Roland GR-20

Firstly setting up the pickup can tack some time but with the new backing plate is not to hard.

The system is designed for ease of use which you can see by big knobs and very few button's. This is great to get good sound right away but I would of liked the ability to change string splits etc.

If you want ease of use and don't want to edit sounds much (there's only a few split string sounds and none that have sounds on only say the top 2 strings) then get the GR-20 i'm starting to think the Gr-33 is a better option for me seeing it pretty much the same price.

Great sound love playing with the string sounds and mixing in some lead guitar sounds well cheesey.

Like every one else has said the guitar and bass sounds are pretty much a gimick and can't see anyone using them

You only get chorus and delay/reverb and these are setup with only 1 knob for editing the sounds on each, so pretty limiting.

Yeah made of plastic unlike the V-guitar systems. so wouldn't throw it in the back of a van with out a box or padded bag of some type (probably available from Roland and over priced.

Other than that Roland make good quality reliable gear. Have TD8 drumn kit VG-8 guitar and some boss stuff and none of its let me down yet.

As all the gear I own by Rolands never gone wrong have no experience though I get a nice mag through the post now and again.

Play mostly rock and like recording me own music.. can't play keyboard much so this unit is great for recording.

Not sure I would use it live much, if a lost it I think now I would by the GR-33 I like the idea of being able to do more setup to the patches

It is great fun and the new pickup suplied with it is much better than the old 1

The GR-20 is very easy to use through its knob interface. Patches are easy to edit, given that the set of parameters that you can tweak is rather limited. One thing to note here is that MIDI commands sent to the unit override the knob values, which is a good thing.
Setting up the included GK-3 divided pickup took me half an hour. The GK-3 controls are handy: synth volume control, two buttons for browsing through the patches (the buttons can also be used for adjusting sensitivity during setup), and a 3-position switch for selecting synth-only/guitar-only/mix.
The user manual is fine. In addition to the English booklet in black and white the store sent me a localized version in color. The manual includes a detailed description of the MIDI implementation, including the parameter maps for the unit.

First off, I?m not a pro musician, but a software engineer and audiophile. My equipment consists on a rather crappy Korean guitar and relatively high-quality home stereo amplifier and boxes.
The unit is very quiet as compared to other effect processors, which makes perfectly sense knowing that its output is electrically (and sometimes also musically) unrelated to the input signal.
Tracking is really excellent (as a DSP engineer, I would say it is actually better than I expected). As I mentioned above, my guitar is crappy and my technique is rather poor and this thing can nonetheless follow me!
Some patches don?t support pitch bends, depending on the nature of the instrument (e.g. piano), so with these you have to be more precise with your playing technique. For patches that support bends the unit is somewhat more tolerant.
As for sound quality, the patches are mostly fine except for the bass/guitar ones. The nylon guitar patch sounds passable when playing isolated notes, but ?legatos? sound like unnatural bends. Useless.

The unit is plastic, but looks reasonably robust. I will probably never use it on stage, so I don?t care.

Never asked for support, so no opinion here.

I?ve been playing since I was 18, but never as a pro. I?m 30 as of this writing.
I bought this unit to use it mainly for MIDI software development, since the only instrument I can (barely) play is guitar. From my point of view, which I admit is rather particular in this context, this unit does its job quite well.
I whish it included some software for editing patches and tweaking parameters, but never mind, I?m working on this :-)

Definitely easy to use. Make sure to READ THE MANUAL for pickup installation!!! Once you get that done, the rest is a breeze...
Tried to put it on my Strat and my Tele. Wouldn't fit!
Ended up mounting it on my ES-335 copy.
The plate adaptor makes it easier to install and no drilling!

The sounds... some are extremely awsome (the Breathy Sax being my favorite) and some are cheesy in a cool way, mainly in the synth/lead bank. The most horrible ones.... the bass and guitar sounds!!! LMAO!
Oh man! The guys who programmed the distortion sounds must have never heard that sound in their life... or maybe they've only heard in in a 1952 crappy TV set with a blown speaker! Gee...
But the rest of them are extremely interesting and I've tweaked lots of them already which is easy to do. I also use the unit MIDI OUT to trigger Sound Fonts in my computer and on my keyboards. It's great!
All the sounds are super clean and quiet! They record very nicely.
The hold pedal is great with many pads... and the switch mounted on the guitar allows you to mix the sound of the synth and the guitar.
The guitar out lets you send to effect units and back into the GR 20.
Very useful

So far, I find it very reliable. Tracks very fast compared to older guitar synths models. It's definitely a bargain. Yep, I would gig without a backup. I'm actually doing "live sountrack" for a theater production with it. The director liked it so much that he made me a character in the play. So I'm playing it on stage as I walk around the actors...

