Vintage Synth Explorer Forums

Hey Guys!

Just wanted get an opinion from everyone. I have just bought a Carvin SH65 guitar which has a 13-pin Hexaphonic MIDI-compatible output and I was considering buying a rack mount synth to run it with. I guess I'm looking for something that is versatile with a wide range of sounds from traditional pianos etc to nice dirty vintage leads and even modern pads. Price isn't a major issue (within reason), software based synths are also an option.

Cheers!

More important than sounds is finding a synthesizer that can respond over 6 MIDI channels at the same time (i.e. multitimbral) and allows pitch bend range of at least two octaves.

You also didn't mention whether or not you got a controller interface with your guitar.

The most obvious choice would be one of the many Roland GR or VG synth units although almost all of these are floor units not rackmounts. The older ones are not 13 pin compatible, not sure when Roland made the switch. Used GRs tend to be dirt cheap if they come without a pickup (which is of course what you want).

Thanks. As far as I know there is no control interface, guitar still in transit. The Roland GR-55 does look pretty sweet and being a pedal board could actually make things easier. I just hope the quality of the sounds is up to the standards of other synth units.

If you have something that can convert the 13-pin to standard MIDI, it can drive a Matrix-1000 in "guitar mode".

Eclipse2 wrote: I just hope the quality of the GR-55 sounds is up to the standards of other synth units.

Roland tends to put the same synth engine in their GR boxes as their current midrange keyboard. If the GR55 is their current box, it probably has a Fantom-derived engine similar to the current Juno models.

You can use the GR MIDI out to drive other gear (including softsynths) but the latency will be a bit higher.

If you don't buy a dedicated Roland guitar synth or processor you'll need to buy an GK to MIDI interface compatible with the 13 pin output like the Roland GI-20 or Axon AX.

The first 13 pin Roland product was the GR50. The previous generatiion of Roland guitar synths (GR100, GR300, GR700, GM70) all used the 24 pin output format, and aren't usable with the 13 pin format without quite a bit of effort.

The Oberheim Xpander is an ideal MIDI Guitar module since each voice can be assigned it's own MIDI channel so you can have a different sound on each string if desired. If you are looking for realistic sounds a rackmount Sampler or ROMpler will be much less expensive and more desirable. For the most flexibility go with a Sampler.

an MKS-50 can also put each voice on a different midi channel.