This website is dedicated to providing comprehensive, complete and accurate information on vintage Roland 24-pin guitar synthesizers, controllers, and related accessories.
I started this website more than a decade ago when there was very little information online about vintage 24-pin synths, and a lot of the information I could find was wrong.
Please dig in and learn more about the first sustained effort by Roland Corporation to expand the sonic tools available to guitar players. You will find photos, technical information, service manuals, owners manuals, vintage advertising plus video clips on a variety of cutting-edge gear from the late seventies to early nineties.
This website is possible because of the many GR users who have helped by contributing photos, service bulletins, etc. to make this resource more complete. Feel free to email me if you have questions, corrections, etc. And many thanks to Dempsey Elks who dug through his Guitar Player archives, and emailed me the original Craig Anderton GR-300 article modification article that comprised the original website.
About the Webmaster:
| Webmaster Wayne Scott Joness, 2nd place winner in the 2010 Roland Guitar Synthesizer Contest |
I purchased my first vintage GR rig in 1985, a Roland GR-700 system. I was in a "cutting edge" college band in Charlottesville (University of Virginia), called "His Boy Elroy" with my best friend Stuart Wamsley on bass, and our drummer Fred who played Simmons Syndrums!
But get this: we were not the first guitar synth band in C'ville! We were overshadowed by the immensely talented trio Rude Buddah that included Brian Daley who played a metallic blue Roland G-505 guitar and GR-300. Brian was joined by Jenny Wade on bass, and Spencer Lathrop on drums. At the time, they seemed to come out of nowhere, juiced on pure creativity, though in retrospect Brian had a pretty heavy King Crimson influence.
Since college I have continued to work in music, and now live in Los Angeles and specialize in direct response marketing music, though I have also toured nationally with Jane Powell as keyboardist and guitarist, composed songs, scored films, and worked for a period of years as a sound editor. As a life-long electronic experimenter (I started UVA as an engineer), I began making interfaces for vintage and modern guitar synthesizers about a decade ago, and continue to tinker with gadgets to bridge between the great vintage Roland guitar synth technology and most recent guitar synthesizer innovations from Roland, like the GR-55 and VG-99.