The Gaz Williams Show - Deep dive into the hugely underrated GR-55 guitar synthesizer

[@glennurquhart2989]

Having used the Gr-20 and then the GR-55 as a musician for over ten years in several cover rock bands, your approach to your guitar playing means you must adapt to the synth and its limitations. The 5 -7 millisecond delay means you have to play ahead of the beat. Your attack has to be full off to shorten the response. Sounds counterintuitive, but it works (-50) The guitar modeling is great, straight out, with or without your regular guitar. The ability to blend your regular guitar with the synth is worth the price of admission. To be able to blend an organ, plus a 12 string guitar with your normal guitar at the same time, is awesome. The sub menus can get involved, but that's what the OM is for. I spent many hours tweaking and finding the sounds I was looking for and it was well worth it. As a 4 piece band, I've turned a lot of heads going after artists like Joe Cocker (brass), Elvis (strings), Moody Blues (12 string) etc. Your PICK ARTICULATION is everything, depending on the instrument covered. Just have fun with it..If you want a better synth, buy a Korg and learn how to play the piano..lol Flute intro to Can't you see? Been there, done that, and it was cool...so much music..so little time...One of the best musical investments I ever made..

[@GazWilliams]

Fabulous post and fascinating to read, thanks for taking the time to post this.

[@glennurquhart2989]

@@GazWilliams I pulled the GR55 out for professional use after our key player left the band. At one time I had two of these units because I was afraid they'd stop making them, and I always brought two of them, but redundancy is good in case one shits the bed..but it never happened.They're built like a tank. The 13 pin cable is cheap, so that was a plus.

[@clydeluca9991]

i realize I'm kinda randomly asking but does anyone know of a good place to stream newly released tv shows online ?

[@enriqueharper6270]

@Clyde Luca Flixportal :D

[@clydeluca9991]

@Enrique Harper Thank you, I signed up and it seems like they got a lot of movies there =) I appreciate it !

[@musicboy2003]

My journey with the GR55 for the past 7 years has been limited to (1) COSM (2) adding synth pads to 2-3 strings for depth (3) setting up the digital open tunings (really great feature). Bought a Godin xtsa which greatly remedied tracking problems. There’s so much to unpack when it comes to explaining or demoing this beast that I truly believe we miss the very simple things it does so well. You get two synths which can be triggered along with your tele/tweed, etc, modeled guitar that can create huge sounds. You can also limit the synth voices to the guitar strings of your choice. Yes, you don’t use something like that all the time, but when you want it, the GR55 makes it amazingly easy to do. You can play with standard tuning in the verses, then switch to DADGAD or open D in the chorus with one step on the CTL pedal. You can change your electric into a really convincing Martin or J-45 or 12-string instantly. You can play a power chord or synth pad, latch it (hold on sustain) and play over it unaffected by the sustained part (freeze, they call it now?). Great when you’re playing rhythm and need piano and organ on the chorus. These are all seemingly simple things, but try to do them without a GR55. You can also get crazy with it if you want to, but you have to work it hard to get it right. All the naked synth patches sound like when the guy says, “OK, I know this is not a usable sound, but we need to do some tweaks to get it to sounding good.” That is the story of my life when it comes to the GR55.

[@hans-jorgseeburger5077]

today my gk 3 is fixed. after maybe ten years i give gr 55 another chance ;) the latency is a problem ..lets see. i enjoy this vid a lot. gaz is really inspiring me. thanks a lot..

[@lensofstags]

This model is several years old now - do you know if there is a new GR-xx on the horizon? I would like to buy one but don’t want a newer, more capable model to appear a couple months later. I am aware of the SY-1000 but it does not have all the PCM - which was nice.

[@hybrydsanity5857]

I know you did this vid 3 years ago but if you see this can you give me tips on getting the app to see the GR-55 i cant get it to connect and I'm trying to use it with legacy Mac OSX and the correct driver from boss.

