The Roland V-Bass - a very flexible floor processor

The Roland V-Bass hasn't received a lot of buzz from the Stick community, at least that I've observed. Last I noticed, the Roland VG-88v2 and other Roland products are available from Stick Enterprises, but not the VG-88's processing sibling - the V-Bass, which is the VG-88's silver-hardware twin. I'm not a Roland sales guy and have no affiliation with the company, but I do like and use their products. The purpose for this article is to offer my Stick experiences on this unit.

I've been using the Roland V-Bass for about a year now, as a bass-side processor for my Stick, and I have found the unit to be a quite capable bass modeling processor, plus effects unit. The V-Bass also fulfills a need for the Stick that I've tried to tackle by other means, which is splitting the Stick's bass audio output into individual or mixed string parts. This write-up was initially conceived to expound on the split signal capability, although I've augmented with some sound examples, intro and history bits to round out the story...

The included sound examples are random improvisational samplings of the V-Bass sound. I included only V-Bass sounds (plus Stick melody and drum tracks) so as not to muddle with any further processing, even though I discuss this potential in the article. Perhaps at a later date I'll record and post further 'developed' sounds from the split V-Bass output.

Some web links, which may be of relevant interest to this article, are as follows:

The Roland V-Bass overview is found at Roland's website at: www.bosscorp.co.jp/products/en/V-Bass/. This includes the general panel descriptions and marketing rap. The Roland site also offers the ability to download user manuals in PDF format. The user manual doesn't offer a lot of application info, but at least it covers the basics.

The required Roland GK-2A (MIDI and audio) pickup (or the latest descendant such as the GK-3) description is found at the Stick Enterprises website or at Roland's: http://www.bosscorp.co.jp/products/en/GK-2A/, http://www.stick.com/instruments/midi/gk2a/.

A quick and interesting technical overview for these (GK-2 style) combination audio and MIDI pick-ups is found in an interview with Richard McClish - via: http://www.richardhallebeek.com/interviews/mcclish.php

I highly recommend reading this interview if you are interested in this topic - I think most people think of the GK-2A (and the newer versions of Roland) pickups primarily for MIDI interface applications - only. Richard McClish (who's a very interesting fellow) offers his own pickups, http://www.rmcpickup.com/ and identifies a few other available brands (at least what was available at the time of the interview in 2003). A web search for RMC pickups also yields a few other links to MIDI guitar pickups that may be out there...

(There was a more in-depth technical FAQ type article from Richard McClish at one point at www.vg-8.com at one point, although unfortunately it seems to have been removed since the site went WIKI.)

There is also a V-Bass discussion group at Yahoo and another more recent exchange at: www.vbass.thedrillgun.com/

Since the Stick bass range is so wide (via its 5ths intervals), I've always thought that the lower bass notes may benefit from not receiving the same processing treatment as the upper (comping or chordal) bass notes - similar in concept to a split keyboard.

For certain playing approaches the upper bass notes could be treated more like the comping or arpeggios of the left hand of a jazz piano/keyboard, but not be restricted to the same drier (possibly less processed) overall Stick-bass root note, walking and/or driving tone output.

For example, when I apply chorus, distortion, reverb, etc. to the Stick bass pickup output, the lower bass strings may sound (play) mushy, while the upper bass strings may shine. Additionally, if the melody side is wet with the same sort of effects, the lowest bass side strings may be quite 'effected' - with mush or worse. Phase problems can randomly knock down lower bass string volume, due to frequency disputes between the adjacent bass and melody strings.

Additionally, an observation of the Stick's 'higher gauged' string complement (the Grand Stick's 6 melody strings and the upper 3 or so bass strings on a Grand Stick) became more apparent to me while using the Stick with the PASV4 toggled in mono, the function of which mixes the bass side into and then out of the melody side. When this signal is output to guitar (melody side) range effects patches, all of these higher gauged strings complement in a '12 string guitar' sort of way and sound really well together, but - then the lowest bass strings which are also output may often be simultaneously thin sounding for lack of bass frequencies (depending on the various processor patch combinations). In certain cases (e.g. when playing along with a bass player), having a bass-less sound may be advantageous (like taking the lower end off an acoustic guitar during a mix). But - how to break out and emphasize the bass when all twelve strings of the Stick are pumped through a 'guitar' effect. Unfortunately (and simply) adding bass EQ to a guitar patch often doesn't quick fix the low end.

The Roland V-Bass has feature capabilities to address the issue - by isolating the individual bass string signals. It is possible to adjust individual strings to pan left or right (or anywhere in-between) and to also adjust individual string volume levels. Audio from the individual strings may then be output in a dual mono fashion (via the L/R stereo jacks), for further 'treatment'.

In application, there might be a case where a (fat) lower frequency drone note requires one type of processing while the higher complementing strings are in need of a different (clearer, lighter) reverb and maybe some chorusing. Or the lower note 'acoustic bass patch' is minimally verbed and specifically EQ'd, while the upper string 'hollow body' jazz guitar patch is darkly EQ'd and heavily verbed. Or the low strings are allocated to a beefy bass cabinet while the high strings to a mid-range 10" or 12" cabinet. Or the high strings are muted, while the low strings are mixed back in with the Stick's pickup output.

The hardware requirement for using the Roland V-Bass or VG-8/VG-88 with a bass, guitar, banjo, etc. is typically a GK style pickup from Roland, although other manufacturers' pickups certainly exist. I am not aware of any other commercially available pickups for the Stick, for the Roland audio and MIDI processor applications.

