Grateful Dead Music Forum

"Jerry found a way to adapt to whatever the situation was and add a color. When he switched to the MIDI guitar synth, I never felt he needed it. Intrusion is too strong a word. It obstructed his sound. But I guess when you've been doing the same shit for 30 years, you need to get something to spike it up a little."

I couldn't agree more ... I so much would have rather heard him play slide on Row Jimmy than some endless flute solo, or have him put his creative energy into Bird Song instead of noodling with some keyboard patch or breathy fake sounding horn. I rarely listen to the Dead these days, but when I do I tend to avoid that whole era.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/blogs ... d-20140710

It's too bad he never got into the analog synths. Some of them sound really warm and musical. The Roland GR-300 has a 2ms latency, I think. It sounds really musical. GR-700 has similarly quick latency. Digital synths (especially those from that era) always sound noticeably laggy and limited in scope.

Branford got it just right. It obstructed his sound.

I dunno 'bout that. I would say he was in a phase of his life where OTHER things were obstructing his ability to utilize it to his fullest potential.

I could never get into midi Jerry, just can't and do not want to listen to anything with him playing midi. For me the midi sound was always a wet blanket in contrast to the searing leads that I'm looking for. It's the complete opposite of what I want to hear from him when he's ripping into a lead.

Another no no on midi. Guitars should not sound like a bad trumpet.

Sorry but not a fan of Jerry's slide playing either. Too thin and often pitchy.

Still, love everything else.

I agree that the midi, by and large, was obstructive to Jer's tone. I recall only very, very few instances when Jerry's midi was "great"... usually in really spacey jams leading into songs.

my favorite Jerry-midi moment: 8/16/91 - the transition from Victim>Fire - Jerry drops the bassoon... Wow!

at the end of Victim, Right a 8:34 --- https://archive.org/details/gd91-08-16. ... sbeok.shnf

As someone who ushers a guitar synth some, I can't say I was thrilled with Jerry's use of it most of the time. I used it mostly when we didn't have a keyboard player to fill on organ parts. I also prefer to blend it with the guitar sound rather than hanging out there on its own. I do like the sitar sound blended with the guitar, I use that on the break in St Stephen. Only once or twice a show is enough.

Hey Vic

Funny you should post this just as the second installment of the Spring 90 box set comes along. I caught the Hamilton and Albany shows from that tour. The Scarlet Fire was pretty cool where Jerry played in Sterio with both a clean tone and a midi tone. The jam after Terrapin from Albany was also a highlight. Just cool tones and no flute stuff going on.

I think the midi worked the best when the band used it sparingly in tunes like Loser and Help on the Way where it was just a burst of sonic color rather than some extending bar after bar of a sampled instruments. I find the Birdsongs from that era are a little over cooked with weirdness from the use of midi.

I'm using a bit of synth now but try to use it just as another sound in solos where I may dial in multiple tones just to add contrast rather than rely on it as the "tone". It's just another sonic color or texture to add to the musically tone palette.

Peace,

James

Branford is mostly correct I think, but given the thousands of hours of Jerry on tap doing his main thing, I dig most of the MIDI stuff or at least appreciate him further exploring to maybe keep it fresh for him & us... (perhaps unknown creative benefits there only he knew/needed?) Although the patches were "bad" back then, I also gotta give him some serious courage points for trying it considering the lag / latency of the day made it very hard to use with a normal tune/beat (even tho space was most used place). However I'm prob biased... I don't (ok can't) play Jerry stuff that much & I dig spacey ambient stuff & like textures / pads odd sounds, & hardly ever turn on the SMS analogue chain without the GR-55 > DI to studio mons too.... it's a hoot to just dive in & get lost on a hot Saturday like today... hmmm... I think it's time to boot it up! But like James said it's usually barely noticeable, or to add a flash of something here n there vs dominating. I'd think if he had today's midi tech this would prob be a different conversation? As in latency & patch quality especially with VST's. I'd love to hear him noodling with Omnisphere or Trillian

There were times when I thought the guitar synth rigs that Jerry, Bobby and Phil worked rather well, though that was typically during the space jams, and typically when they were actually using sort of abstract synth sounds. When you heard Jerry using a trumpet sound or that "slap bass" setting he used sometimes, I didn't think it worked as well.

When he started using the synths during the actual songs, I dunno, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. I liked him using the trumpet sound on Mexicali Blues, gave the song a nice mariachi vibe which I thought suited the lyric. And there were a few other times where I liked it.

But my favorite era of the Dead is the 72-74 era, and back then, he used just a guitar, an amp or two, a wah wah pedal, and for awhile in 74, he had a fuzztone too (or rather, he had a Morley fuzz/wah that had both effects in one unit). To me, Jerry's most inspired playing came when he had the simplest rig.

Maybe that's because him getting more gadgets coincided with what I view as a change in the band's sound, turning away from the more free form improvisations during the second set and the more rigid show structure. Thus the part of the band's music that I like the most (the long improvisations) kinda got put on the back burner a bit, just as Jerry started getting into using more different tone colors, which I think would have been interesting to have heard in a 73 era Dark Star or The Other One, for instance.

Similarly, I think it would have been interesting to hear what Jerry might have used with a guitar synth if he could have one had in 73 or 74. I always felt it might have been interesting if the Dead had been able incorporate synths more during that period. Not in a soloing kinda way, as you might have heard one of the "prog" or "fusion" keyboardists doing it, but in a more abstract sound kind of fashion, like what you hear in bands like Hawkwind, Gong or some of the early 70's Tangerine Dream. I really wish they had done more with Ned Lagin and that they had him turned up louder in the mix on the shows where we know he jammed with the group. It's absolutely infuriating that you can see him doing his thing on the Dark Star on the Grateful Dead Movie DVD bonus disc, but you can't actually hear it.