Roland GR-500

The Roland GR-500 is a polyphonic guitar-controlled synthesizer unit, which was issued in 1977. It comes with a GS-500 guitar. Both Mike Rutherford and Steve Hackett have worked with GR-500's.

Mike Rutherford's Roland GR-500
The Roland GR-500 played a significant role in Mike's sound during the late 1970s and early 1980s, alongside the ARP Avatar. Mike Rutherford tried it but initially wasn't very keen on the GR-500 as "[he didn't] think they've really got it together". But he soon got into it more when it came to the ...And Then There Were Three tour, and continued to use it live and in the studio until the Genesis album in 1983 at least. By 1982, the Roland had largely replaced the ARP.

The GR-500 was useful to Mike as part of his compositional process, so he could work out keyboard lines and various parts on guitar and therefore have more control over the final arrangements of songs for his solo output. In places on Smallcreep's Day, for example, there is a blend of guitar synthesizer and Anthony Phillips' keyboards, the guitar synth offering a different textural quality to the overall sound.

Steve Hackett's Roland GR-500
Steve Hackett was amongst the early adopters of the GR-500. He bought one in November 1977, shortly before recording his solo album Please Don't Touch. This helped him experiment with developing unusual sounds from his guitars and playing them as chords. He used the guitar synth fairly extensively on the record. For example, on "Land of a Thousand Autumns" the GR-500 is combined with a 12-string, using the Polyensemble section to control the tonality and voicings of the notes. On "Icarus Ascending", Steve achieves a trombone-like effect on the GR-500 via toying with the VCF and controlling the top end of the stock brass sound. On "How Can I", there's a harmonium-type sound and a bass section, both produced by the GR-500.