My New Toy

A few years back while serving coffee at Pappy's, I heard a unique sound. Eric Paridine was all alone on stage playing some blues for us on his Fender Strat. It was a busy night and I hadn't been paying much attention to what Eric was doing, but all of a sudden something was different... someone was wailing on a sax. Turning to see who Eric had invited up on stage, I became a bit confused. There was only Eric. He had that 'lost in the musical moment' look on his face and he was leaning back like a jazz sax player, but he was playing his Strat. At the end of his set, I went to the stage to see just how it was that he could play jazz sax on a Fender Strat. He showed me his Roland Ready Strat which was plugged into a Roland Guitar Synth. At the end of the night while the kids were cleaning up, I asked Eric if I could try his setup out. He humored me and plugged everything back in and set the Synth on sax for me. The sound was cool but it definitely didn't sound like what Eric had played earlier. After a few minutes I handed the guitar back to him and said, "Okay, so what's the trick to make it really sound like a sax?"

As he began to unplug things again, he said, "The trick is to think sax."

Since then I have had opportunity to try out the Roland Guitar Synth a few times. Once on one of Eric's return visits to the coffeehouse and a few months ago at a Guitar Center. Two weeks ago I walked into B&B Music in Camden, DE and asked the gentleman behind the counter if they had one. His answer was "Yes," and we walked to the other end of the store where the guitar effects pedals were on display. I soon found myself sitting there with the only Roland Ready Strat and the only Roland GR-20 B&B had in the store. Remembering what Eric had said a few years back, "The trick is to think sax," I set the Synth up for sax. Beginning to play I thought things like, 'A sax player can only play one note at a time... A sax player can start a note softly and increase volume as he holds the note'... and so went my thought process. After a bit of playing around with the pedals and generally 'thinking sax,' the sound I was getting was starting to sound like a real sax! A little while later while still sitting there playing around with some other settings, I stumbled onto a xylophone setting. While playing a three octave run in C, a lady who was looking around the store walked up to me and asked, "Did all that sound come out of that guitar?"

"Yes, out of the guitar by way of the synthesizer."

I asked the salesman whether or not the Roland GR-20 came with a pickup that could be attached to my Samick Royale RL-3. A bit of digging through the box produced a mounting bracket that is perfect for mounting the pickup to the Les Paul style bridge that is standard on the Samick.

After a futile attempt to wrangle a discount because the demo model was the only one they had, I said, "I'll take it." We boxed it up and the salesman threw in a couple of 15' patch cables at half price. I was off with an exciting new toy. By the way, their list was only $5.00 more than the best online price I found, and I got to play it before I bought it.

Back home, it took me a couple of hours to carefully and meticulously mount the pickup exactly as specified in the manual. It could have been done in less than an hour, but my Samick is mint, so it was done very carefully.

I felt like a kid with a new toy. Heck, I am a kid with a new toy! This thing is so much fun! People are constantly asking me can it do this or that. After a little fooling around with the settings, the answer is usually, "Yes!"

If you are looking for another toy for your guitar to play with, try the Roland GR-20. It's fun, and isn't that why they call it 'playing' music? Oh, and if you are in Camden, DE check out B&B Music. All in all, it was a good buying experience.

To the folks at B&B, maybe you should jack up your price another $5.00 so you can give a discount and make us feel better.