Ah man, thanks for checking! I’m playing with my dogs atm so appreciate the info!
My issue with my MC101 is that I have to faff around with saving projects when I only want to use it as a sound-module. You cant just send an MSB/LSB/PC to select a sound, slightly annoying.
That said, it has over 4,000 sounds compared to the 1,200 on this GM-800.
I wonder what they left out?
And whether theres additional space, possibly to copy the whole 4,000 from the MC101?
It’s an exciting device, for sure!
Appreciate the warning!
However, this has a pickup, so its not really audio to MIDI like the SY series (I think).
Sorry, I should’ve clarified further. I had a Roland (I think) bass midi pickup back in the day and a Fishman TriplePlay on guitar more recently. For monophonic play or simple chords, excellent. But anything more complicated, it was a no go
I’d say 90% of those 4000+ sounds are 50 variations of the same Juno pluck, 30 variations of the same Jupiter pad, 67 variations of the same Supersaw stab…
I know this from scrolling through countless presets on the MC-707 looking for pads, basses, etc. MC-101 has practically the same selection.
If Boss left out the majority of those useless variations I would be cool with that.
Is the latency really improved ?
Does it work with GK3 ?
I have a GK3 and a Yamaha G50 for midi conversion. I didn’t use them for ages cos I needed a new GK cable. Plugged it yesterday. Works well with Syntakt, but as @craig said you need to play carefully, in a particular way. I play with fingers, arpegio/picking style.
The GK mic has to be well placed, and the strings height too.
If you use a sound generator adding latency like vst pluggins, it is weird to play.
The first person here to get a GM-800 will be able to report on the latency improvement, if any. Until then nobody will be able to answer that question.
I believe there is someone here - Brock? - who has a Boss SY-1000 which was the last Boss guitar synth/MIDI pedal before this one. He therefore has the most experience with the most recent Boss/Roland MIDI guitar tech.
Would be awesome if they sold basses and guitars meant for being used with the synth. So no pickup install on my instruments, just a dedicated one for the task instead.
there are a couple of MIDI guitars on the market. Off the top of my head the JamStik guitar has a built in MIDI pickup and I would assume that it would work with the GM-800. From what I have read and underestand there is nothing particularly “special” about the roland MIDI pickup that goes with the GM-800 other than its a really well built nice MIDI pickup. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but MIDI is MIDI and the tracking and processesing of the the MIDI data is done entirely by the GM-800 itself it seems.
In the old days that’s what they did – the G-303, G-808, G-202 and G-505 were all built as controllers for Roland’s early guitar synths, the GR-300 and GR-700, but doubled as regular guitars, too, with 1/4" outputs and mag pickups that could be blended with the synth. They were manufactured by Fujigen (I believe), who also made Greco, but branded as Roland. They had the synth pickup built-in, and the whole system relied on a proprietary 24-pin connection between the guitar and synth unit. For a long time the GR-300, despite being fully analog, had better latency and overall responsiveness than anything Roland/Boss produced afterwards, although perhaps this new unit is better. I had a VG-99 for a while and the best controller for it was an Ibanez with a 13-pin piezo system – it tracked really well, but my GK-equipped guitars never did as well as the old stuff with the GR-300 in that department.
The GR-300, while limited in comparison to a modern synth set-up, has always (to my ears) sounded amazing. The filter is excellent and the whole thing just sounds massive. I tried a Boss SY-300 a few years back, but was never able to get rid of a kind of high frequency harshness to the sound that didn’t work for me. I’m very curious about the GM-800, though. Looking forward to seeing/hearing more about it on this forum!
PS – If anyone’s curious about Roland’s guitar synth history, check out this site, it’s a treasure trove of info: http://www.gr300.com
This is relevant to my interests for afaik this is the only guitar to midi that might be decent, ie with pickup, that doesn’t require a computer (like fish man).
Fender made Roland-ready Strats for a few years. If you get one of those used, you’ll have to buy a GKC-AD 13-pin GK to Serial GK converter. This assumes you can live with its neck - 9.5" radius, modern C neck, typical Strat 25.5" scale. Just saying, because some people want flatter necks than that, or rounder, or wider, or narrower or…
I’d have to buy a GKC-AD to use a GM-800 with my Parker Nitefly, which has a GK3 (13-pin) pickup installed.
If I didn’t have the Parker, I’d shop for a sub-$1000 guitar to serve as a dedicated GM-800 guitar partner, buy a GK-5 pickup and install it on the guitar. For all I know double-sided tape to secure the pickup might be fine, which would eliminate the need to drill holes into the guitar. This way I could choose a guitar that feels good to my hands, rather than buying a guitar with factory installed GK pickup and hoping it will fit ok.
I understand the reluctance to put a GK-5 on a nicer instrument - hence the role of the cheaper guitar would be for. You’re more likely to accept sticky residue - or at worst drilled holes - on the on the cheaper guitar than on any of your costlier guitars.
Odd not to see any mention of the Terratec Axon AX100 MkII here as that’s meant to be the most accurate of these things. I have one knocking around and a hex pickup on my guitar that I never use anymore as it was a bit bulky and not as fun as it seemed. But then again I also hardly ever play my electric guitar or use any pedals as my favourite guitar sound is the immediacy of my acoustic unplugged fingerpicky one.
Might see if the Axon still works and sell it if this world is coming back again. Was only holding onto it as it seemed the only thing that did this well.
I’m considering the GM-800 for my little-used guitar that sits lonely in a separate room. I had planned to plug it into my Axe FX, but I like that thing so much that its inputs are all taken up by non-guitars! I’ve been sold on this guitar synth tech since the GR-300, but the various devices I’ve tried in the past just never felt right for my limited guitar technique, which consists mostly of rhythm guitar, comping chords. Any thoughts on that? All the demos really emphasize playing lead lines with a pick, but I don’t use a pick.
I never had issues with tracking in the past, including bends and such, so I’m confident on that count. I had an Axon AX100SB and a VGuitar pedal (or whatever it was called). The VGuitar was fine, but as I recall, it was only amp/cab sims (with maybe some basic FX?), and then I went to a Variax after that, which was interesting, but long gone. But I haven’t messed with this stuff since around 2001 as I’ve mostly only had bass duties since then, and am pretty partial to P-90’s through various amps and cabs. I’m deciding, though, if it’s worth drilling holes in my Les Paul Special (production, not custom) to install the hex pickup.
That new hex pickup does look much nicer, more streamlined than the one from back in the day. Can it be wired to pass through the mag pickups’ signal as well so that you only have one cable coming out of the guitar to the GM-800?
tracking is touchy at the first few frets of a bass. That’s pretty much a dealbreaker for me when it comes to playing bass because I really like playing in first position. I wouldn’t like the workaround of tuning the patch down, then playing higher up the neck.
I expect guitar won’t have this tracking issue because first position is an octave higher than bass. Still, not being able to use the GM-800 with bass as well as guitar makes it a lot less worthwhile for me.
Two or three things rocked the boat in favour of the GM-800:
The price has come down to a more reasonable level (around 600€ on Thomann)
The thing can be played through midi like a normal desktop synth module.
I picked one up today and just finished installing the GK-5 mic on my Fender Jaguar. I used to have a SY-300, which I loved but the thought of a Zencore-synth engine that can also be controlled via my MPC just made me swap the SY for the GM. Instead of getting a Roland MC-101 to work as an additional sound module, I bought the GM-800 and it works also with my guitar and as a guitar to midi converter for all my synths. A win/win/win/win/win -situation if there ever was one.
I also love how it’s the same form factor as my SDE-3000D. Beautiful!
How’s the tracking? I had a VG-88 back in the early 2000s with whatever GK pickup was available at the time and the tracking wasn’t great, but it was serviceable…
I’ve only had it for maybe 2 hours and of that I spent one hour installing the GK-5 mic. Some weird trigging happened when I played for 15 minutes, but I’m sure that can be addressed through adjusting the string sensitivities etc.