[@StratBoss]

It's great to see a video and comments that are recent. Others seem to be from 10 years ago. I use a GT100 currently. Wondering if the GR55 could replace the GT100 for the guitar effects as well as adding the amazing Synth sounds? Other comments mentioned the TriplePlay and why aren't there more recent devices. Same thoughts from me! I am concerned at the tracking. Is the TriplePlay better and can you run the software on a Samsung tablet or do you need a laptop on stage? Also, could I use midi from the GT100 to change the TriplePlay patches?

[@ScottHogue]

Rick, I have a TriplePlay, a GR-55 and even a GR-33. To me they have different approaches. The TriplePlay is a wireless MIDI pickup, meaning you have to have a sound source for the tones. For me, the problem is that you have to integrate all of these different sounds from different vendors that all have different licensing schemes etc. It seems like it tracks pretty well. The GR-55 is built like a tank, and everything is included. Personally, I like the GR-55 better live. I love the modeling and the alternate tuning. I can't decide if I like the piezo 13 pin or the GK-3 pickup better.

[@StratBoss]

@@ScottHogue Thanks Scott. Shame they haven't upgraded it for tracking and other issues raised here and elsewhere. Appreciate your thoughts!

[@learnalickaday7272]

can I control VST's in Logic and get a MIDI notation readout via USB with GR55? Thank you

[@GazWilliams]

Yes but you may find that midi info will need quite a lot of editing. You can mitigate that somewhat with a very careful approach to playing.

[@manne3d]

For the LFO "wavepedal" try to change from "Toggle" to "Momentary" (i think it is called) for the source mode..I think i was struggling with this one time on the VG99 also. I think it just toggles switches between 2 values in toggle mode or something. Pretty cool feature to be able to change the PCM's esp. with synced LFO's. How tight are the LFO's /"wavepedals" on the GR-55. Do you find that they stay in phase (reset with midi clock start) and stay in time without drifting? I wish VG99 had tempo sync for the "wavepedal".

[@GazWilliams]

Yep my mistake! Thanks!

[@dodgyscampton5668]

Did you try changing the 'Source Mode' for the 'Wave Pedal Source' from 'Toggle' to 'Momentary'? I think that may get it panning smoothly for you. I have a GR-55 somewhere. I may dig it out over the weekend and give it a try.

[@GazWilliams]

I forgot about that. Great point thanks.

[@chrisgrantmusic3313]

Thank you for your video. I have a problem that I cannot find the answer to anywhere on youtube or in the manual, I wonder if you know what the problem is. i have a two guitars with gk3 pickups fitted on them and a roland gr55, and i simply cannot get any sound from the guitars normal pickups. Apart from that the pedal is working perfectly. do you have any ideas?

[@jamesboyce9395]

don't know if you've tried this or not , do you have a line leading from gr 55 guitar output into the amp as well , and make sure you got the guitar pickup on as well in set up

[@antonellovanni]

Thanks from Italy

[@dancassidy7471]

Thanks I have decided to use it to fatten up my guitar sounds only..there is a fix for the piano issues which I am unable to find

[@curtismills1612]

The synth model you pick will have drastic changes on the lag. If your playing a classic synth sound there tends to be a noticeable lag where if you create or tweak an existing sound there seems like zero to almost no lag at all. Long story short some sounds play like mud and others are spot on.

[@GazWilliams]

Yep fully agree!

[@kengagnon6192]

I have bought that same model It is being mailed to me should get it by the end of this week , I have the gr 20 but it doesn't work I put it on my four string bass and then on my six string bass and still didn't work I bought it used on Reverb from the UK so maybe some thing happen while shipping , I bought new the bass pickup for it and the cable , hopefully it wasn't the pickup I will find out when I get the GR 55 this week 🙏

[@davidgiuliano2768]

A few days ago I bought a gr 55 and to my great surprise at the end of the manual it says that it may contain products that cause cancer. Have you read that too???

[@jamesthompson7282]

Probably not wise to eat it.

[@davidguitar.]

Give a prize to the clown down here who wants to attract attention.