My two Grand Sticks have two GK-2A's each, which were installed at Stick Enterprises. 10 or so years ago I had a 10 string Stick with one custom GK pickup (a 5 string pickup, which is somewhat of an odd number in the guitar pickup world), but since traded up to the Grand, which I use in a 6+6 tuning. There's not a lot of room to fit the GK's below the Stick pickups (on either my maple or graphite x), but Emmett managed to have foresight to design in the space to squeeze it all in (refer to the Stick website for details).

The literal GK-2A pickup is mounted below the bass-side of the Stick pickup and above the bottom bridge. The Stick's standard pickup output (i.e. the split-out mono signal from the Stick bass side) also optionally connects to the V-Bass via a separate IN jack on the back panel, near the GK input jack. The processed signals (from both the GK-2A and the Stick) can be mixed within the V-Bass and then output from the stereo output jacks of the V-Bass. An additional Output jack on the V-Bass carries the unaffected Stick pickup signal - for connection to another processor, or to a mixer to feed aux sends (for further flexibility to feed multiple or the same processors), or to use possibly for separated (unadulterated) Stick bass tracks on your multi-track.

The V-Bass hookup matches a similar routing setup I have on the melody side - using the melody side GK-2A output to a Roland VG-88v2, and separately the Stick pickup's melody signal plugs into a similar 'IN and OUT/thru'-port on the VG-88, which is then output to 'wherever' (allowing for a number of efx boxes for the melody signal in addition to the VG-88 - in my case the Roland GT-6, GT-Pro and a TC Fireworx).

Summarily, I have three cables leaving my Stick - two of which carry the 13 pin signal of the GK pickup pre-amp / controller housings (mounted 69'd on the back of my Stick). Having 3 cables is a bit awkward to walk around with, but can be easily dressed together, using some electrical tape to bunch up the cables at intervals. Also, since the two GK-2A pickup controllers are mounted on the back of the Stick (instead of on the side for only one installed GK pickup), I apply electrical tape over their volume and mix switches (refer to GK-2A pictures at the Stick website). I learned the hard way that leaning over with a Stick can turn off the (unprotected by tape) GK pickup without one knowing it - which is not at all fun to troubleshoot why the VG-88 audio has disappeared during a live show.

As a bit of an aside, in my recording set-up, I first feed the two Stick GK's via the 13 pin cables to two Roland's GKP-4 thru boxes (1 in, 4 out), one of which then feeds a Roland Guitar-MIDI interface (GI-10) for the melody side and the other to a GK-MIDI interface (GI-20) for the bass side for MIDI triggering, and separately the GK thru's also feed the VG-88 and V-Bass respectively. This is my basic setup to allow for both MIDI and audio.

Recently, I was re-plugging in my GK-2A's on my Stick and mistakenly reversed the two cables. My bass side was instead feeding the VG-88 and the melody side the V-Bass. As a result, the melody side through the V-Bass wasn't so astounding (using the default V-Bass patches). But the bass side through the VG-88 was really cool. I'll possibly elaborate on this in another article - this was a fun stumble.

Initially - when the Stick or Bass or guitar, banjo or whatever you've got is plugged into the V-Bass or VG-88, the System Setup requirement is to set some initial individual string levels and also describe the phase and placement of the pickup as best as possible. I've had to make adjustments over the course of time using the V-Bass to set the optimal levels - it takes a bit of experimentation. There are some V-Bass models that require a certain amount of input gain to trigger them properly - whereas that same amount of gain will overdrive other models (yielding not the fun type of distortion). Unfortunately I haven't found a 'per patch initial trim adjustment', like a mixer's mic pre-amp trim to avoid distortion, so I have to use a slightly lower initial level setting. If you do end up using or trying out one of these units - pay attention to this initial requirement - it's very similar to proper gain staging on a mixer. Or impedance matching, or those sorts of things that can color your initial impressions in a bad way...

Next month - Stickbass experiences with MIDI, the RMC breakout box and more on the V-Bass...please check out the V-Bass audio examples.

Included Audio examples

These are all short, improvised single passes, mixed to 16bit 2 track from 6 tracks - stereo drum tracks, Stickbass via stereo V-Bass tracks, and Stickmelody via stereo Roland GT-6 tracks. No dubs - 'scuse the flubs. I kept the Melody Stick comps simple, panned to the right and at a lower level, except on the heavy guitar example. Some drum loops for context. Note that for the Mp3 conversion via Peak Bias, some tracks came out bass heavy (clipped,distorted) after converting from aiff - so I dropped the overall gain of the tracks before re-conversion. The V-Bass allows a blend of the Stick signal as well the GK-2A output (see article text) - but for all of these examples, the V-Bass GK-2A is 100% (no analog Stick mixed into the V-Bass patch).

Short track descriptions:

01V-Bass - the first patch on the processor, uses 'vari-bass' modeling.
 Solid body electric, single rear and double front pickups. Some stereo chorusing.
02Fretless - fretless model - a few licks, then some roots
03Acoustic - upright model
04Acoustic - a little more of the same
05JB - electric 'JB' type
06Mman - electric MM type
07Mman - tweaked a bit - more of the rear pickup in the model
08Motown - electric 'vintage JB' type
09Tbird - electric 't-bird' type
10Str-pan - an example of the on-board string panning feature (every other string is panned hard opposite)
 and on higher strings the pitch is an octave up mixed with the dry string, for a 12 string effect
11Pitch - Stickbass only - first two strings down two octaves, middle are at pitch and the upper two are two octaves up.
 Good for bizarro-circus music
12HeavyGuitar - bass thickness w/major distortion - the solo on the melody side is Roland GT-6
 (sorry I couldn't not solo over this...)
13Pedalsaw - an example of a subtractive synthesis patch. The filter opening on the sawtooth wave uses the pedal.
 A few echoed GT-6 melody bits thrown in.

Brian McCully is based in the Pacific Northwest. You can reach him at: spuzroy@yahoo.com