Can anybody identify the guitar played by Jean-Marie Aerts, the excellent guitarist of the excellent early 1980s Belgian band TC Matic? It looks like an archtop walnut Yamaha SG with the control plate of a Les Paul Recorder and I think that it might be a luthier's one-off (as is the bass of the bass player with its German carve) - what do you think?
Aerts was (and is) quite an unique guitar player, who could compare with Magazine/Banshees/PILJohn McGeoch when it came to reinvent guitar playing in the new wave era... Being Belgian (and singing in a bizarre mix of English, French and Flemish dialect), TC Matic never achieved the international fame they deserved, but they are told to have been quite influential on the then newly relocated Birthday Party (this is not obvious with this song, but it makes sense) and they are still highly valued in this strange part of Europe that is on the other side of the Channel...
Edit: It's a Greco-built Roland G-303 synth controller (thanx JD) - I always associated Roland's early controllers with the LP shaped G-500 but I should have known this one that has been used by renowned players such as Pat Metheny and Andy Summers. Since it is not only a synth controller but a good guitar, it has been often used without the GR-300 synth - the way Aerts does.
(We've looked at the bass sibling of this guitar a couple of times already - here and here - so it seems only right we look at the guitar too.)
From Roland's first guitar synth to its last with dedicated guitar controller, the guitar being known as the Roland G-707 and partnered the over-sized stomp box making up the GR-700 synthesiser itself.
To think that these guitars are approaching "vintage" status seems crazy. I remember well when these first came out; we all laughed at the shape and the peculiar "handle connecting" body to headstock (to eliminate deadspots, supposedly, to allow for better tracking); we called it the "Dalek's Handbag".
They were produced from 1984-86. I'm guessing the example pictured above is one of the earlier ones, being finished in silver which over the years has started to turn gold. Later examples were optionally available in red or black finishes.
This example (guitar only - no synth unit) is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $699.99. I don't really see the point of buying the guitar without the synth, not unless you are really into the shape or else you want to buy something for your pet dalek's birthday.
Often incorrectly cited as the "world's first guitar synth" (it wasn't - the Innovex "Condor GMS" system predates it by seven years), the Roland GR500 guitar synth and GS500 guitar controller was certainly a first for Roland. The synth module "was a simple analog affair with Bass, Solo Synth, and String sounds based on previous Orchestral and analog mono-synths from Roland" (see VintageSynth.com). It was my understanding that the pre-MIDI era synth used some kind of 5-note polyphony (I know, weird on a 6-string guitar!) which unfortunately was not known to function fantastically in practice.
The guitar controller itself was, I believe, built for Roland by Ibanez (but feel free to correct me via the comments section below). On the example pictured, the original guitar humbucking pickup has been replaced by an open coil unit. Note the hex pickup (essentially a housing containing individual pickups for each of the strings) which is situated between the guitar pickup and the bridge. There is no neck pickup. These Roland guitars have this strange black plate in the neck pickup position (covered in this instance by a hologram) which looks like it ought to have some purpose but probably doesn't. I wonder if it was just to conceal a pickup hole that had been drilled before the Les Paul style body was destined by become a guitar synth controller.
It's not too often that these guitar and synth units come up for sale together. (There was very recently a GS500 guitar in original condition up for sale on eBay but alas it was without the synth unit). This guitar and synth pair is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a starting price of $1,050. It's an interesting museum piece, but a cumbersome piece of kit, and it's not going to be especially useful for the guitarist interested in playing guitar synth, unless they are more or less content with producing simple sound effects.
Here's a synth/controller in guitar format that I've not seen before, the Unisynth. It looks a bit plasticky, more along the lines of a Yamaha EZ-EG or Casio DG-10/DG-20 rather than a Synthaxe or Stepp guitar.
The eBay seller tells us virtually nothing about it other than it supposedly being "rare", a word which is bandied around on eBay with abandon.
Here at Guitarz we previously looked at a Roland G-77 Bass synth controller in May 2009. However, this one currently being offered for sale on eBay (the auction has less than 12 hours left as I type this) is fretless. Now, I never knew that a fretless version was an option. It doesn't look like it's a later modification - not unless the entire fingerboard has been replaced.
What I'm wondering is, as a synth controller, how well does it track? I had been under the impression that you needed to be very precise with these synth controller guitars and basses, and any "in-between" notes would result in glitching. Anyone out there got any experience with such matters?
One of world's first guitar synthesizers was the Innovex "Condor GMS", released around 1970. Innovex was a joint venture company of Hammond and Ovation. Examples are rarely seen, but one such complete guitar and synth unit (pictured above) is now being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $2,000. Ovation fans will recognise the semi-hollowbody guitar as being the Ovation Tornado model, albeit with a box of tricks attached to the bridge containing, I guess, individual pickups for each of the strings and with an output cable to the synth unit.
