Best usage of guitar synthesizers?

John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu record from 1984 has some tasty guitar synth.

 

I saw him when they toured with that lp. John was incredible as always!

 

Me too! I saw them at the Bottom Line in NYC. It was my first time seeing him (many more to follow) so I was in heaven.

 

Sounds

Sounds dated and Casio-like. Meh.

 

...possibly because it's from 35 years ago.

this is not a representation in any way of the possibilities in the world of guitar synthesis today.

 

I think you're right thinking about it - it sounds so similar to a GR500 but I don't think the band played any guitars on it at all.

 

Cool! I caught that show at the Park West, Chicago. My first was the Birds of Fire tour in '73. Haven't missed a McLaughlin tour since including the Shakti shows.

 

I saw them at The Beacon, I hate that damn synthesized guitar sound, John was playing his ass off, and it sounded like a muffled keyboardist. Not a fan of the sounds John, Allan, and a lot of guitarists got from those synths! Good Riddance!

 

Pete Townshend - Roland guitar synth is on Empty Glass (and I believe on All The Best Cowboys...).

Namely "Rough Boys," "Empty Glass" and I think that's what you hear on the noisy bridge in "Communication".

 

I like what John Goodsall did on Brand X's XCommunication... hear this example, all the keyboard sounding stuff is a midi guitar.

 

Andy Summers had been doing non-Casio guitar synth for longer than that, just sayin'...

 

I've been a fan of McLaughin's since the '70's, seen him 6-7 times through the years, own close to 2 dz. of his records, I'm a fan. While what he's been playing for the last decade may be technically superior on his gtr/synth, man, I SO wish he'd put it down and pick up the old black Les Paul!

 

I don't know - just going by the OP

 

The lines are so blurred now. On my Fishman-equipped guitar I can do some outlandish stuff by utilising my soft-synths. Playing with Sculpture in Logic with my Telecaster is nuts.

 

Jose Manuel Aguilera used it really well.

 

you know that Summers was playing the same synthesizer, right?

and comparing a corporate demo video to finished album work is a silly proposition, anyhow.

(and casio made some pretty great synths in the early days.)

 

You are correct: talent must be the difference between the two.

 

see the second sentence of my last post. you're comparing grains of dry rice to oranges.

(and this is not a Summers versus Belew thread, which would be a ludicrous thing--I wish they had done/would do a collaborative record. they're both brilliant. and both used guitar synths, to try to keep this remotely on-topic.)

 

here are 2 rolands in action at the same time, king crimson doing the sheltering sky live

 

I think he went into a EMS pitch to voltage Converter and Random Voltage Generator then into the Synthi A.

 

like in the intro to 'Joe the lion?' it does sound like that.

I know the synthi was just acting as a filter on some of the other cuts, like the title track, but it didn't occur to me that RF might have been actually controlling it elsewhere.

I bet the tracking on that PV converter was crazy.

 

Through the Ring Modulator as well on the Synthi, The P to V tracks pretty good for medium to slower lines.

 

Ugh, I am jealous. Most of all I wish I could have seen the original Shakti. I LOVE those albums. I also wish I had seen the original Mahavishnu... and the Translators.... and the guitar trio...

 

Forgot about that... yeah, awesome use of guitar synths. I saw them at the Pier in NYC in 1984 and they did this song as the sun was setting. I'll never forget that moment.

 

"The One Truth Band" in '78 were phenomenal also! John was weilding his 1976 Gibson 345 with Bigsby, no synthe. The Billy Cobham band was back up that night. This was at a night club venue, one of the best places to see a show in Chicago.