[@tobyb8511]

Fishman TriplePlay is the alternative, and in many ways better, to the Roland GK-3 (no additional box required though the Boss SY's are a considerable newer alternative to the GR-55) ... although the latter is still worthwhile, and the possibility of isolating each string with a breakout box adds to its possibilities. Cheaper is the mono Sonuus, which works well and could be ideal for playing mono-synths, bass lines for instance. Pitch to MIDI is also there with Jam Origin MIDI Guitar 2 or as a tool in Reaper ... But, yes, none of these are recent, and with the coding already there for amp sim's, I wonder how much extra it would be to add on to that?

[@davidnollmusic363]

Thanks for this excellent video. I love my GR-55 and use it every time I stream on Twitch. Wouldn't be without it! Wishing you all the best!

[@StratBoss]

How do you find the latency? And would you say it can be used as a complete solution for guitar effects and synth sounds?

[@neilreynard]

Can you set 2 amp models in the chain?

[@DanReppert]

Yes. One There is a Guitar Amp Sim option in the MFX tab. You could use that and the Amp tab to run two amps. However, note that you are using that MFX slot. You always have reverb, chorus, delay EQ and amp tabs. In addition to these you have 2 multieffects tabs, one called MOD and one called MFX. So if you use the MFX tab for a second amp, you are sacrificing that tab. There are tons of ways to use things, like 8 assigns, but there are limitations.

[@neilreynard]

@@DanReppert Thanks Dan!

[@nemooutis.]

Funniest moment of 2021 @1.11.17 Man - thats the the GR-55 for ya! Impossible to have any certainty over the tracking/triggering of PCM voices; and COSM only slightly better. Demoing this live ?? you're a better man than I am Gazza- my french would have been apoplectic.

[@nemooutis.]

And you really have to love (not) that Roland couldn't even be bothered to normalize the vol of their preset patches; so when you switch from a quiet patch (and hence are at full gain on the pickup) to another that is twice the gain of the previous, and you distort the 'french' out of FOH.... ode to joy !

[@MathHammer]

I don’t get the lack of pitch-to midi converters for guitars out there. There are some incredible DSP devices for amp modeling (or profiling) and effects but AFAIK Roland is not the only company making a pitch-to-mMIDI converter and the only way to get it is in one of their guitar synths. They discontinued the GI-20 a long time ago.

[@mjhobo5520]

It’s probably not a big enough market to invest the time into, the venn diagram of synthesists and guitarists likely only has a small overlap.

[@martinmark5100]

👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋

[@mijit.859]

I wish they could have had the 👉’Greek Bouzouki’ instrumental sound effects in this gadget etc - hmm 🤔

[@GazWilliams]

I reckon you could get close to a Bouzouki with this.

[@msilvatone]

Darn, I thought I could learn something, it turns out I know a lot more than you do about this and I don't have your fancy computer editing device can change the sensitivity of the attack depending on how you're playing is within it to get clean tracking to play fast

[@hippyamp]

valient try but you cant polish a turd. could never get a plesant comfortable sound out of this. I've had alot more luck with a gi 20 going into a separate synth

[@FIVE_DOLLAR-DAVE]

A rambling mess imho

[@GazWilliams]

It’s what I do. I’m a rambling mess

[@maliwilliams7262]

I've Finally Resolved my Love-Hate relationship to Mine.. It was Too Difficult for many to figure out for many,it's NOT the kind of pedal you can simply "Plug and Play" Without STUDYING It!!! I mean, I've spent MANY Hours with this thing, and it's INTENSE!! The Cables are a Pain in the ass,and your're NOT going to be Dancing when U play It!! NOT for POSERS!! (Get the Roland cables..you'll Eventually spend the same money or MORE replacing the Cheaper ONES!!)

[@paulsmith9574]

My original Roland 13 pin cable developed an open on the low E string line/wire. I bought 2 of the eBay cables, and I am still using the first one of the two. I take a suitcase of misc cables and adapters to every gig. My concern is if the GR-55 stops working, I won't have all my sound tricks that I use. I use the drop D function on multiple songs, I use an all 6 strings step up to the first fret on one song. I also just have one guitar with the GK3. There are definitely caveats with this product. Some of the instruments sounds double play when I hit the string. Such as the banjo. I can't use that for a solo. I do add banjo as a rhythm mixed with a guitar sound. One has to learn how to play differently when using some sounds, with this thing.