but the harmonic content will be very different as well. This is the happy consequence of the brute force synthesis used in the GR-300.
I think this is what separates the actual GR-300 sound from all the others. Neither GR-500 nor the GR-700 had these traits.VG-99 did a digital modelling of it, to great success though, but as it was/is, had digital tracking/triggering glitches to no end.
The trumpet comparison continues: the GR-300 has a waveform very similar to a sawtooth, but it's not a bona-fide pure sawtooth, with a brassy, aggressive tone. But the GR-300 waveform does something unique: it changes shape as the player moves up the fret board. An "E" played one octave above an open "E" string will not only be sounding at twice the frequency, but the harmonic content will be very different as well. This is the happy consequence of the brute force synthesis used in the GR-300.
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- KVRist
- 81 posts since 1 Jul, 2019
Absolutely. And strictly speaking it was a GR-500, but in the same ballpark tonally, the Chuck Hammer solo on Ashes to Ashes is memorable. Gives me chills.Winstontaneous wrote: ↑Sun Jul 14, 2019 7:39 pm Hmm, when I think of the GR-300 it's Andy Summers, Adrian Belew, and Robert Fripp who come to mind. IMO they deployed it as masterfully and creatively as any other electronic tool they got their hands on.
