Roland GR-20 Review

The GR-20 is effectively a scaled down and simplified GR-33. After fitting the pickup (I’ll moan about this in my midi column) you just switch on, plug in and play. You then try all of your favorite Hendrix/Holdsworth/Vito Bratta (remember him?) licks only to find that it doesn’t play right! Some notes are louder, some softer, some don’t work; you get notes that don’t even exist!!!

Before you shout ‘waste of money. I'm off to the pub’, READ THE MANUAL! This will explain how to set up the sensitivity of each string so that it plays (or triggers) properly. As with all Roland manuals, it is very concise, easy to understand and well written. I read the whole thing in just one sitting (in my flushing throne room!).Also, don’t forget that you are essentially playing a keyboard, so no bending strings on a piano patch if you want it to sound realistic.If you can set the sensitivity then the rest of the unit is a doddle to understand.

The build quality is good. Plastic, but good! Not quite as bombproof as the GT-6 for example so it will need a wee bit of looking after.

Knobs

There are 2 toggle (on/off) pedals and one cc (continuous controller) pedal, which can act as a volume, modulation, and pitch controller. The on face controls are very well thought out. You have an isolated patch selection switch, with all the sounds being grouped by different categories like strings, organ, piano, etc. This makes very easy to find a sound that you might need without having to memorize lots of patch numbers, as no guitarist has ever got a pen AND a piece of paper in the same place at the same time! The display is numeric only, so you will have to write down patch numbers to remember where that killer tuba is for you solo in 'Master of the Puppets'. Below that there is a row of controller knobs that influence the attack, rate, sustain and reverb of each patch.

The attack is how quickly a sound is heard at its full peak. For example a piano or guitar has an immediate sound when played then the sound dies away almost instantly tand herefore has no sustain. A string sound can have a slow attack meaning that it fades in to reach it’s loudest point and you can set the sustain control fairly high so that after you take your finger off the note the sound will continue for a time. This is ideal when you change chords for a smooth effect.

The effects are embedded within each sound and you can change the level of the chorus, delay and reverb, but you can't control in depth functions like delay/ reverb time etc. On the right side there are a few parameter buttons with which you can perform basic editing (change midi channel, EQ, transpose, play feel, etc), a tuner and the expression pedal.

You get 469 presets and 99 user patches, which is more than enough, and 48 voice polyphony. Follow this link to get an idea of how many sounds you get.

Pick Me Up

The GK-3 pickup has a snazzier look to its predecessor, but performs exactly the same way. It has a selector switch to switch between synth/guitar and synth (blended)/guitar. It also has two selector buttons, which can be used for remote patch changes and to switch on the tuner.

A new feature is the adjustable curve design pickup, which uses a screw in the middle of the Midi pickup, which raises the poles of the pickup at each end so it’s much the same height as the middle ones (thus making the pickup flatter). Good idea, but still not quite there as far as compatibility with any makes other than Strats or Les Pauls.

Noisy Bit

The sounds are based on Roland's top pro keyboards and are of good quality and most are very usable.
The sounds I use the most live are all there with several variations, so for example there are 34 string/orchestra sounds some of which are duplicated with more attack, chorus, reverb etc, that can be edited to a small degree. I loved the organ and some of the sax sounds with the Smokey sax being loads of fun to play with. Just play a few bluesy phrases and think of a cool, moody, sassy, American detective movie (yeah! that's right. Police Squad!).

There are some great ambient textures also. Fantastic with solo finger style guitar or to freak your audience out!

The only thing I hate to see in guitar synth modules is guitar sounds. I’m sorry. I understand the point in having 2 guitar sounds, but keyboard guitar sounds are at best awful. Also the extra notes triggered from even the most experienced midi guitarist are highlighted even more when using a guitar sound. Please. I am already playing a guitar. Can we have more Whoosh sounds please?

On the whole, the majority of the sounds are very useable live or in a wee project studio. Linked up to other synth modules and samplers the GR-20 performs brilliantly with no lag. To get a good idea of what this unit can do have a wee listen to the audio demo which contains just the preset sounds with no additional effects or editing.

Feel wise you still get the playing style options of normal, finger, pick and no dynamics. This translates your particular style to trigger the GR-20 to the best of its ability. I nearly always choose finger as I play a mixture of styles and play quite dynamically.

The thing that has always plagued these units in the past has been the latency between plucking the string and the synth sound actually getting is arse into gear and playing the sound. The GR-20 has absolutely no problems there. It’s more than fast enough, as you will hear in my wee demo.

GRrrrrrreeeaaaaat!

In conclusion i would say that the GR-20 is a well thought out and useable guitar synth. The sounds are good enough to gig with and it’s very easy to edit. It works when midied up to other equipment and you can have your guitar sound come out of the unit. They are also amazingly cheap. When I was a wee bairn, guitar synths were just emerging in rack form and cost about a grand. This little whippersnapper has much more packed inside a good solid floor unit with the horrid pickup for £399 (ish).Ideal for that 1st guitar synth or for no faff live gig audio augmentation!

However, if I had to replace my GR-33 with the GR-20, there are a number of things that I would really miss. The first is the lack of detailed editability in that I want to be able to mix the 2 sounds of my choice, to apply different FX to each one or to be able to blend in another sound when I want. Also the biggest sin for me is not to include an arpeggiator.

I use this a lot (as you have seen in my previous midi column). This can help to create some very useful live sounds as well as being able to create a drum groove by just using a chord. It’s not a disaster, but I don’t think that many GR-33 owners would part exchange their older (wiser) units unless it was just for the GR-20s’ sounds. Overall though, a great product!