The seller comments that:
It is very lofi, and in my opinion, completely awesome. It tracks terribly and warbles, and does everything I love. If you are accustomed to Line 6 stuff you will probably hate this. It functions properly, everything works.
One for the collector, perhaps, or the Lo-Fi recording enthusiast!
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
I could pretend to write something about this Ibanez X-ING IMG2010 but it would just be a simplification or a copy-paste of what you will find here and here - if you're in guitar synths and MIDI controllers, it's really worth a look!
Otherwise just enjoy - or try to enjoy - this very 80s design, that was the last period when people still believed that electric guitar can evolve (and should have computer names)...
What I like with the guitar controller GR 500 of this very first guitar synthesizer proposed by Roland in 1977 is that it's a very classic wooden Les Paul model in sunburst finish, not a Star Trek prop. Not that I don't find the Roland G-707 that came later one of the coolest guitar design ever, but this one looks as good as a late 60s Czechoslovakian LP copy (I love writing Czechoslovakian, don't you?) with even more knobs that a vintage Eko and really weird pickups (it's actually also equipped with an early sustainer...).
The perfect companion for progressive rock's debuts!
The Misa digital guitar is an Aussie MIDI synth-controller and which - at first glance - reminds me of a more professional Yamaha EZ-EG combined with a KAOSS-pad type controller, although to say that is probably to do it a dis-service.
It is powered by the Linux operating system and software is open-source, allowing individuals the flexibility to modify it to their own requirements and to share their innovations with others. Sounds a bit too much like rocket science to me, I'm afraid.
Thanks to Dave Brown for submitting this to Guitarz.
G L Wilson
NB: There are a lot of blogs STEALING content and bandwidth. If you read this anywhere else but on guitarz.blogspot.com then you are reading a blog that STEALS content. Please support original bloggers!
Back in the day (the mid 1980s), my friend Paul had one of these - a Roland G-77 Bass Synth - complete (unlike the one for sale here) with the hefty synth unit that sat on the floor and which this thing plugged into. We nicknamed it, the Dalek's Handbag, and Paul found a hologram of a dalek which he stuck on the front between the two jazz bass pickups.
This of course was the bass companion model to the Roland G-707 guitar synth, although the bass was superior in a couple of ways. It had individual analogue to digital converters for each string unlike the guitar which had one for all the strings and so the tracking was much better, and it had a slightly more sensibly-designed shape so that you could actually balance it on your knee when playing it sitting down.
When Paul sold the bass, somehow I ended up with the hard case, which I used for many years for my bass that I had assembled myself from parts bought from Brandoni guitars.
Looking like someone has taken Rolf Harris's Stylophone and stuck a guitar neck on in, the Stepp DGX MIDI guitar controller - whilst still very expensive - was a cheaper alternative to the very wacky-looking Synthaxe. Unlike the Synthaxe, this particular synthesiser controller was much more guitarist friendly in that the strings for the playing and the fretting hands were both on the same plane and pointing in the same direction, and the frets were laid out normally with none of this equal spacing nonsense.
It was never a big success, and after appearing in the hands of Maurice Gibb of The Bee Gees and an appearance in the movie Vice Versa (starring Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage as a father and son who swap places) where it was inexplicably overdubbed with the sound of a real electric guitar, it sank without trace. Let's face it, it was no great loss.
The collection has changed a lot since I last featured an item on my own guitars on this blog. Here is the collection as it currently stands after having sold a few guitars recently (warning BIG pictures):
Fender Japan Blue Flower 70s style Strat circa 1988. Bought approx over one year ago - it had one lady owner previously who had played it once then put it away in its case for years, so it's in mint condition. Not to be confused with the more recent inferior re-issues.
Fender Japan candy apple red 12-string Strat
Feline Holy Panther - built by Feline guitars of Croydon using an original 1970s Fender body. Inspired by Russ Ballard's guitar.
DiMarzio one-off "Red Beauty" built for 1984 NAMM trade show. Read more here.
Sanox Sound Creator plexiglass bodied Strat-type guitar. Made in Japan in the 1970s.
Fernandes Pink Plexiglass Sustainer Guitar. Totally unique. One-off guitar made for the trade shows. VERY heavy. Has far more sustain than other Fernandes guitars I have played.
Ovation Celebrity acoustic. I can't remember the model number off the top of my head. Names are always much easier to remember. Nice sound and the built-in tuner is a god-send, but the action's a little high for my tastes.
Ovation Breadwinner - circa 1976. A true classic - the first truly ergonomically designed guitar - first production guitar with active electronics and 24-fret neck. Note glossy black finish and small scratchplate.
