Roland VG-8

[JB_From_Hell]

Anybody have one? I've seen them going for very little money as of late. I remember checking one out when they were brand new, and being totally blown away by it.

I'm cool with the idea of a synth pickup, so, why would I rather have a newer processor than a VG-8?

 

[frankfalbo]

Re: Roland VG-8

why would I rather have a newer processor than a VG-8?

You wouldn't. You can hook the VG-8's midi output to any newer sound module for any synth sound you want. You can also send the midi data to your computer for a "daylight bonfire"

The "classic" guitar tones in the VG-8 leave a lot to be desired. They'll fool you in a radio jingle or a rhythm track buried deep in the mix, but you the player can tell it's not the real thing. The Variax is one of the next generations, and quite frankly I think the Roland sounds better. I think you get a much more natural response (although still not natural) with a GK-2 than with a piezo in the saddle. I like the piezo saddles for triggering midi sounds, but the Variax processes those sounds into models, whereas the VG-8 processes the GK-2 sounds which are actual magnetic pickup signals. So they attack and sustain more like an electric guitar should, and therefore make for more realistic models IMO.

Edit: Nowadays with digital recording, you can also compensate for triggering delays by pulling a track back 30 milliseconds or so. (V-guitar has no real delay because it's an audio process with no conversion) So when recording with guitar synth, you can listen to the magnetic guitar audio signal (or the V-Guitar signal) while you're recording the synth track. That way you won't hear the delayed sound. You'll just hear yourself playing regular guitar, and therefore you're timing would be better and tighter. Then when you're done, you can pull the triggered synth track back to compensate for the delay.

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Roland VG-8

I dig it. It's basically a Boss GT series modeler (with full COSM processing) mated to a synth/polyphonic signal processor. The cool thing is, you can run a mix of your guitar's mag pickups into the amps models while simultaneously runnign a modeled guitar from the GK series pickup.

How about layering your clean strat singal with a chimey, 12 string pseudo Ric? Pretty cool, huh.

 

[PUCKBOY99]

Re: Roland VG-8

I had one for a short time; VG-88 w/version 2 software.

It was cool, but there is a tremendous amount of stuff in it....I wound up reading more than playing it.

And I wasn't overly impressed with the amp models. The effects were good though & some of the guitar models were very cool. There was a pipe organ patch that killed !

Twilight Odyssey has one & loves it.....maybe he'll chime in.

 

[vinterland]

Re: Roland VG-8

I've been looking at the vg-88 for a while now. The vg-88 sounds much better to my ears than the vg-8 in terms of amp modeling but both have some really cool guitar meets synth sounds.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Roland VG-8

Twilight Odyssey has one & loves it.....maybe he'll chime in.

True!

I have a Roland Ready Strat/VG-88/GR-30/FC-200 setup and love it to death!!

The VG-8 has some models that are not on the VG-88.
The Rolands are the Jaguar of modeling amps.

If you must you a modeller, they are the best!!