Old Guitar Synths (was Re: Roland gr55)

[Mark Hamburg <mark@grubmah.com>]

On Aug 30, 2011, at 4:17 PM, Rick Walker wrote:

> On 7/22/64 11:59 AM, mark francombe wrote:
>> 
>> Dont you just hate it when they take away features?
> Man,   I remember hating Roland when Bill first got into guitar 
> synthesizers.    As always,  he put so much time into programming that 
> first
> synth that he had (the blue one as I recall,  I don't know the number)

Blue would presumably mean GR-300.

I owned a GR-500. I played with a GR-700. Sadly I never got a chance to 
try the GR-100 and GR-300 which were probably two of the better entrants 
in the series.

I also used to own an Ibanez MIDI guitar with which I would drive a Yamaha 
TX81Z.

I am not a speedy guitarist by any means, but somehow the lag always left 
me feeling disconnected, so I guess my fingers may not move fast but my 
ears do.

My favorite feature on the GR-500 was probably when it would lose pitch 
lock. One could have a nice synth note going and then it would go all 
random as it trailed off. It was a cool effect but I never found a way to 
produce it on demand. (http://grubmah.com/music/midnight_train.mp3)

Mark