Gibson Flying V Faded Cherry, circa 2004.
Mania Fretless Bass. Bought to replace my Mexican-made Fender Jazz Bass fretless which I never got on with. Thru-neck, lovely woods, lovely sounds... (with roundwound strings, btw. I know a lot of people put flatwounds on a fretless because they are scared of marking the fingerboard but they sound like crap. Use roundwounds and the bass literally sings.)
Short-scale EB0-bass, probably Japanese, early 70s. No, it wasn't me who painted and decorated it. Cheesy-looking but nice sound - particularly from neck pickup.
Kay K45 Travel Guitar. Thru-neck construction, DiMarzio designed pickups, brass hardware. Circa 1980s.
Traveler Pro Series travel guitar. Features magnetic single-coil pickup, piezo pickup under bridge for acoustic sound, plus "stethophones" which pick up sound from internal diaphram under bridge which lets you privately practice totally acoustically. Made in USA.
Yup! It's only got 4 strings. (No - it's NOT a bass). It's a tenor guitar. Very limited edition in Telecaster styling from Soares'y Guitars.
Guitbass. Three-stringed guitar as used by The Presidents of the United States of America. I built this from parts from an old Japanese Strat copy, Epiphone humbucker, plus various other bits and pieces that I had in my box of bits. The three strings are tuned C#, G# and C# (octave higher than the low C#). Looks like sh*t but sounds great.
Yamaha EZ-EG. Not really a guitar at all, but a guitar-shaped synth-controller. Has on-board sounds and can connect to other synths via MIDI. The right-hand has picking "strings" and the left hand has buttons laid out for each of the strings at 12 fret positions, so you can indeed play it like a guitar.
Countryman 6-string banjo. Banjo players would call it a guitar and guitar players would call it a banjo! It's a banjo, but with six strings so that a guitarist can use regular guitar tuning and get a banjo sound. Very loud.
My ukuleles. Greg Bennett baritone ukulele on the left and Mahalo soprano on the right. The soprano is a bit small for my large fingers, but I love playing the baritone.
Yamaha Pacifica. Bought in pieces, refinished and re-assembled my me. The striped "deckchair" look was an experiment with three different colour oil finishes and some tape! It's far from perfect but I quite like it. There is no tone control because I prefer it that way. (OK, truth be told, it fell off when I was removing the electrics from one broken pickguard to a second pickguard, and I couldn't be arsed re-soldering it on, but as I never use passive tone controls anyway this was no big deal). This guitar is actually a really nice player. It intones well and has a nice action. Perhaps it would benefit from some hotter pickups but they would cost me way more than the rest of the guitar. This is the guitar that I keep at my parents' house in Wales and which largely makes the travel guitars redundant. I also have the body and neck of another Pacifica which needs re-building. (An unfinished project - or perhaps that should say an unstarted project?)
Other guitars that I have owned and sold on include:
Vox Standard 25 Vox Clubman II guitar (later converted to fretless) Westone Thunder I-A fretless bass Eko Ranger XII 12-string acoustic Eko mando-guitar Aria Elecord FET-DLX electro-acoustic Aria Legend Plexiglass Jazzmaster Fender Japan Stratocaster pink paisley (circa 1988) Fender Japan Telecaster pink paisley (early 1980s) Fender Japan Stratocaster Antigua re-issue Squier Stagemaster 7-string Fernandes Revolver Pro with Sustainer Fernandes Native Pro with Sustainer Bass built with parts from Brandoni guitars Sakai EB0-style shortscale bass Avon EB0-style shortscale bass Fender Jazz Bass Fretless (Made in Mexico) Two or three Strat-a-likes self-built from spare parts Top 20 (Woolworths) guitar complete with vibrato arm Cheap but nice Telecaster copy Tele-style guitar self-built from spare parts Silvertone (Harmony?) Archtop acoustic Unidentifiable Archtop acoustic Washburn Idol WI64 Epiphone Les Paul Junior Teisco MJ2 Danelectro Convertible Danelectro 56'U2 Danelectro 12+6 doubleneck
...plus a couple of other cheapies that I didn't keep for very long.
Ah yes, the constant quest for the sound of tomorrow - the synth guitar. There have been many advances since these Casio's were produced - though I know Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead (Best Band In The World) used a Casio MG510 for a while.I've never played a synth guitar, but of course with midi pickups and everything it is much easier these days to get a realistic and responsive system - Garcia and Phil Lesh of the Dead also used them - I remember seeing The Dead at Wembley and Garcia's trumpet playing was stunning.This one is here, with the added advantage that you can type in the numbers "07734", turn it upside down and say "hello"!
This is the one that Bob Weir played for a while - the MG510
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