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I do lots of soundtracks and sound design for Film, theater and TV.
It's extremely useful since I'm a poor keyboard player. I've been playing since I was 8 years old and now I'm 38. You do the math...
Other gear??? Long list... 10 guitars and basses 3 keyboards and digital recording studio plus tons of outboard gear. I would probably get another one if mine was stolen or lost. Overall, I love it. Been using it everyday since I bought it. It's a lot of fun and I don't need to hire keyboard players to play certain tracks now...
It's a really cool toy/tool... get one if you can!

I think it is fairly easy to use. The knob on the left switches between categories of sounds and the knob on the right switches between presets for that particular category. I'ts got great sounds and "OK" effects like chorus, reverb and delay. And, of course, attack and release knobs are helpful.
As for the included GK-3 pickup... It sounded so easy on the web site... I finally mounted it on my Gibson ES 135 but I can't get the lower strings (A and E) sensed by the pickup. Tried all I could, curviture, hight and "sens" procedure on the synthesizer itself.. The "A" string responds on the higher frets but no the 6th one. I am not sure if the unit is faulty or there is something I have installed incorrectly. I called Guitar Center, who sold me the unit, but they don't seem to be very helpful.
I'd appreciate if anybody could write to me at vtsaran@yahoo.com if you got helpful tips.

Most of the samples are quite good for the price you pay. I mean, they can't put a $3000 synthesizer in there, right? Obviously, organs, keyboards, saxophones and percussion instruments are exceptional. I also liked the jazz voice fragments they've included.

Watch for that baby! You don't want to dance on top of it! It is made of plastic as most of the devices these days are.

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It's a cool addition for a creative musician. I play jazz primarily and think that this will help me to color the sound of my guitar.

Got mine a week ago and played on it almost free time I had since.

This thing is extremely easy to use as it has only a few knobs and buttons and very few editing options. Reading the manual takes something like 10 minutes. The display is pretty rudimentary as it consists only of two 7 segment leds but the information is still well presented but read the manual to understand some of the codes.

Installing the included GK-3 hex pickup is not that big a deal. The pickup itself has a little screw (screwdriver included) to adjust the curvature of the pickup. It comes with many screws, spacer, springs, etc to accomodate almost any guitar. I used the Les Paul bridge type installation plate which didn't quite fit my cheap Vantage bridge so I had to force in place but it's OK.

Once you've adjusted the sensitivity of the GR-20, it tracks exceptionnaly well although it's not as responsive below the lowest D. If you want to play fast, you need a very good technique if you do not want to hear ghost notes.

You can do very little to modify or combine the sounds it's all preset. You can't specify string splits (say bass on the lowest 2 strings and organ on the others) or combine patches. You can modify the attack, release, cutoff frequency and resonance of the sounds. I didn't do much editing so I can't comment on tweaking.

If I counted right, you get 368 sound presets and not over 450 as Roland says, they probably counted the user presets which are copy of the factory presets.

Overall, the sounds are excellent. The interesting thing is that they do not track equally as well. Some presets track exceptionnaly good like the sax and the organ ones, some others give much less satisfactory results for the same playing like the piano sounds and many of the percussion sounds.

The reverb has a very limited range where it sounds good but is still useful. The delay sucks with most presets and there's no way of setting the delay time.


Here's what I think of the various banks
- Strings: sounds very good and very rich but you don't get much variety, they kind of all sound alike.
- Wind: The saxophone presets are impressive especially the Breathy Sax
- Brass: haven't used them much but there's at least one preset which is very close to the GR-300 Pat Metheny sound and probably can get closer by tweaking the sound, I wanted that sound for a long time.
- Bass/Gtr: oh boy, these suck big time! The bass sounds are probably usable in a mix but forget it about the guitar sounds.
- Organ/Kb: Excellent, lot of B3 sounds and impressive church organ sounds.
- Piano: although they sound OK, it's very difficult to give the impression that you are playing an actual piano, the attack is brutal and is difficult to control
- Synth: pretty rich and full but very 70s and 80s, don't have a use for them
- Voice/Pad: this bank contains a great variety of sounds some of which very human. You also get many interesting cosmic sounds
- Ethnic: Most are realistic
- Rythm/Perc: Realistic but I don't care about them as I already have a couple a very good rythm boxes

Well, this thing seems much more fragile than other Boss/Roland stuff. It's mostly plastic, it's very light and definitively not as sturdy as a Boss compact pedal or my GT-6. I'm an amateur musician and I rarely gig, so it's not a concern.

