But many will find the tabletop design of the VG-99 a handy adjunct to their PC-based recording efforts, which was Roland’s intent from the start. Unlike the VG-88, which had only quarter-inch stereo and headphone jacks, the VG-99 provides a variety of audio outputs. In addition to the same quarter-inch stereo and headphone outputs, the VG-99 adds USB, digital (via an RCA-jack), and XLR outputs.

There are also MIDI inputs and outputs, and the VG-99’s USB output will also transmit MIDI data from a guitar with a compatible hexaphonic pickup. There’s also what appears to a network jack, which is designed to connect the VG-99 to its FC-300 floor controller accessory.

While the floor controller isn’t required to operate the VG-99, it does provide several intriguing options, not the least of which is its foot pedal, which, depending upon the patch selected, can perform one of several functions. It can be a volume pedal, useful for both volume swells, and simply adjusting the output level of the VG-99, particularly on stage. It can also function as a wah-pedal, and it can manipulate pitch, including both whammy-bar style dive bombs, and individual strings. In other words, for those who don’t wish to purchase a B-Bender-equipped Telecaster, the floor pedal can be programmed for some pretty amazing-sounding bender licks — with much less chance of breaking strings in the process!

While the VG-99 can be rack mounted (and controlled pretty well with its supplied software), rack-mounting would render two of the VG-99’s most intriguing new features much more difficult to use. In addition to optional foot control, the VG-99 has built-in two pretty nifty effects that Roland has adapted from their keyboard synthesizers. These include a finger-sliding “ribbon” controller, which can be switched to control the pitch and filter settings of most patches. Perhaps more intriguingly, there’s also Roland’s “D-Beam”, which can also control many patches by waving a hand over the VG-99, or even a guitar neck. The D-Beam could even provide the opportunity for some flashy stage gestures, reminiscent of Jimmy Page and his Theremin in Zeppelin’s concert movie, The Song Remains The Same.

And speaking of Zeppelin, whoever programmed the presets of the VG-99 has included several versions of DADGAD, one of Page’s favorite alternate tunings, which Page used for several Indian-sounding compositions within Zeppelin, including, most famously “Kashmir”. A patch called Z DADGAD, with its combination of a modeled Danelectro guitar, distortion, and slow phasing nails this tone perfectly. Other patches reproduce DADGAD in six and 12-string acoustic versions, and even as a sitar patch.

Back To The Future: The Built-In GR-300

Robert Fripp’s early 1980s tones, radically different from Page and other blues-based guitarists, are also well represented in the VG-99, via the VG-99’s built-in recreation of Roland’s GR-300 guitar synthesizer. This landmark synthesizer, the first guitar synthesizer that tracked accurately and was easy to use, was played by several superstar guitarists with a taste for the avant-garde in the early 1980s, including Fripp and Adrian Belew in the then-newly reconstituted King Crimson, Andy Summers in the Police, and Jimmy Page. And Pat Metheny uses one to this day. Unlike modern sampling synthesizers, no one would confuse the GR-300’s sounds with real strings, flutes, or other acoustic instruments. It’s not that kind of synth. But it does provide the guitarist a variety of fat analog sounds, and the original introduced many guitarists to the electronic realm for the first time.