Roland G-707 and GR-300 1984

These items are being offered as a set. 

Roland G-707 Synth Guitar 1984

Roland's commitment to guitar synthesis took a wild and unexpected turn in 1984 with the introduction of the GR-700 guitar synthesizer, and the G-707 guitar. In its previous incarnation, Roland had conservatively leaned on the knowledge and experience of Fujigen to produce guitars with familiar shapes and sounds: the Les Paul like G-303/808 and the familiar Fender designs of the G-202/505.

The G-707 was simply a guitar of the kind no one had ever seen, a strikingly original instrument in the generally derivative guitar market. Its 25 1/2" scale neck, and dual humbucker pickups, put it in the "super strat" category, but the wild body shape and stabilizer arm went places no major manufacturer had ventured before. I have yet to meet a person who has actually played the G-707 who did not remark on the ease and playability of the G-707 guitar. The ABS stabilizer bar really works to tame the inconsistencies of a guitar neck, if you can get past the visual effects. And much of the G-707 was never seen again: the Roland roller tremolo bridge, the newer, smaller electronics package that did not include the hex fuzz option of the G-202/303/505/808, and of course the ABS stabilizer bar.

The G-707 is really a performance instrument. The striking appearance will elicit remarks from a crowd whether its 1984 or 2017, but understandably it's nearly impossible to play sitting down without a guitar strap, something it has in common with the similarly forward-thinking Ibanez IMG2010.

Elliot Eastman of The Cars, Ace Freely of KISS, Jimmy Page of Led Zepplin are just some of the legends who have used the Roland Guitar Synth.

Roland GR-300 Floor Module

At the end of the 1970s, Roland Corporation introduced the world to the GR-300 analog guitar synthesizer. While there have been numerous advancements in music technology since then, the GR-300 remains the pinnacle of analog guitar synthesis. Although the sound palette of the GR-300 is very limited, the GR-300 has the fastest, most accurate tracking ever developed. Unlike much of guitar-to-MIDI pitch recognition technology, the GR-300 guitar synthesizer does not require the player to adapt technique to get astonishing results. It is not that the GR-300 ignores fret board misfires, or translates them into wildly inaccurate notes as some MIDI systems will. The GR-300 instead creates a unique analog synth equivalent. For example, the initial atonal pick attack is converted into a sound very reminiscent of the "spit" sound heard at the beginning of a trumpet phrase.

The trumpet comparison continues: the GR-300 has a waveform very similar to a sawtooth, with a brassy, aggressive tone. But the GR-300 waveform does something unique: it changes shape as the player moves up the fret board. An "E" played one octave above an open "E" string will not only be sounding at twice the frequency, but the harmonic content will be very different as well. This is the happy consequence of the brute force synthesis used in the GR-300. Inside the GR-300, the amplitude (volume) of each note is related to its pitch. The low "E" will have twice the amplitude of an "E" one octave above. Similarly, the high open "E" string, two octaves above the low "E" string, will have one quarter the amplitude of the low "E". To eliminate this volume difference, Roland used a "chopper-gate" circuit to basically crop the top of the waveforms. The higher notes look more like a classic sawtooth waveform, while lower notes have a more rounded tone. The result is a rich, complex sound where every note played on the guitar across the instrument will have an individual sound. An unfortunate consequence of this design is that higher notes will have less sustain than lower ones.

Andy Summers of The Police, Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew of King Crimson, Pat Metheny