GR-500 - Roland Infinite Sustain System Revealed

Started by drjoness2001, July 06, 2012, 03:24:13 PM

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drjoness2001

I know this is very geeky, and primarily concerns the ancient Roland GS-500/GR-500, but after a lot of back and forth, I have a link to the Vintage Roland Guitar synth website that details how the cool infinite sustain system worked in the GS/GR-500:

http://www.joness.com/gr300/GS-500.html#sustainer

I'm not sure how easy it would be to duplicate this system, but the basic design is not terribly complicated. If you have seen the interior of a Moog guitar, it is quite complex. The Roland system, by contrast, basically consists of six amplifiers, grounded frets, and two magnets.

Elantric

#1
Great Article Wayne!

this sorts out much of the voodoo of the old GR-500





vanceg

That is really cool! 

I've JUST received a new hexaphonic sustainer from Aescher Europe (the D1 Drone) which functions somewhat differently (more like 6x ebows) and attaches to the guitar or can be installed like a Sustainiac.... That's going to be my "budget" 6 string sustainer ;-) 

It looks like the roland was, indeed, basically 6x sustainiacs - very cool.

vanceg

Quote from: vanceg on May 13, 2015, 08:45:29 PM
That is really cool! 

I've JUST received a new hexaphonic sustainer from Aescher Europe (the D1 Drone) which functions somewhat differently (more like 6x ebows) and attaches to the guitar or can be installed like a Sustainiac.... That's going to be my "budget" 6 string sustainer ;-) 

It looks like the roland was, indeed, basically 6x sustainiacs - very cool.

Update years later - The Aescher Europe device that I received in 2015 didn't work on my instrument as well as I had wanted.  I'm hoping in the future they will have another option.  Apparently, this issue of getting infinate sustain on all 6 strings is harder than one might think.