FM9 Hotel California using the FM9 with a Roland GR-55

Z

zakmichaels

Member
Here is my rendition of Hotel California where I play the 2nd acoustic guitar in the intro and all of the the electric guitar parts in real time - just me, one guitar, one track, one pass through the song - no overdubs. I play over a backing track that has the 12-string rhythm part, bass, drums, keys and vocals. The FM9 is the main controller that produces the right channel "Joe Walsh" guitar, any harmonized notes and controls the GR-55. The GR-55 provides the acoustic and left channel "Don Felder" guitars.

It's a beast of a thing to manage as it requires 48 footswitch presses at the proper moments during the song. The set up is very complicated involving custom layouts, 18 custom scales over 3 presets stitched together in a song. If you're looking to put something like this together, I recommend searching the AX8 forum for a post by @Johan Allard where he goes through his set up for Hotel California. It was his approach that I used as a guideline to put this together. I posted this audio more as a demonstration of what the FM9 is capable of.

Added note: I want to point out that this can be achieved using only the FM9. The GR-55 just greatly adds to the effect of listening to separate, distinct guitars since its sounds are generated by a completely separate sound palette/device.

 
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That's impressive. Love my GR-55 and it's great to see someone putting something like this together. Nice!

What guitar do you use? Do you use the GK3 or something like the Graphtech system?
 
fcs101 said:
That's impressive. Love my GR-55 and it's great to see someone putting something like this together. Nice!

What guitar do you use? Do you use the GK3 or something like the Graphtech system?
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A Godin LGXT. I have a Roland-ready Fender Strat but I find the tracking is better on the Godin plus it’s more versatile as it has split capable humbuckers so I can get both humbucker and single coil sounds.

What do you use?
 
zakmichaels said:
A Godin LGXT. I have a Roland-ready Fender Strat but I find the tracking is better on the Godin plus it’s more versatile as it has split capable humbuckers so I can get both humbucker and single coil sounds.

What do you use?
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I have a Godin LGX-SA and a custom Kiesel SH575. The Kiesel has the coil splits also. They both track awesome.

I have a GK3, but have never mounted it and not sure I will. I just keep it as a back up.
 
Great work...and I do mean work. Sounds good, I have been going through an Eagles / Hotel California re-discovery since I saw them a few weeks ago. I would love to see some of the amp and effect blocks that you used for this or even some of the presets. The Eagles guitar tones live were incredible-I thought you nailed the record's guitar tones with your project really well. Of particular interest to me also since watching them live was Joe Walsh's slide tones that he was getting were also pretty epic as well.
Thanks for sharing this.
 
So you use a 13-pin cable GKC with respect to Godin?... Mine is Godin multiac slim nylon,
but I'm afraid Godin 13-pin jack works well with my GR55.. GK3 works better? I'm not sure yet.
 
honeypat said:
So you use a 13-pin cable GKC with respect to Godin?... Mine is Godin multiac slim nylon,
but I'm afraid Godin 13-pin jack works well with my GR55.. GK3 works better? I'm not sure yet.
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Most people prefer a guitar with the midi-access built in like the Godin. The GK-3 is basically an aftermarket mod. It works well, but just looks ugly. Another advantage of built-in systems is that they usually include piezo, so you can have three different sources.
 
honeypat said:
So you use a 13-pin cable GKC with respect to Godin?... Mine is Godin multiac slim nylon,
but I'm afraid Godin 13-pin jack works well with my GR55.. GK3 works better? I'm not sure yet.
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I assume you meant to say “the 13-pin jack DOES NOT work well with my GR-55”. If so, did you adjust your pick up settings (see the “Adjusting Your Guitar Pickup” section in the GR-55 manual)? I’m not at home right now so I can’t verify my settings but I think I remember I had to change the default pickup type to “piezo” (not sure what your guitar uses) and dial the string sensitivity of each string way down (to less than 5% I think). My Godin tracks extremely well using the 13-pin connection after it was dialed in.

Oh, and the scale and distance parameters are also important to set accurately.
 
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LancerS said:
Great work...and I do mean work. Sounds good, I have been going through an Eagles / Hotel California re-discovery since I saw them a few weeks ago. I would love to see some of the amp and effect blocks that you used for this or even some of the presets. The Eagles guitar tones live were incredible-I thought you nailed the record's guitar tones with your project really well. Of particular interest to me also since watching them live was Joe Walsh's slide tones that he was getting were also pretty epic as well.
Thanks for sharing this.
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I built this setup piecemeal (did the outro first) so things currently are not laid out in what would be a logical order. For example, the custom scale numbering as they apply to the scenes as they correspond to the song are in disjointed order. Maybe, if I get time, I’ll sort all that out and put something together but it’s a complicated set up that would take a lot of explanation to get across.
 
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BTW, this setup can be done using just the FM9. The GR-55 just adds guitar tones that are distinctly different from the FM9’s giving it a more realistic, separate guitars kind of sound. Especially so in two respects: 1) the intro acoustic guitar sounds like an acoustic guitar because the GR-55 is outputting a sampled acoustic guitar (which it does well) and 2) when the two electric guitars are in harmony, since one guitar is based on the sampled guitar tone of the GR-55’s output whose tonality has zero to do with what my guitar/the FM9 is outputting, it does sound like 2 different guitars playing. If you use just the FM9, both harmony guitar parts are originating from the same source so they won’t sound as distinct. Yes, you can run two amp blocks in a given scene and route the harmony parts individually to each to help create distinct sounds but they still originate from the same source and have a lot of characteristics that can’t be separated.

One last note, the “Custom Shifter” block has its limitations. I don’t really notice it in the full track but if I isolate just the harmonized guitar part, it can sound really glitchy at times.
 
zakmichaels said:
I assume you meant to say “the 13-pin jack DOES NOT work well with my GR-55”. If so, did you adjust your pick up settings ( see the “Adjusting Your Guitar Pickup” section in the manual)? I’m not at home right now so I can’t verify my settings but I think I remember I had to change the default pickup type to “piezo” (not sure what your guitar uses) and dial the string sensitivity of each string way down (to less than 5% I think). My Godin tracks extremely well using the 13-pin connection.

Oh, and the scale and distance parameters are also important to set accurately.
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Yes, do dial down the sensitivity. The procedures say to set it as high as possible without reaching the end of the meter. When I first got mine it was up around 40-50% and I would get false notes all the time. I then dialed it way back to about 3/4 on the meter or about 15% on sensitivity (but you could go lower). Anyway, false notes are pretty much eliminated after that (I mean you can always get one if your technique is too sloppy, but this is just much more forgiving).
 
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honeypat said:
So you use a 13-pin cable GKC with respect to Godin?... Mine is Godin multiac slim nylon,
but I'm afraid Godin 13-pin jack works well with my GR55.. GK3 works better? I'm not sure yet.
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I believe your guitar’s pickup for the synth is made by LR Baggs so try setting the pickup type on the GR-55 to “Piezo L” and adjusting the other parameters as I previously stated.
 
A had a few requests to show this setup in action. I finally got around to doing a video of the lead part. The GR-55 is mounted above my keyboard behind me in this video. It's easier to program that way and I control it completely via the FM-9.

 
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Sir, I sincerely respect your endeavour to make such an awesome FM9 preset and
well- dialed in GR55 setups. Me too,have FM9 and GR55, but never thought how
to organize both device together in producing Hotel'~ sound in such a way.
Please kindly share your settings/preset with some remarks, if it does not bother you.
 
Great work. I really wanted to get a GR55.Then GM800 came out and I got this instead with a GK5 pickup. A guitar synth adds so much sonic possibility for songwriting.
 
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