The Roland GR-20 Synth is a nifty tool that you can use to model any instruments sound on your guitar. It is much more flexible and easy to use as you think, it's, as my newsvine implies, COOL!

Sorry about the puritan article guys, but new users are restricted, I can't upload photos and links yet! No problem though, you can get all the mouthwatering content, witty style and overall coolness, and the photos, links will be provided when Newsvine deems me trustworthy enough to show them to you.

What in God's name is a guitar synthesizer? Why does it need to be synthesized, you can use a real one? These were some questions I asked before I held within me the ultimate knowledge that is the Roland GR-20. Contrary to my dimness, a guitar synth models other instruments, so we can play them on the guitar. The actually cool thing about this is how realistic this sounds, and how you can play different sounds on different strings.

How does this work? You know how your guitar has magnet thingies that catch the strings' vibrations, turn them into electric signals and shoot them on to your amp? The problem with this is that pick-ups are normally mono. With the GR-20 you get a separate pick up you can mount on the guitar. It is essentially 6 humbucker pickups wired together, picking up string vibrations separately.

Enough said, the real coolness is emitted when you try it out. Here be a video (or a link to it) that shows off the capabilities. Woodwind instruments, brass, pianos, organs, pads, synth sounds, drums even, all can be played, and the sound is jaw-droppingly life like.

I can't give you any interesting stuff to look at, but this article will be much longer and better later on, please bear with me. If you search Google or Roland's website, be sure to go to the US Roland site, the other sites don't have demos and don't even link there! Weird!

Happy playing