I have lot's of Roland/Boss stuf and I've never had a single problem with it. However, I did get a fast response by email from Roland Canada on an other subject, that why I'm giving them 8

I've been playing guitar for 25 years. I play rock, jazz, fusion and anything I feel like.

Relevant setup: Heavily modified cheap (but now excellent) Vantage guitar with GK-3 => GR-20 coupled with a Boss GT-6 => Mackie mixer => Peavy amplified studio monitor.

This is my first guitar synth and synth in general. The GR-20 tracks very well if you have a clean technique. Don't try to play it like a guitar, it's a synthesizer controlled by a guitar, you won't get the expressiveness of an electric guitar. I'm definitively hooked on the sax sounds and the GR-300 like sounds but there's a lot to explore in there.

I wanted a guitar synth since I first played on a GR-300 20 years ago, I didn't think the previous GR-xx from Roland were worth the price but the GR-20 with the GK-3 bundled is an exceptionnal value. Apparently, the GR-33 is much more tweakable but I'm not that interested in developping new soudns, I'm pretty satisfied with the presets of the GR-20.

Well, I'd probably give it 9.5 as I love this thing.

The pickup installation is a little daunting. I skipped the mount bracket and used the two sided tape instead. I have to go back and adjust the height--some strings are louder than others--but other than the pickup, it's plug and play.
I haven't looked at the manual yet.

I am using a Fender Nashville Tele-->GR-20-->boss tuner->keeley compressor->ibanez tube screamer->boss super overdrive->boss flanger->boss oc-3->boss dynamic wah->SWR Cali Blonde amp (with Boss dd-3 in the amp loop).

I think it's pretty quiet. In fact, with all the crap between my guitar and my amp, it's a miracle the whole rig is fairly quiet.

I was sold on this toy based on the sound of the sax on the roland web site demo. And I do love that sound. It's a breathy sounding alto or something. Love it. The wind sounds are all good. I like some of the brass also. Haven't fully messed with it all. But plenty there to keep me entertained.

Also, it's got a 3 position switch on the onboard controller that allows you to play either clean guitar, or just synth, or a mix of the two. I love that.

I just bought it. It's plastic. Need to be careful with it. I would use it without a backup because I ain't buying a $600 backup.

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I play Grateful Dead mostly, plus related stuff---Allmans, Clapton, reggae, etc. I love this thing. It really gives me a lot of sounds to play with. I can mix in some horns with my rhythm comping, or take a lead with a blend of flute and guitar...or how about a pan flute totally saturated with distortion and cranked up? So many possibilities. Great toy. I have always been a low tech guy, and this is the perfect hi tech toy for a low tech person. Easy to use, sounds great.

The hardest part os the initial configuration process is installation of the included GK3 pickup. After that, it's very easy to use, but requires much cleaner and more precise technique than guitarists are used to.

I don't plan to edit patches much.

The manual is well written and easy to understand.

This unit is brand new as of Winter NAMM '04.

I'll give it a 10 for ease of use, but only becue I don't plan to program it much.

All the patches/samples sound pretty good except the guitar-based ones. The nylon string guitar is OK, maybe even passable, but the rest of the guitar-related patches aren't any good --- you will still need your outboard effects boxes.

A couple of patches are noisy when idel, but not enough to worry about. I was real surprised as to how quiet the unit is on idle or when being played.

You will need very good left and right hand technique to make this thing useful unless you only want to use it for single sax lines and such. Otherwise, you will have to fingerpick and learn how to mute to get the most out of the unit.

The unit is divided up into piano, organ, bass/guitar, woodwinds, vrass, strings, voices, synthesizer, ethnic and one or two other categories of instruments with about 500 patches in all.

Some patches are split with strings 5 and 6 being bass and the rest being some other instrument like organ or piano. That's why you need to perfect your right and left hand technique.

As for pure sound quality, I'll give it an 8 - very convincing and useful, especially as a composition/songwriting tool. I've not used it live yet, but may get a chance to do so in the next few weeks, if I chose.

I dunno.

I dunno.

I play various styles and the GR-20 will drive me to play even more styles of music. It will hlep me perfect my technique while at the same time forcing me to change my technique to play bass and chords separately.

I've used MFX pdals and am currently using a Digitech GNx3 live, but the GR-20 is a totally different animal and will force me to play f=differently and hear things differently.

Do it an right and you could be an entire orchestra by yourself. I'm not there yet myself.

For the money, you get the unit and the pickup. dEcent deal.