Home › Forums › Tips, Tricks, Clips, and Pics › Using the Ravish Sitar for folk music

Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • May 9, 2012 at 12:33 pm #82347
    Mackie
    Member

    Hi!

    I am a folk musician studying in Edinburgh, Scotland. I have recently started experimenting with effect pedals etc. and am really enjoying them. It is something not often done in the local folk community but I think it has the potential for creativity. In other words, I’m definitely no expert in all this yet so my apologies if ask really stupid questions.

    Anyway, this is the sound I’m looking for, as played in this song by The Corries:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-ZJ0oHuPWI

    They are playing a combolin, a combination of a guitar, mandolin and sitar. Basically a plain guitar with sympathetic strings that give a constant drone. After looking around a bit I decided the Ravish Sitar would probably be my best bet. So I went to the guitar shop and asked to try it out but the guy there was really pushy and did not really give me a chance to discover the thing properly. As it is quite a complicated piece of equipment I only managed to get really unharmonised sounds out of it. I decided not to buy it, as £175 is a bit too much money if you’re not sure if it can actually do what you want.

    So can the Ravish Sitar produce this sound. A plain clean guitar sound with a sympathetic drone that is harmonic to what I’m playing. Is it possible to isolate the sympathetic strings to their own output or will they always influence the main output? I play an electro acoustic nylon string guitar.

    Sorry if this is a really stupid question, but thank you very much anyway.

    Cheers

    Alastair

    May 9, 2012 at 3:08 pm #117508
    Cryabetes
    Participant

    1 – harmonic sympathetic drone – yes, this will do that.
    2 – isolated sympathetic output – yep, will do that too.
    You’ll either have to set it up so it’s in the right key or teach it the scale/notes you’ll be using. You can find the manual on the Ravish’s product page.

    Good luck on introducing electronics into a folk circle. The cork sniffing types in my neck of the woods pretty much excommunicated me from the folk circle for going electric, but hopefully yours will be less judgmental.

    May 9, 2012 at 6:58 pm #117515
    Mackie
    Member

    Hi Cryabetes.

    Thank you very much, this really helps. I’ll go and buy one soon.

    Sorry to hear about your local folk circle, the types who don’t want to accept any form of non-traditional music are always frustrating, hope they didn’t discourage you from playing some folky stuff.

    Cheers

    Alastair

    May 9, 2012 at 7:03 pm #117516
    Cryabetes
    Participant

    they did, but it worked out because I’ve gone full bore electric and play synthesizer now. So I guess it’s pretty alright.

  • Author
    Posts
Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.