my first day with the GR-55

[David Gans <david@trufun.com>]

Enjoying a modest but measurable (and short-lived) surplus of cash after 
my last book advance, I treated myself to a Roland GR-55 guitar synth. My 
Renaissance RS-6 has the pickup built in.

I decided to book some studio time for my first day with it, so I could 
get help from my pal Jeremy Goody in setting it up (and to force me to 
really spend some time with it, as opposed to setting it up in my living 
room and farting around for half an hour). We got it all configured pretty 
easily, and then we spent a good deal of time figuring out the best way to 
patch it into my performing rig.

The best solution turned out to be the simplest solution: my Boss RC-30 
Loop Station has a second input, summed with the first one. So I have the 
controls right on the instrument: the guitar output on one pot and the 
synth output on the other.

I recorded a few improvisations, laying down some regular guitar and then 
cycling through various voices. It was very easy to make good things 
happen with it.
Once I was comfortable, I put it to work on one of my favorite loop 
instrumentals: "Quarter to Five (For Tina Loney)." I used the guitar to 
set up the basic track, and then I laid in the three principal themes 
using a flute, an oboe, and a cello. The resulting track is a little 
rough; each voice has its peculiarities of response and articulation. A 
couple of glisses in the cello passage tended to track strangely, sounding 
almost like the tape was slowing down; I'll figure out how to deal with 
that over time. But I was pretty thrilled with the overall feel.

Here it is:  https://soundcloud.com/dgans/quarter-to-five-for-tina-loney



David Gans
david@trufun.com
http://cloudsurfing.gdhour.com