A SOLID-BODY SYNTHESIZER GUITAR, MODEL GS-500

For his 1978 Japanese tour with Stanley Clarke, which took in 7 venues across 10 dates, Beck took over almost every guitar he owned at that time. John Dodds (Jeff’s guitar tech in the late 70s) told us that their tour carnet comprised Jeff's two Gibson Les Pauls (the Oxblood and Yardburst), a white-pickguard Fender Esquire (given to Jeff by a fan), two Strats (his ’54 Sunburst and a white bodied example) and a Roland synthesizer guitar – a GS-500 and its GR-500 synth module. Most of these guitars were captured on film by Japanese photographer Toshi Yajima, who had visited Beck at his Sussex home just before the tour for Player magazine, with the photos reproduced shortly thereafter in Steve Rosen’s Japanese-language publication The Beck Book. Yajima's photographs show Beck with a group of guitars and amplifiers, which Beck's former road manager Al Dutton remembers represented ‘all the guitars Jeff owned’ at that time, with the exception of one white Strat, which was kept in the US and would be brought over by Stanley Clarke for rehearsals ahead of their joint tour. Just visible to the right of Beck, lying underneath the bench, is a cardboard box for a Roland GR-500, clearly marked with FRAGILE tape for shipping, a testament to the fact that he acquired the synthesizer and ‘controller’ (guitar) prior to the start of the tour and not when in Japan, contrary to what has been suggested previously. John Dodds explained the set up: The synth module was not a foot pedal. It sat on top of the amp, and the guitar was connected through a long cable with a multiway connector. The synth module had lots of faders and some flashing Led’s…. He went on to explain – In Japan, the band received various items either as gifts or sold at cost price. I suspect that Roland gave it to him. Roland took us on a tour of the Roland factory where we met the founder. We also visited the warehouse where the Space Echo was made (I think it was RE101 or RE102 at that time) and that was probably when Jeff was given one. Jeff was not really into gimmicky things like guitar synths, but he did like the sounds the Roland could make - possibly he was interested after playing with Jan, who always wanted his synth to have the expressiveness of Jeff’s guitar playing! Clearly a hit with Japanese audiences, Jeff’s performances with the GS-500 were photographed extensively and the photos reproduced in countless Japanese bootlegs of the tour, as well as magazines.

The GR-500 and GS-500 guitar were used beyond just the Japan tour of December 1978 and travelled to Europe with Stanley Clarke and Jeff Beck on the next leg in the summer of 1979 – the heat having fateful consequences. In October 1980, Beck recounted to Jas Obrecht for Guitar Player, when asked whether he experimented much with guitar synthesizers: No, I've got one, and I can make it sound like the world is going to come to an end, but they're too unreliable. I used this one I've got - a Roland GS/GR-500 - when we were in Spain. The equipment was set up in a bullring that they turned into a concert arena, and the sun was 110 degrees by lunchtime. Nobody covered up the synthesizer, and it was beating down on the control board. And I'll tell you what - that night, when it cooled off, all sorts of things were happening inside it.

In spite of this, Beck was not completely deterred from the possibilities and variety of sounds that synthesizers could offer, particularly with their rapid development and increase in popularity during the 1980s. Speaking again to Obrecht, this time in 1985 following the release of Flash, who was curious about the effects he had used in the song ‘Ecstasy’, Beck replied: The bit where they melt together? There's no slide on that solo. That's half of a guitar sound, laced in with the Roland G-707 guitar synthesizer. There's a lot of acoustic guitar in that song, too.

ROLAND
Having created his electronics company Ace Electronic Industries Incorporated in 1960 founder Ikutaro Kakehashi launched the Roland Corporation in 1972. His aim was to compete with the two biggest players in the electronic music field, Robert Moog's, R.A. Moog and Massachusetts based ARP. Moog and ARP targeted the professional and academic music community while Kakehashi focused on amateurs by concentrating on affordability, simplicity, and miniaturization. With the development of musical instrument synthesizers, drum machines, music sequencers, effect pedals, and ultimately the MIDI, Roland has been called the most influential company affecting electronic music.

1977 saw their release of the first guitar synthesizer - the GR-500. Paired with the GS-500, a single cutaway Les Paul shaped guitar, the synth signal relied on the hexaphonic pickup that separated the signals from each individual string to the synthesizer module. With a plethora of knobs and switches on the guitar (dubbed the ‘synthesizer controller’ by Roland) and an equally cumbersome tabletop synthesizer unit, the set up was not user friendly but it did give rock guitarists access to a sonic tonality that was much in demand in popular music at the time.

With improvements to design, Roland released the floor-mounted GR-300 Polyphonic Synthesizer. When paired with their double cutaway, twin humbucking, G-303 synth guitar, musicians found a more user-friendly instrument that offered a familiarity in feel for any guitarist.

As with most of the guitars which Roland referred to as ‘synthesizer controllers’, these units were manufactured by the famed FujiGen Gakki factory in Japan who supplied instruments for Ibanez, Yamaha, and Greco.