(With apologies to Frank Zappa for the above paraphrase.)
Take a listen to this sound clip. Hear the strings? The piano? The bass? They were all played on an electric guitar.
The guitarist has always been able to generate a variety of sounds: nylon strung and steel strung acoustic guitars, the electric bass, and electric guitars all sound very different from each other, but any guitarist capable of playing one type of guitar can, with a bit of practice, switch to another style, and even if he can't play it brilliantly, be capable of getting sounds of the new instrument.
A Mixed Blessing
But there's far more to music than just guitar, which is why, in the mid-1970s, the Roland Corporation developed a method for the guitarist to simulate other instruments--the guitar synthesizer. It's always been a mixed blessing: getting a keyboard to accurately trigger an electronic sound is relatively easy. Getting a finger on a guitar string, with frets underneath that create a pitched musical note, is a much harder proposition. And then add in the techniques that are unique to fretted instruments: bending strings, and slurring and sliding notes.
Roland's guitar synthesizer technology has progressed since their first (very bulky) guitar synth rolled out in 1978. The technology is built around what Roland calls a "hexophonic" pickup. In other words, unlike the traditional electric pickup that's built into every Les Paul and Stratocaster, which combines the sound of all six strings into a single output through an audio cable with quarter-inch plugs, the hex pickup separates each string's output and sends it down a cable with 13-pin plugs on each end.
Traditionally, the cable was plugged into a sound module, which normally was also produced by Roland. You can hear earlier versions of it employed brilliantly by such guitarists as Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew on King Crimson's early 1980s albums Discipline and Beat.
Plug Into Your USB Port
And certainly, that approach still works--especially live. But earlier this year, at NAMM, the National Association of Music Merchants trade show, Roland debuted a new box for their hex pickup to plug into, which they dubbed the GI-20.
The GI-20 isn't a sound module. Instead, it converts the hex pickup's data to MIDI information, the universal language that most synthesizers speak. Meaning that just about any synthesizer can be controlled by a guitar.
But it also came with a USB output. Meaning that it's now possible to play your computer with your guitar.
Article comments
1 - Johno
Ed is correct: this device is the SHIT.
As soon as I get the cash (5-10 years down the road) I'm'n'a buy me one, disappear into the home studio, and NEVER come out.
2 - Eric Olsen
fascinating and practical information Ed, thanks!
3 - Mark Saleski
guitar synths are weird.
i've got a Roland GR-50...and used it for a while to play (using my Fender Strat) bass in a band.
weird and fun!
4 - Ed Driscoll
Johno,
Glad you like the article! And thanks for reminding me--I should have included the prices. The GI-20 retails for about $350, and I believe the pickup for about $150. A Fender Strat with a Roland synth pickup factory-installed retails for about $600.
Ed
5 - Sean Neves
I picked up a GI-20 packaged with a mexi Roland-ready Strat on ebay for $500 in February and it has simply changed the entire game for me. I use it to power hardware and software, and it is an incredible addition to my live and studio rig. Reason and Ableton Live v5 together make me pretty much useless in my normal life! I have completed many short film scores in the time it would mormally take me to finish one on a keyboard--Hey I'm a friggin' guitarist, not Jan Hammer!
6 - EVT
hello,
I'm looking for roland ready strat. the only thing out there is a fender standard [ mexican ] strat. Is there such a thing as an american roland ready strat. do I need to go thru the fender custon shop for such a guitar?
I'd appreciate any thoughts or ideas/suggestions regarding this matter & my search.
thanks
EVT
7 - Ed Driscoll
EVT,
I don't know--but I picked up an MIM Roland Ready Strat on eBay a few months after writing this article, and it's not a bad little guitar, even compared with my 1984 '57-reissue Strat. The build quality and fretwork are both pretty good--it's certainly a good enough axe to play a synth module or the GI-20.
8 - spokeshave mclachlan
a question. i thought i read somewhere (but may well be mistaken), that the tracking is better on the dedicated roland guitar synths (gr-20, gr-33 etc)where the sounds are internal compared to using external sound sources. is there any truth in this particularly where the GI-20 is concerned?
9 - Ed Driscoll
Spokeshave,
That wouldn't surprise me--but I find the tracking is, if anything, too accurate with the GI-20. A lot finger slides between notes that guitarists take for granted end up being interpreted by MIDI as distinct chromatic notes--which occasionally can sound sort of jazzy on the right instrument playing the right kinds of passages, but often don't. And depending upon the patch, it's also possible to occasionally trigger a bum note in the wrong octive.
As I said in the post above, most MIDI-oriented programs have a "deglitch" function, and it will become your new best friend when recording guitar synth stuff.
I doubt I'd want to use a GI-20 to play live, but for recording, I still think it's pretty darn cool, nearly two years after writing the above piece.
10 - Graham Pearse
Great Article . . . it is exactly what i was looking for as i am a keen home recorder and don'y play keys well.
I have an idea for a new all-on-board guitar for home recording purposes which would fix the problems you have encountered with the GI-20.
Who would I contact at Roland? Any ides?