Is the Roland guitar synth worth it?

[weaver7]

$799 is a lot for me to pay for a guitar pedal. does anyone here have one?

[James Clausen]

Guess it depends on what you want to do with it. I use mine to record with. I go to jams and when the other guitar players stack up, I play organ or horn parts on mine. I can do the flute solo on Can't You See before we kick off the song and other parts of songs that we don't have the musicians to play. Lots of fun uses.

[Karma1]

It is WAY more than a guitar pedal. Its got extensive modeling capabilities, tons of effects, and the most advanced synth system Roland has made for guitar. I think it's actually pretty reasonable for all you get with it. I don't have one but am planning on buying one when it's in my financial forecast. I've owned four Roland guitar synths over the years and I'm a fan. As far as whether it's worth it to you, it depends whether you would make use of all it offers. I've read reports of people buying them and discovering it had way more features than they needed, while others have been very happy with all the advanced technology. There are lots of video demos on youtube that might help you decide on it.

[Mcfontio]

I went for one to use in a 6 piece project I joined. There's one other guitar player (without midi) and one keys player. I end up bouncing aournd coloring the textures. In all I'm pretty happy with the unit though, it has its limitations. That said, there's LOTS of stuff crammed into this box. In some cases, too much for me - namely, the guitar models. Which, I don't use nor need, nor am very impresed with (relative to my triaxis preamp, GSP 1101 effects of course). Having the two completely independent systems is extremely usefll. It gives me the ability to shift between the two quickly and efficiently, opening up new ways to move between patches and blend. This unit has opened up new functionality and inspiration to my guitar.

 

It's pretty hard to say if it's worth it for you. Do more research, and if it feels right, do it.

[TieDyedDevil]

I assume you're talking about the GR55 w/ GK3.

 

Worth it? Depends on what you want... If you want a compact box with a polyphonic pitch-to-MIDI converter, two decent PCM synths, Roland's HRM synthesis, COSM amp/effect modeling, a large, easy-to-read LCD display, and enough performance controls to be useful... Yah, it's a pretty good deal.

 

I dipped my toes into the synth waters a decade ago with the GR33. Tracking was iffy at best. The sounds were OK, but not inspiring. I tried to do something musically useful with the GR33 for a couple months, gave up and sold it.

 

I tried a GR55 a couple months ago and immediately fell in love with it. Even on the piano patches, which is where the GR33 had the most difficulty, tracking was really good.

 

I don't know whether the GR55 is that much better than the GR33, or whether my technique and playing has improved to the point where I can actually do something useful with a synth... Perhaps a bit of both.

 

The GR55 lets you layer multiple sounds. The stock patches use this to good advantage. And it sounds... well, it sounds good. Maybe not as good as a premium keyboard, but hey... you're playing an $799 noise toy with a guitar... And frankly, I don't think your audience will think any less of you.

 

The GR55's UI is intuitive enough that I was able to explore the presets and figure out how to set up a bank of my own patches without cracking open the manual. If you're used to the older Boss/Roland UIs based upon the two-line text display, this new LCD display is a huge improvement in both visibility and usability.

 

Five hours after I picked up my GR55 from the store (they did the GK3 installation for me), I gigged with my instrumental trio at an outdoor market playing the GR55 through a full-range amp on the backline. It was a blast to comp with a Hammond patch, and to play our tribute to Vince Guiraldi "on piano".

 

The guitar sounds are OK, too. My guitar patch is a Fender Twin with a touch of chorus and reverb, plus a Tubescreamer and a bit of tape delay for solos. The COSM amp modeling isn't as well-behaved as it is on my Eleven Rack, but with just a bit of care it's easy to avoid the slight harshness that the COSM models can kick out under certain conditions. Y'know, just like dealing with a recalcitrant tube amp...

 

I'm still learning what I can (and can't) do with the GR55. It presents a lot of interesting opportunities and a few challenges.

 

Make no mistake: you will have to clean up your technique to get the most out of the GR55 (or any other MIDI-guitar device). You have to be very careful (and precise) about damping unplayed strings and (especially) about cleanly damping a note before lifting a fretting finger. Learn those two things and you'll avoid 99.9% of false triggers.

 

The rest is all about playing dynamics. Those PCM synths play different samples depending upon the MIDI velocity (i.e. how hard you play a note). Varying your attack to control those nuances of the sample engine is important to crafting a believable performance.

 

Also - and you probably already know this, you have to be aware of how someone would actually play the instrument that you're synthesizing. It's not at all effective to play your typical guitar riffs through a saxophone or piano patch, for example.

 

If what you're really looking for is a way to do cool polyphonic sounds without changing your technique at all, I'd highly recommend the VG99 rather than the GR55. The VG99 can still do MIDI guitar, but it throws a lot more resources at HRM synthesis and COSM modeling. So long as you avoid the MIDI stuff, you can play your guitar any way you please and still get great sounds out of the VG99.

[elantric]

If you join www.VGuitarForums.com , there is a group buy for discount pricing on the GR-55 with or without the GK-3 pickup.

http://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=2931.0

 

And many GR-55 user created patches

http://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?board=67.0

 

and a user created GR-55 Editor for Win/Mac/Linux

http://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=2951.0

http://sourceforge.net/projects/grfloorboard/

 

[ozzeh]

Looks pretty sweet! I"m really happy with my boss me-70 though it's completely different than this Roland jazz

[MVP Loops]

I have one and I'm having trouble triggering sounds from Kontakt. The sounds in the GR55 are ok. I was mainly interested in triggering sounds from VST's with it. I use Studio One as my main DAW. I have Komplete 7 and the sounds are amazing. When I record with the GR55 everything seems fine until I try to play back the track. No matter what I play everything turns into quarter notes. I can see the midi notes on the screen and they are fine but everything plays back wrong. If I record through my MPK49 using the same Konakt patch it will play back as it should. This is driving me crazy because it just started doing it and there seems to be no explanation for this.

[dcsween2006]

I think one of the biggest issues with guitar synths is the pickup. I finally got a godin with RMC pickup built into the bridge. Tracking is not an issue for me anymore. the GK pickups need to be set up so carefully in order to work properly across all strings. It's VERY frustrating to have one or more strings not playing as loudly, or triggering sounds in the same way as the others.

I love my GR33- no issues with tracking. I don't think I'd dig the GR55, since it is doing double duty with guitar modeling. I've never been a big fan of the COSM stuff.