Boss SY-300

Not sure who my favorite Boss demo guy is: Rob Marcello, Gundy Keller, or Alex Hutchins. Part of me wants to say Rob Marcello because of his 80s rock style, but I think I'll await judgement until I see him demo the SY-300. Once we get a clip of Rob demoing the unit we can start a "who rocked it best" poll.
 
I love this stuff and will always keep up with it and try the new models but I'm finding my most rewarding and consistent bet is to learn parts on keys and also utilize the Axe Synth w/pitch/harmonizer and fx to get the sounds I need.
 
pauliusmm said:
Cheap toy sounds, out of sync arpegiator, no thanks
Click to expand...

I'm with you. Not impressed so far. Alex Hutchins stated that he didn't know how to play a synth before, so that might be a reason.

Also, still waiting on chords being playing.
 
I'd have a hard time believing Alex hasn't played a synth before. He's done countless demos for the Roland 13-pin guitar products (GR-series) which have tons of synth sounds. The fact that Alex couldn't make the SY-300 sound good is not a promising sign for the unit.

Although, with the GR stuff he usually has guitar tones to go with the synth stuff instead of just synth stuff solo which probably helps make the synth stuff sound more palatable.

As another note, does anyone else feel that Roland has just been recycling all of their old technology into new products for the past decade or two?
 
Last edited:
Watched that second video with Alex Hutchins, it sounded a lot better to me. A lot more usable sounds. Also, saw the part Voes was referring to (3:54 in the video) where Alex said even though he'd been with Roland for awhile he wasn't a synth guy, so wasn't good at making patches. Could have foolded me, loved the Axel F "good 'ol synth" patch he made.

I think the guys over at VGuitar/FutureGuitarNow forums (Assuming the forums over there are still active) will go nuts over this as they seem to be one of the most diehard groups when it comes to Roland guitar/synth stuff. Looks to have the old GR-300 synth in it as well as other LFOs to play with and all that without having to go the 13-pin route. I always hated having a nice guitar and having to either route out wood and install an internal 13-pin system (Expensive and would ruin a good guitar) or mount an ugly attachment to the top of the guitar to get 13-pin compatibility. It'd be nice if the unit was able to do polyphonic guitar notes to midi using only the 1/4" instrument cable. If it could do that and track faster than 30ms on the low E string, I'd be interested.

So, yeah, Roland is still recycling their 80's sound engines in the SY-300, but at least they're innovating in being able to do it without the 13-pin nonsense.

Edit: My bad, the GR-300 came out in the late 70's not the 80's. Ridiculous!

Double Edit: With all the processing power in the AFX a monophonic guitar to midi block for triggering external synths would be child's play. A polyphonic block might be doable also, but only having a single channel to discern notes presents a lot of problems. I have serious doubts though if that kind of functionality would even be widely wanted. In my time over at Vguitar/FutureGuitarNow it never really seemed like a large group and I would assume that pretty much 90% of guitarists interested in guitar synth stuff visisted there. And of all the users of those forums, maybe half were specifically interested in the guitar to midi functionality as compared to the Roland products modeling capabilities.
 
Last edited:
Looks interesting, and I like the idea of using regular pickups, but I'd want to hear more examples of what it can do before dropping the coin on one. I use my GR-55 at gigs to emulate things like piano, flute, strings, and choral sounds. (We only play one song that uses a "synth-sounding" patch.) I have no real need for a lead synth box.
 
I think simeon could have done a better demo. In fact, I listened to that annoying piece and finally came to the conclusion I could do just as good making faces.
 
TG3K, this is just a guess until the SY-300 manual and more demos get released, but you could probably sample most of the sounds that the SY-300 has by using the GR-300 emulation in your GR-55 (How well the SY-300 tracks with mono input vs the GR-55 with 13-pin is anybody's guess right now as none of the demos show any chords/polyphony). Doesn't sound like you ever really use that in the GR-55 though and it doesn't sound like the SY-300 has any of the general midi sounds that you use, so I'd guess it wouldn't be worth the $700 street price to you.

No pitch to midi makes it a no go for me. I'm sure someone will find a use for it though.

It seems like VGuitar is alive and well. They have a 9 page discussion going on about the SY-300. It's mostly conjecture, but it'll be the best place to get info on the SY-300 as it is released.
 
demo of polyphony (starts on 2 min)

[video]https://youtu.be/IMSJOnkUQXA?t=2m2s[/video]
 
I don't think the demos are particularly good for what this unit is likely to be capable of. In fact these demos are particularly cheesy and lame. I'm sure this thing could be used to produce more interesting, ambient, harsher and darker tones.

I think it looks like an awesome bit of gear. I wish so bad that Fractal would get on board with polyphonic pitch detection and incorporate it in the synth block. It could do sooooo much more than it currently can and Boss, EHX and Polytune have shown that polyphonic pitch from a guitar jack is a reality.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom