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1st Roland Guitar Synth was: Re: Lovely



Completely coincidentally, I know what this instrument is because I happen
to have one for sale right at this moment and I discovered what it is when
I researched it to try and find it's price.

it is the very first official guitar synth put out by Roland (the Roland 
GR500) It has hexaphonic pickups
that are made from recording heads from tape decks. It also has a 
proprietary chord
(which is missing) and a zillion buttons. It also ways a 
ton......literally, by far the heaviest
guitar I've ever picked up. It also has several sheered off toggle 
switches which work
and would be easily replaced.

http://www.helpwantedproductions.com/guitsyn.htm

I have it due to one of the
weirder encounters I've ever had. It's a longish story but I'll tell it 
for anyone interested:



My wife and I walked down the street a couple of months back but after 
the Looping Festival
and were stopped by a random elderly, well dressed lady.
She asked, "Are you a musician?"

I said, "yes" , a bit mystified as to how she came to that conclusion 
(maybe the purple leather jacket).

and she said,
"I had tenants who left my home many years ago. They just left a bunch 
of musical instruments when
they moved out and never came back for them. I've lost touch with them 
over the years and
I've decided that I want to go on a long trip and think I've stored them 
long enough. They're obviously
not coming back. Can you advise me how to get rid of them?"

I said, "Well, I'd put an ad on e-bay and sell them."

She said, "Well, I'm leaving at the start of next week so I don't want 
to sell it, Can I just give them to you?"

I asked, "What do you have" and she said, "a pair of congas and a bass 
guitar"

Amazingly, I had just started to teach a woman congas who didn't own a 
set yet and I had a friend
who I used to play with in Noise Clinic, who wanted but did not own a 
bass", so I thought
I'd just pass this good fortune on.

I was also really busy at the time so I said,
"Can I get your phone number and I'll have this woman call you who , 
coincidentally, needs a set of congas?"

She said "Yes, thank you very much for you help."

I called my student and said,
"If you have time to go up an pick this equipment up for me, I'll give 
you the congas for
free."

She said "Yes"

and at her next lesson, my student brought the congas, a bass guitar, a 
really nice triple guitar stand
and this amazing relic.

I gave away the congas and the bass guitar and kept the guitar stand and 
the
Roland Guitar synth.

I've been told it's worth a lot to a collector of such stuff which is 
rare and probably not
very much otherwise.

It does have a hex pickup which would be very easy to rewire and it 
could have some cool
possibilities. Someone told me that a guitar dealer that i know in town 
has got the Roland Synth
unit that completes the package so I probably will head down to
see what he'll cough up for the interesting relic.

If not, I'll entertain any reasonable offer.

Odd story, eh?

Rick Walker
>
> On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 2:02 AM, ^|>^m<will.it.go.round@gmail.com>  wrote:
>> Cool.  Must be analogue synthesis with controls built into the guitar
>> body(?)
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 11:55 AM, Petri Lahtinen<aikuinen@gmail.com>  
>wrote:
>>> http://www.yle.fi/elavaarkisto/?s=g=8&ag�&tT1&aG37