About Gary Lenaire

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Getting the Auto-Tune Effect with the VE-5

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A Little Fun with the Pitch Correct Function

VE-5 Auto-Tune

Get the auto-tune effect with the BOSS VE-5 Vocal Performer.

These days, there’s simply no excuse for bland vocals. We’re not saying that the VE-5 Vocal Performer will make you sing better or replace talent. But how about enhancing your sound with automatic harmonies or a little bit of echo? In this role, the VE-5 is perfect for adding some extra oomph to your singing. And along with polishing your sound with standard studio-style effects, the VE-5 is totally capable of delivering the famous auto-tune effect—á la T-Pain—should your music call for it.

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True Bypass vs. Buffered Effects Pedals

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How Long Are Your Cables?

true-bypass-vs-buffered

What’s the difference between True Bypass and Buffered Effects Pedals?

This article is intended to clarify a topic that is often surrounded by misinformation. Our intention is to present the facts and help the reader make informed decisions about using buffered and true bypass pedals, and to achieve the best tone.      

Tone matters. To guitar players, it’s that simple. Tone is the Holy Grail, the ultimate quest. But how do you get great tone? With so much guitar gear available, and with so much conflicting information out there, we’d like to clear up some of the confusion about the guitar signal path, stompbox pedals (both true-bypass and buffered), and other things that affect tone.

To get the best tone out of your rig, it’s important to understand the following principles and make decisions about cables and pedals based on them. More

3 BOSS Pedals with MDP Technology

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Unlike Anything You’ve Ever Heard

BOSS recently launched three new pedals that utilize a new pedal technology known as MDP, which stands for Multi-Dimensional Processing. These pedals make fresh sounds that cannot be produced without MDP (more about them below), but the big question is: What is MDP? More

Blues Guitar Effects Combo

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Subtle Effects for Blues Guitarists

Marquee image for Blues Guitar Effects Combo

Blues Guitar Effects Combo

Author: Roland UK Features Team

The BD-2 Blues Driver produces a bluesy vintage tube amp tone that blues players have adored since 1995, and it’s still one of the best-selling BOSS pedals today. The pedal’s tube-like response is due to the level of distortion being proportional to the picking strength. The CS-3 Compressor helps smooth out those blues licks while adding sustain, and the TR-2 Tremolo gives you the smooth pulsing heard on so many records, adding that extra dimension. The FRV-1 Reverb pedal was developed with Fender and using COSM technology, the BOSS engineers captured the beauty of the 1963 Fender 6G15 unit which was a favorite among blues players of the 60s and so an obvious choice for this rig. More

King of Clean: The JC-120 Guitar Amp

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The Go-To Clean-Amp Sound for Over 30 Years

Originally introduced in 1975, the JC-120 and its famous clean-amp sound have been heard on countless records over the past three decades. The fact that the JC-120 continues to inspire musical legends like The Police’s Andy Summers and The Cult’s Billy Duffy while being dubbed responsible for “that unmistakable Metallica clean tone” and embraced by up-and-coming acts like Diiv is no small feat, either. With shimmering chorus effects, dual-amp design, and high-quality reverb, the JC-120 “sound” has become a legend in its own right. More

Classic Rock Guitar Effects Combo

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Classic Rock is All About Being BIG & LOUD

Classic-Rock-effects-chain

The Classic Rock guitar effects combo

Author: Roland UK Features Team

Apply these tips to recreate the classic rock guitar sound. Thicken up your clean sound with chorus to get shimmer and movement. A phaser gives you that psychedelic 70s swirl and the RE-20 Space Echo will nail the warm tape echo sounds of yesteryear, with the added bonus of lush reverb captured from the original 1973 Roland RE-201 tape echo unit. The Power Stack emulates the gain and tonal characteristics of a wall of 4x12s – use with a clean amp for authentic stack sounds or in conjunction with your lead channel to make your amp work even harder, ensuring your self-indulgent solos are not only cutting through the mix, but melting faces. More

How Wide is the GA Amp's Tonal Spectrum?

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Answer: Far Beyond Any Other Amp

GA Amp Sound Wall

GA Amp Sound Wall

Walk into any large music store, and you’ll see what seems like a bazillion amps. Big ones, small ones, stacks, and combos…you name it. And, it’s really hard to differentiate them because it seems like they’re mostly versions of each other, with the same styles, same features, same sounds, same old same old. You get the idea. More

G-5 & GC-1 V-Guitars – What's the Difference?

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They are Both Roland Powered Fender Strats

V-Guitar Neck

Roland GC-1 and G-5 V-Guitars

Roland is in the guitar business? How did that happen? Actually it’s not exactly new, but this time, it’s very different. Back in the day, there were Roland branded guitars made to be used with guitar synths, including an infamous Jetson’s looking one called a G-707. These were made for Roland in an OEM factory in Japan back in the day, and they were so striking that players like Jimmy Page actually did ads for them. More

Give Your Singing Tone Control with the VE-5

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Your Sound Independent of the Mix Engineer

For singers, the question is: how do I get my sound the way I want it and under my own control? In almost every vocal situation, someone other than the singer is controlling the effects, the reverbs, and the levels. Everyone else in the band gets to create their own tone: guitar and bass with amps and pedals, keyboards have pretty much everything built in and even drummers use their own gear: cymbals they selected, drums tuned the way they want, etc. But the singer? No-until now. BOSS has made a very trick device called a VE-5 Vocal Performer that finally gives singers total control over their own sound. More

BOSS Your Tone: Overdrive and Distortion

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Overdrive and Distortion: What’s the Difference?

What’s the difference between overdrive and distortion? Learn the difference and how to get great tone with either stompbox.

Get Great Tone OverDrive and Distortion

Get Great Tone With OverDrive and Distortion

As guitar players, what are we all after? What do we struggle to describe, work to attain, but always know when we hear it? And what is all that gear out there for? The answer to all three of these questions is the same: great tone. With so much equipment available today to help in creating tone, how do we go about making it do what we want? Let’s take a look at some simple and effective ways to get killer tone with overdrive and distortion. More

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