Roland GR-300 Guitar Synth (filter modulation)

Description:

This is a demo, via Mr Dithers, of the Roland GR-300 Guitar Synth:

The GR-300 is not MIDI in any way. It is triggered by a guitar equipped with a GK-1 pickup and rare 24-pin cable.

The GR-300 features six voltage controlled oscillators (VCOs)-one for each string. It also features a hexa-fuzz unit (again one for each string) which can be layered with the VCOs. You can also blend the actual clean guitar sound as well.

The key to the sound is that the VCOs and Hexa-fuzz go through a beautiful fat 24dB analog filter. The cutoff and resonance are adjusted from the guitar. However, in the back of the unit you will find an input for an expression pedal. This is designed to sweep the filter to give you wah-wah efx.

I wanted to try my Roland MPU-101 midi-to-cv interface and write a rhythmic pattern I could sync to a drum machine. I wrote the pattern into an old Roland MC-50 sequencer at 110 bpm. I used my keyboard to open and close the filter in stepped increments. Higher notes opened the filter and lower notes closed it to various degrees.