AFX2 + Guitar Resonator video demo - feedback and sustain at all volumes!

Matoshi

Inspired
Hi friends,

I'd like to share with you the result of a project that I've been working on for months, investing a lot of time and energy and doing everything I could to make it as good and useful as it can be.
I've always been a fan of Steve Vai's extremely expressive sustainer-driven compositions ("Whispering a Prayer" :encouragement:) and wished to have the tools to do something like that. Needless to say, when my buddy Phil asked me if I was interested in producing a review video about a sustainer called "Vibesware Guitar Resonator" with him, I was very eager to try it out.

When I plugged it in for the first time, I was as much impressed and inspired by what it enabled me to do as I was shocked that it was not better-known among guitarists. I immediately started to write a song to showcase the great possibilities that the Resonator opens up and came up with a 4-minute long instrumental called "The Dive" that can now be heard and seen as part of the finished review video. :)

I've never done something like this before and am VERY happy with the outcome of the whole project, so without further ado, I'm thrilled to finally share this with you all:



(in case you want to skip the talk, the song starts at 4:27)

All lead guitar parts were recorded directly to Pro Tools through my Axe FX II running FW10 using the ODS-100 Clean & Brit Super through Redwirez IRs from the BIGBox pack. The guitar is a Schecter Jeff Loomis 7 String :mrgreen

Feedback is very welcome! (no pun intended.. :lol )
 
Hi friends,

I'd like to share with you the result of a project that I've been working on for months, investing a lot of time and energy and doing everything I could to make it as good and useful as it can be.
I've always been a fan of Steve Vai's extremely expressive sustainer-driven compositions ("Whispering a Prayer" :encouragement:) and wished to have the tools to do something like that. Needless to say, when my buddy Phil asked me if I was interested in producing a review video about a sustainer called "Vibesware Guitar Resonator" with him, I was very eager to try it out.

When I plugged it in for the first time, I was as much impressed and inspired by what it enabled me to do as I was shocked that it was not better-known among guitarists. I immediately started to write a song to showcase the great possibilities that the Resonator opens up and came up with a 4-minute long instrumental called "The Dive" that can now be heard and seen as part of the finished review video. :)

I've never done something like this before and am VERY happy with the outcome of the whole project, so without further ado, I'm thrilled to finally share this with you all:



(in case you want to skip the talk, the song starts at 4:27)

All lead guitar parts were recorded directly to Pro Tools through my Axe FX II running FW10 using the ODS-100 Clean & Brit Super through Redwirez IRs from the BIGBox pack. The guitar is a Schecter Jeff Loomis 7 String :mrgreen

Feedback is very welcome! (no pun intended.. :lol )


Very nice production BTW. :encouragement:
 
Man that's so cool .. I love that song you've made, I had a kramer american sustainer years ago and I'm bummed out that I sold it

:) seems like a very fun piece of gear :)
gonna go check it out on the webpage now ..

have a good one and thanks for sharing
 
Great job and demonstration.
Thanks Sean! :)

Man that's so cool .. I love that song you've made, I had a kramer american sustainer years ago and I'm bummed out that I sold it

:) seems like a very fun piece of gear :)
gonna go check it out on the webpage now ..

have a good one and thanks for sharing

Awesome, I'm glad you enjoyed the song!! :encouragement:

I truly believe that the Resonators are the perfect solution for guys like me who want the functionality of a sustainer pickup but don't want to sacrifice their neck pickup. If you want to know more about the devices, ask away! :)
 
Fantastic!! This is a device I would certainly use!
I've been using ebows for years and would love to check this resonator.
Sustainers never appealed to me, but this is right up my alley.

Great job with the video & production values, pacing and the song you shared was awesome.
Great guitar playing, chops and clearly inspired.

Thanks for sharing your time & talents.
 
Great job Matoshi! Great demo, song, playing etc. I'm an ebow user and have experimented with all sorts of things to try and mimic amp feed back at lower volumes. Like you, I'm not crazy about buying a sustainer guitar or modifying one of my existing ones. This looks really promising.

I just read the manual and it mentions feedback on a maximum of 3 strings at once with one string being dominate. I didn't see this demonstrated in your video. What's your thoughts/experience with this feature?

Both the ebow and the Resonator use a magnetic field to generate the feedback. Do you (or anyone else) know why the Resonator needs the guitar's audio signal and the ebow doesn't?

