Roland G-77 Bass Guitar Synthesizer Controller

Justin Meldal-Johnsen rocks his G-77

Introduction to the Roland G-77:

The Roland G-77 is the companion bass to the ground-breaking G-707 guitar. The G-77 shares the same ABS stabilizer bar and radical body shape as the G-707. The G-707 guitar has a unique, one-of-a-kind Roland roller tremolo bridge, and similarly the G-77 also has a unique Roland-stamped high-mass bridge. While the preceding Roland G-33 and G-88 basses had set, or neck thru-design, the G-77 has a Fender style bolt-on neck. The G-77's passive electronics package offers a single tone control plus a pickup balance knob to control the mix between the two single-coil Roland pickups.

GR-77B System - Click to Enlarge

Like the G-707, the G-77 bass challenges preconceptions of what a bass guitar should look like. And like its sibling, the G-77 is a very musical and playable as a conventional bass. Bass guitar synthesizers always appeal to a much smaller buying market than guitars, so it is no surprise that these fine instruments are rarer than the guitar versions. In addition, latency, always a problem for guitar synths in the lower registers, is even worse in the bass range.

As Roland expanded the universe of guitar synthesizer controllers by offering the LPK-1 and STK-1 guitar synthesizer retrofit kits, so the electronics package of the G-77 was made available as the BAK-1. However, unlike the guitar version, there is no record of a mass-produced bass manufacturer offering the Roland BAK-1 kit as a factory option. Steinberger did produce a 24-pin bass controller, the XL2-GR Bass, but the Steinberger guitars and basses use electronics cards produced by a third party, and not standard Roland electronics.

While specifically deisgned for the GR-77B bass synthesizer, the G-77 also works with the Roland GM-70 pitch-to-MIDI converter. With some modification, the G-77 can also be used successfully with the GR-33B bass synthesizer. A side note: unlike the G-33/G-88 basses, the G-77 LFO pads only operate in "touch" mode. The G-33/G-88 basses have a latch mode which keeps the LFO on indefinitely. When used with a Roland BC-13, or BX-13 series, the G-77 can be used with modern 13-pin synths, like the Roland GR-55 or VB-99.

The G-77 is the last full instrument produced by Roland during the vintage 24-pin era.

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