From: blave@netcom.com (David W. Blevins)
Subject: Re: GR1 guitar synth (repost of mini-review)
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 20:04:58 GMT


I've had one for about a month.  In general I love it; here's a mini-review
I did RIGHT after I got it...  Email with specific questions...

**** start old review ****

I've had my GR-1 for a few days.  Time has been scarce, but I've managed
to get two or three hours on it.  Here's some impressions:

- my controller guitar (a pretty good Hondo strat that's been heavily
  upgraded) needs a fret job.  The GK-2 wants to see PERFECT frets -
  no pitting.  The Roland tech guy I talked to says that neck alignment
  is also critical.  Even with this, the tracking is pretty darn impressive.
  I find that I don't have to modify my playing style at all when playing
  leads.  While chording, it's so sensitive that it will sometimes register
  notes that I've fretted, BEFORE picking them.  Not really a problem for
  the most part...

- The 200 internal sounds are of high quality in general.  I anxiously
  await the expander kit which gives 200 more (higher quality than the
  built-ins if I read the manual correctly).

        * the piano is killer.  I daresay the LA-synth based GR50 can't
          come close to these sounds.
        * the fretless and slap basses are loads of fun.  The slap's
          dynamics requirements really unveils the fret requirements
          listed above.  I have a lot of trouble getting consistent
          dynamics from string to string (see below).
        * one of the sax presets really has that "growl" when you pick
          hard.  Neato.
        * it has a GR300 (old Roland analog gtr synth) tone, but I can't
          get the elephant sound that Pat Metheny gets.  I hope that
          there's a "GR300 #2" tone in the expander (due out early
          next year in theory).

- Speaking of the manual - it's EXCELLENT.  Obviously written by either
  Roland L.A. or someone in Japan who's very fluent.

- I played around with driving my Korg T3 synth with the GR-1 very briefly.
  Even with the T3 set to the correct bend parameters, tracking is
  definitely not as good as with the internal sounds (contrary to a
  previous post).  I'm speaking mostly of the failure to interpret the
  whammy bar correctly.  HOWEVER even as I write this, it occurs to me that
  I was in Poly mode on the GR-1.  Maybe Mono mode (one MIDI channel/string)
  will do better.  (Right now I'm getting this machine gun effect when I
  whammy - not very pleasant sounding.)

- The user interface is very well thought out.  What's particularly cool
  is the set of seven knobs that can be used to control several sets of
  synth parameters, like attack/decay/sustain, filter resonance/cutoff,
  chorus/reverb settings, etc.  "Designed with the gtrist in mind."

- for instruments that don't "bend", like piano, vibes, etc., I've set the
  Chromatic mode to ON.  In addition to sounding more natural, this masks
  strings that are a little bit out-of-tune.

- As mentioned in a previous post, don't expect the built-in sequencer to
  be your only one.  Pretty much a scratchpad/demo player (2000 notes won't
  even hold the shortest songs that I do).

- Cowardly disclaimer:  I haven't mounted the GK-2 pickup with the screws
  yet; it's stuck on with the included double-sided stickies.  Getting the
  screws in should improve the overall performance.  (BTW, the GK-2 manual
  says to ALWAYS plug the guitar's audio out into the GK-2's jack, to set
  the strings' ground point to that of the GK-2.  Otherwise performance
  is compromised.)

- PRICE:  I got the lowest price by far from Sweetwater Sound in Ft. Wayne,
  Indiana.  I'll let you get your own quote from them but ask for Greg Vey.
  (219) 432-8176.

******** end old review ********       

UPDATE:

A final couple of things:  first, I jammed with some guys
a couple of weeks ago with the GR-1, which showed me that your playing
has to be pretty precise to not get the occasional "gleep" note (tracking
error) but that's pilot error that's normally masked by lots of distortion
and/or effects in my case.  Secondly, in the above I mention problems in
driving my Korg T3...  As suspected, MONO mode works much MUCH better and
is in fact dang close to the kind of response that I get with the internal
tone generator.  I've also done some sequencing using the GR-1, and it
works great although it puts out _incredible_ amounts of pitch bend data
all the time, even when I'm not bending, as one would expect I suppose.
So I just filter it all out after the fact, unless the bend was intentional. 
(No reason to do this really; I just like to minimize the MIDI data stream's
density in general.)

There you have it - AREN'T YOU GLAD YOU ASKED?

cheers,   Blave.

Xref: sparky rec.music.makers.guitar:1188 rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature:940