Bending a Guitar into a Sitar/Tablatar

[baranger1]

There have been many posts on the boards about "How to get an Indian Sitar sound with a electric guitar".

I have a collection of original Danelectro sitars which I adore with all my heart, but the best way I have found is with the "Remodeling" feature of the Roland VG-99.
I have uploaded a YouTube combo video of two examples.

1.Sitar with drone.
2.Sitar with a Tabla drum effect.

Both sounds use two channels in real time to produce the effect.

In example one, the sitar is on one channel and the drone is on the second using the freeze funtion to hold the drone.

Example two uses channel one as a sitar and channel two as a tabla.

Both sounds use the "alternate tuning" to tune the guitar to impossible real life tunings!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASshi6wRMDg

I dedicated the video to two of my heroes Vinnie Bell (friend and inventor of the electric sitar) and Ravi Shankar (sitar virtuoso).
Thanks For listening,
Bill Ruppert

[Echoes22]

awesome

[aliensporebomb]

That was great. I also dug the shots of Vinnie Bell who of course is famous for the Coral Electric Sitar.

[Karma1]

Wow - very impressive! Not only was the tone excellent but so was your playing. I've always loved the sound of the sitar and have been a huge fan of Ravi Shankar since I first heard him back in the late 60's. I was fortunate enough to interview him for a magazine article about 10 years ago. You can read an excerpt of it here if you are interested:
http://www.mdiamondsound.com/journalism.shtml

[baranger1]

Thanks guys!

Karma1, I can not wait to read your interview,thanks.

I saw him here in Chicago last fall at Orchestra Hall.
I am so happy I did.
He was amassing as well as his VERY beautiful daughter Anoushka.
That girl can play!
Ravi is 89 and his hands look and play like a man in his thirties.
He is on tour this fall in many cities around the USA.
Bill Ruppert

[rackvax]

There have been many posts on the boards about "How to get an Indian Sitar sound with a electric guitar".

I have a collection of original Danelectro sitars which I adore with all my heart, but the best way I have found is with the "Remodeling" feature of the Roland VG-99.
I have uploaded a YouTube combo video of two examples.

1.Sitar with drone.
2.Sitar with a Tabla drum effect.

Both sounds use two channels in real time to produce the effect.

In example one, the sitar is on one channel and the drone is on the second using the freeze funtion to hold the drone.

Example two uses channel one as a sitar and channel two as a tabla.

Both sounds use the "alternate tuning" to tune the guitar to impossible real life tunings!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASshi6wRMDg

I dedicated the video to two of my heroes Vinnie Bell (friend and inventor of the electric sitar) and Ravi Shankar (sitar virtuoso).
Thanks For listening,
Bill Ruppert

Another great way to get the sitar sound out of your guitar is RackVax (http://www.rackvax.com). There's a model of a Coral Electric Sitar, not to mention a whole collection of other instruments.

[Undertaker4]

Any other way to get that drone effect easily on standard midi? I have a Variax with the coral sitar patch but no clue how to make the drone strings. I have Sonar with a few of the instrument plugins.