Originally Posted by
nevershouldhavesoldit
I don’t use the synth much any more, but I gigged with it regularly for several years. Mine’s the original GR20 - I bought it when they first came out and used it for B3 / Leslie and horn section riffs in blues bands and keys, plus vibes, flute & sax for jazz. It has a sustain pedal so you can play guitar as usual while holding notes or chords from the synth - so it’s very useful once you learn how to use it.
Some of the instruments are pretty realistic, eg flute, alto, vibes, EP, B3, Harmon muted trumpet, and trombone. Others are fair and a few are terrible. The open trumpet sounds like a ten cent kazoo. But the key to realism is knowing how to play the real instrument - everything from the mechanics to phrasing matters, eg horn players have to breathe, keyboards and vibes can’t bend notes.
Before I got my first synth (a rack mount XV2020), I played trumpet and sax well enough to support blues bands, although I never developed the chops to solo as well as I would have liked because it takes a lot of daily practice. And I’ve played keys and vibes for decades. Even so, I lapsed into guitar habits within seconds of starting to record the vibes part on Bags’ Groove. You can see string bending in a few spots. Because the vibes patch won’t warp notes it jumps a half step as the pitch crosses the midpoint.
Synths are fun, and the current generation sounds even better than mine. But it’s also $1k, and my days of playing for major acts that want a bargain horn section or an organ along with a guitar player are over. So my GR20 is fine & dandy for the few times I take it out.
Any Levin Deluxe Owners Here?
Today, 09:26 AM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos