Roland GR-300

The Roland GR-300 was a polyphonic guitar synthesizer, released by Roland Incorporation. It had 6 voices, with octave shifters.

Andy Summers owned a few GR-300 guitar synths, and controlled them with a G-303 controller. His first use of one was the swelling synth sounds during the bridge section of the song "Don't Stand So Close To Me". During live performances, he'd play the G-303 as a normal guitar for the majority of the song, then he'd turn on the GR-300 (to control with the guitar) during the bridge. He continued to use the swelling sound on Ghost In The Machine (e.g. "Secret Journey") and Synchronicity (e.g. "O My God") with The Police, and to great effect on I Advance Masked (1982) with Robert Fripp. The only time Andy ever used the GR-300 for a guitar solo was on "Omegaman".

The distinctive swelling sound was produced by Andy on the GR-300 in conjunction with a Roland FV-2 volume pedal: while the synth is tuned in fifths, he'd use the volume pedal to slowly open the VCF (Voltage-Controlled Filter) on the synth. The tone was enhanced through his custom-built pedalboard, with compression and flanging effects.

Quotes
"'I use a Roland guitar synthesizer, the GR-300, which is the latest one they make. I've also got the GR-100, which is the electronic guitar. It's just an additional colour to the guitar synthesizer, really. What I've started doing now is using two guitar synthesizers together, which is really spectacular. 'It's like a little panel you have on the floor,' he said of the unit, 'and you operate it with your feet. The synthesis comes from the guitar itself - there's a hexaphonic pick-up on the back of the second pick-up of the guitar - so it is a pure synthesizer. One of the features of this one is a duet switch, where you play your original note and it will add any interval to it. Second, minor second, major third, minor fifth or sixth, whatever. So you get two notes together, and if you've got it tuned to fifths, say, and you start to play strange chords, it really sounds incredible. The sound gets so fat, really big. It has an envelope and an inverted envelope, too. It also has something called rise and fall time, where there are dual switches on it, A and B, and you can move from one to the other. Like you tune A to fifths, then you can tune B to fourths or thirds, so you can go from playing a line in fifths to playing a line in fourths or thirds. It's great ! And when you get to playing it through a chorus, then it really sounds good. . .' (Musician, December 1981)"