The VG Strat concept is pretty straightforward - marry Roland's cutting edge technology with a good, tried-and-tested Fender guitar. Fender & RolandĪpparently Roland have been working behind the scenes with Fender for some 10 years now, and the partnership is begining to bear fruit, in the form of a series of Boss pedals that model specific Fender amplifiers (so far, the Deluxe and the Bassman), and the Fender VG Strat reviewed here. They are great systems, but the flip side for many traditional guitarists is that the sheer scope of such a device can be daunting. Roland's latest hardware VG processor is the VG99, which is far more powerful than its predecessors and allows for a huge amount of user customisation. The same GK pickup can also be used to drive Roland's range of GR synthesizers, via the multi-pin DIN socket on the output of the GK pickup's control box. The pickup goes so close to the bridge because, positioned there, it can pick up a relatively predictable sound from the strings and string bending doesn't push the string too far away from the pickup. It needs to be a six-pole pickup in order to process each string separately - which you need to do if you want to create accurate guitar models where, for example, the pickups might be mounted at an angle, or, more importantly, to allow the tunings of individual strings to be changed for more complex models, such as drop tunings or simulations of 12-string guitars. Providing there is room enough to fit Roland's GK six-pole pickup close to the bridge, VG systems can work with pretty much any electric guitar (the pickups are available separately, so you are not restricted to using them with the Strat). It can even make an electric guitar sound like an acoustic guitar or bass and emulate various miking options. The VG modelling system can emulate different guitar body types, different pickup types and layouts, various amplifier and speaker combinations and, of course, all the familiar effects and stomp boxes. To understand the concept behind the VG Strat, you have to go back a few years to when Roland invented the concept of guitar and amp modelling and implemented it in their pioneering VG range of processors. Fender have married Roland's VG technology with the timeless design of the Stratocaster.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |