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The below glossary will help you learn more about guitar-synthezisers.
Guitar Synthesizer
A synthesizer is a device that electronically recreates sounds of other instruments, like pianos, horns, organs, strings, and many others. The most common synthesizers use a keyboard
to trigger sounds, but guitar synthesizers are becoming more popular. The Roland GR-30 and GR-33 are guitar synthesizers.
Guitar Synthesizer
–A guitar synthesizer is similar to a
keyboard synthesizer in that it can duplicate the sounds of a number of instruments, such as pianos, organs, strings, horns, etc. In addition, a guitar synthesizer is able to create and produce new
electronic sounds. The guitar is usually fitted with a special pickup, called a divided pickup, which separates the outputs of the strings so the synthesizer can accurately track each individual
string and use the sounds of the guitar to generate synthesized sounds. Roland is the leader in guitar synthesizer technology and has been developing guitar synthesizers for more than twenty years.
The current Roland guitar synthesizer is the GR-30.
Divided Pickup
Sometimes called a Hex
pickup, this is a guitar pickup with six separate outputs, one from each string. The Roland GK-2A is a divided pickup.
–Also called a "Hex" (short for hexaphonic) pickup, a divided
pickup divides the guitar’s output into six separate channels, one from each string. These pickups by themselves do not create MIDI messages–they are used to transmit the output of each
string into the synthesizer (or other unit) so those string sounds or guitar signals can be converted into Midi.
MIDI is
–An acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. MIDI is a universal computer protocol that is used to transfer digital information between computers, digital musical instruments or other MIDI compatible devices. Examples of information which can be transferred include: which sound to select or create, how loud to play it, how long to hold a particular note, and many other messages. The Roland GR-30 Guitar Synthesizer can convert guitar sounds into MIDI messages that can then be used to play other MIDI synthesizers or connected to a computer for digital composing and sequencing.
Expression Pedal
This pedal can be used to change the characteristic of an effect by altering the angled position of the pedal up or
down. The Roland EV-5 is an expression pedal.
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