Roland GR-30 Guitar Synthesizer
January 16, 1997
Having introduced one of the world's first guitar synthesizers in 1977, Roland has been helping guitarists break free from traditional sonic limitations for over 20 years. Drawing on this experience, Roland proudly introduces the GR-30 Guitar Synthesizer, an affordable, high-powered tool that gives guitarists access to an expanded range of tones and sonic possibilities.
The GR-30 is a four pedal, floor-based compact guitar synth for use with any steel-string guitar outfitted with a Roland GK-2A divided pickup. The GR-30 features 8 megabytes of 384 tones specially selected for guitar, including new sounds like vintage analog synths, thick synth pads, nylon string acoustic guitars and various ethnic instruments. All of the GR-30's sounds deliver the pristine audio quality that has become a hallmark of Roland musical instruments.
Combining the world's fastest guitar tracking speed with precise pitch/envelope detection, the GR-30 provides guitarists with a totally natural feel and response; all of the idiosyncrasies of a guitarist's technique are faithfully reproduced. To enhance this natural feel, the GR-30 also incorporates "Play Feel" settings, comprised of five different response curves to accommodate various guitar playing styles. These settings can even be set per individual patches, allowing the guitarist to maximize the expressive response of each sound.
Where the GR-30 really shines, however, is in its amazing Synth Harmonist and arpeggiator features. The new Synth Harmonist adds intelligent harmony to the GR-30's output. By combining the "straight" guitar sound with two different synth sounds, the Synth Harmonist can create interesting three-part harmonies for single notes or full chords as desired. With the "Intelligent Harmonist" feature, guitarists can even preset the song key for musically correct harmonies within the selected key signature.
The GR-30's powerful new arpeggiator creates various arpeggiator patterns simply by holding down a chord and strumming the strings (and even allows for the creation of independent rhythms per string!). This feature lets guitarists to easily perform arpeggios associated with classical acoustic guitar playing, synth-like up-and-down patterns, the tremolo of a marimba and more. While the arpeggio patterns are factory preset to best complement the accompanying patches, they can also be user-customized for maximum expressiveness. A sync function allows the arpeggio patterns to be sync'd to a MIDI sequencer or rhythm machine via MIDI clock.
Enhancing the arpeggiator's usefulness, the GR-30 features a HOLD pedal which enables guitarists to solo over the "held" arpeggio. Other Hold modes allow holding of layered sounds, the first or second layered sound only, or individually played strings.
Rounding out the GR-30's impressive list of features are high-quality spatial effects including chorus, flanger, reverb and delay, as well as guitar-friendly wah effects which can be controlled via the onboard pedal or the external expression pedal. Also included is a "Pitch Glide" function which continuously changes the pitch upward or downward while a guitarist steps on the onboard pedal. Further expanding the GR-30's capabilities, guitar "out" and "return" jacks allow for external effects processing of the non-synth guitar signal. For more information, contact Roland Corporation U.S., 7200 Dominion Circle, Los Angeles, CA 90040, 213.685.5141, www.rolandus.com. |
