7/2/2023 0 Comments Midi jam 2![]() The GR-300 was an interesting beast with its own distinct fuzzy analog synth sound it tracked remarkably well, but these early guitar synthesizers were all self-contained they couldn’t control other sound modules or keyboards. Roland would later refine and simplify this approach into the GR-300, used in the early ’80s by such notable electric guitarists as Andy Summers of the Police, Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew of King Crimson, Jimmy Page, and Pat Matheny. ![]() The Roland GR-500 in turn was plugged into a module that resembled Data’s control station on the bridge of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The guitar also featured the first iteration of Roland’s breakthrough hexophonic pickup, which unlike the mono electric guitar pickups of the 1950s designed by men such as Leo Fender and Gibson’s Seth Lover, fed the output from each string to separate outputs of a multipin-equipped cable, allowing for polyphonic synthesizer control. While the body of the GR-500 was shaped much like Gibson’s best-selling Les Paul electric guitar, the GR-500 was a far more complex beast, with seven dials on the guitar for various sounds, along with eight toggle switches. In 1977, the Roland corporation of Japan, which has long been at the forefront of integrating music and technology introduced the GR-500, first commercially available guitar synthesizer. ![]() ![]() (Skip down to the next subhead if all of this is old hat to you.) A Quick Overview of the Frustrating Last Four Decades Of Guitar Synthesizers
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