Vintage Synth Explorer

Roland • GR-500

Thanks to Roland, guitars and synthesizers have had a long working relationship together. The GR-500 is a vintage guitar controlled synthesizer - before there was MIDI too! It was the first synth of this kind that Roland had ever produced, back in 1977. The synthesizer module itself was a simple analog affair with Bass, Solo Synth, and String sounds based on previous Orchestral and analog mono-synths from Roland. There are plenty of sliders to adjust the VCO, VCF, VCA, and LFO sections, but no memory to store your edits.

The synth module is controlled by a "highly modified" guitar. Notice all those knobs on the guitar pictured above. It utilized a special pickup system that connected to the synth module via Roland's own 24-pin interface and controlled it using CV/GATE signals generated by the guitar's pickup system while playing the guitar. In addition to the modified pickup, there were magnets under the face of the guitar that could increase its sustain. Performance accuracy was "iffy" but good for 1977 and pre-MIDI. As a piece of guitar-synth history, the GR-500 makes an excellent collectors item and may come in handy for the occasional growl or a strummed analog sound effect. It has been used by Tangerine Dream, Mike Rutherford of Genesis and Alex Lifeson of Rush.

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Steven Clements

Posted 40 days ago

I just bought a GR-500 and GS-500 last night. It took me about 15 minutes to get an understanding of the system but then it was pure bliss, very cool very fun. I'll fire it up again tonight and start listening to the beast with some added effects.

The tracking is quite good almost as good as my GR-300 with the Ibanez XING IMG2010.

fun fun

Derrick Demase

Posted 312 days ago

Guitarist Steve Hackett, ex-Genesis, also used a GR-500 in the late 1970's, on solo albums such as "Please Don't Touch" (1978) and "Spectral Mornings" (1979).

ROLAND_SYNTH_24

Posted 332 days ago

I really want one of these. Too bad I can't find one for sale anywhere. Chuck Hammer who played with David Bowie on Ashes to Ashes played one too.

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