One last question. Do you know if any vol or expression pedal can be used instead of buying theirs? It'd be nice to use one of my existing pedals and not have to make room for another. :)
 
Fantastic!! This is a device I would certainly use!
I've been using ebows for years and would love to check this resonator.
Sustainers never appealed to me, but this is right up my alley.

Great job with the video & production values, pacing and the song you shared was awesome.
Great guitar playing, chops and clearly inspired.

Thanks for sharing your time & talents.

Thank you for your very kind words!! :)
Ebows are great, but I think you will really appreciate the Resonator. I just played my ebow in the studio today for the first time since getting the GR a few months ago. It felt weaker (probably because it's only battery driven) and I couldn't get the exact harmonics that I wanted. What surprised me most, though, was that it felt a little bit more difficult to use than the Resonator! Especially when I wanted to change from one string to the next, which is really easy on the GR. I guess I got used to the GR very quickly :)
Still, the ebow is a great little helper, and very portable! :encouragement:

Great job Matoshi! Great demo, song, playing etc. I'm an ebow user and have experimented with all sorts of things to try and mimic amp feed back at lower volumes. Like you, I'm not crazy about buying a sustainer guitar or modifying one of my existing ones. This looks really promising.

I just read the manual and it mentions feedback on a maximum of 3 strings at once with one string being dominate. I didn't see this demonstrated in your video. What's your thoughts/experience with this feature?

Both the ebow and the Resonator use a magnetic field to generate the feedback. Do you (or anyone else) know why the Resonator needs the guitar's audio signal and the ebow doesn't?

One last question. Do you know if any vol or expression pedal can be used instead of buying theirs? It'd be nice to use one of my existing pedals and not have to make room for another. :)

Thank you Narzugon! :)

The "maximum of 3 strings" thing is comparable to the feedback you get with a cranked amp for example when you let a distorted power chord ring. What happens is that you get that dirty feedback because more than one note is feeding back, but only one is dominant, or louder than the others. It's hard to explain, I'll make a little recording of how that sounds with the resonator if you're interested. ;)

I'm pretty clueless about the technical details of how the GR operates, so I can't answer your second question, but I'll ask Markus from Vibesware if he can shed some light on that.

To your third question: The Vibesware Harmonics Pedal is made specifically for the purpose of switching between different overtones and it's not like the usual volume/wah pedals. Instead of the usual sweep range, the Harmonics Pedal's range is divided in "stages" that represent the varying overtones. It's best visible in the video at the 3:56 timestamp. I guess it could be called "multi-latching" or something like that! :D So no, your usual pedals won't work for this purpose.

IMO it's worth it, though, I totally fell in love with the pedal and the ease of use and control that it offers! 8)
 
I'm pretty clueless about the technical details of how the GR operates, so I can't answer your second question, but I'll ask Markus from Vibesware if he can shed some light on that.

I won't trouble you. I can shoot him an email or join his forum (if he has one) and ask. I also found a video by Markus that shows multiple strings with feedback. Sounds very natural as expected.

As for the pedal, I see what you're talking about. So it's not a continuous sweep it's just selecting the 3 modes of feedback.

I also seen a Premier Guitar interview with Markus at the trade show in Germany. Nice to know that the product has been out for a bit.

Thanks for the reply! \m/
 
I won't trouble you. I can shoot him an email or join his forum (if he has one) and ask. I also found a video by Markus that shows multiple strings with feedback. Sounds very natural as expected.
No problem, mate, I already sent him an email about it. ;) There's no Vibesware forum (yet?).

As for the pedal, I see what you're talking about. So it's not a continuous sweep it's just selecting the 3 modes of feedback.
Exactly! Plus the fundamental/sustain mode, so 4 modes total. :)

I also seen a Premier Guitar interview with Markus at the trade show in Germany. Nice to know that the product has been out for a bit.
Yeah, the first GR came out a few years ago. Similarly to Cliff and the AFX, initially Markus built it primarily for himself! :D Guys like Roine Stolt and Uli Jon Roth have been early adopters of the technology, but it hasn't yet received the wide attention it deserves.

Thanks for the reply! \m/
You're very welcome! If more questions pop up, feel free to ask! :encouragement:
 
Very cool! I like the demo you have produced, very well done ;). How it works in a live setting on a stage?, the fact that you have to be in such close proximity I would be worried about hitting the resonator head and causing some weird notes to happen.
 
Very cool! I like the demo you have produced, very well done ;).
Thank you! :)

How it works in a live setting on a stage?, the fact that you have to be in such close proximity I would be worried about hitting the resonator head and causing some weird notes to happen.
Haha yeah! I don't do gigs at the moment so I have had no stage experiences with the GR yet. Of course, developing a feeling for the right proximity to the head takes a bit of practice at first. By increasing the resonator volume knob, the magnetic field becomes stronger, enabling you to get the same effect further away from the head. This also makes it easier to produce the (sometimes unwanted :D ) whale noises, so you would have to experiment to find the right balance that works for you. :)
 
Yes, excellent demo and product.
I'd been thinking along these lines - sustain - feedback sound.
2 songs come to mind: Satch's Flying in a blue dream, and Santana's Black Magic Woman, the Moonflower version.
 
Great job Matoshi! Great demo, song, playing etc. I'm an ebow user and have experimented with all sorts of things to try and mimic amp feed back at lower volumes. Like you, I'm not crazy about buying a sustainer guitar or modifying one of my existing ones. This looks really promising.

I just read the manual and it mentions feedback on a maximum of 3 strings at once with one string being dominate. I didn't see this demonstrated in your video. What's your thoughts/experience with this feature?

Both the ebow and the Resonator use a magnetic field to generate the feedback. Do you (or anyone else) know why the Resonator needs the guitar's audio signal and the ebow doesn't?

One last question. Do you know if any vol or expression pedal can be used instead of buying theirs? It'd be nice to use one of my existing pedals and not have to make room for another. :)

Thanks for your interest in Guitar Resonators and special thanks to Matoshi for sharing this great video here !

Perhaps this helps to understand the difference to the ebow:

The ebow has two coils: a pickup coil and a string driver coil. The signal from the pickup coil is amplified and the output of this amplifier is connected to the string driver coil.
Basically, depending on the power of the magnetic field a minimum distance between the coils is required. If the distance is too short, the circuit self-oscillates (similar to a microphone near the speaker)
and string driving does not work any more. Thats one reason why the ebow has its typical shape: the coils have the maximum distance given by the enclose. To build an ebow with more power would require
a larger enclosure to reach the distance needed to avoid self-oscillation. It would be also difficult to build an ebow with bigger coils (or more then two coils) for driving multiple strings because you also had to enlarge the distance.

Thats one of the reasons why guitar build-in sustainers and the Guitar Resonator use the guitar pickup as input signal: the distance to the string driver can be larger. 8)
 
Matoshi,

Very interesting!

In the intro music, what effects are you using in the Axefx 2? (other than amp and cab... it sounds like you are doing some sort of pitch/harmony effect?)
 
Ah. I didn't know the elbow had two coils one of which being a pickup coil. Thanks for explaining that. I've always wondered why no one has expanded the elbow to cover more strings. Now I know! Thanks again.

Edit: lol Elbow = Ebow - damned iPad auto correct!
 
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Thanks for your interest in Guitar Resonators and special thanks to Matoshi for sharing this great video here !
Hey Markus! Super cool to see you here! Welcome to the Fractal forums! :)

Perhaps this helps to understand the difference to the ebow:

The ebow has two coils: a pickup coil and a string driver coil. The signal from the pickup coil is amplified and the output of this amplifier is connected to the string driver coil.
Basically, depending on the power of the magnetic field a minimum distance between the coils is required. If the distance is too short, the circuit self-oscillates (similar to a microphone near the speaker)
and string driving does not work any more. Thats one reason why the ebow has its typical shape: the coils have the maximum distance given by the enclose. To build an ebow with more power would require
a larger enclosure to reach the distance needed to avoid self-oscillation. It would be also difficult to build an ebow with bigger coils (or more then two coils) for driving multiple strings because you also had to enlarge the distance.

Thats one of the reasons why guitar build-in sustainers and the Guitar Resonator use the guitar pickup as input signal: the distance to the string driver can be larger. 8)
Very interesting! I'm not sure I understand it all, but thanks for the insight! :encouragement:

Matoshi,

Very interesting!

In the intro music, what effects are you using in the Axefx 2? (other than amp and cab... it sounds like you are doing some sort of pitch/harmony effect?)

Thanks! :) Yes, in the intro I use a pitch block after the amp with an intelligent harmony set to E Dorian. ;)
 
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