Recording - July 2014 - 20

Roland G-5 VG Stratocaster

ever fail during a gig, you can turn the Mode
knob back to the Normal position to keep
playing this good solid Strat. Now, though,
let's take a closer look at the COSM pickup
modeling that makes the G-5 special.
Starting with the Stratocaster emulations,
I was very pleased with the variety of tones;
but one might ask, is having two sets of five
distinct Strat tones (modeled and non-modeled) on one guitar overkill? I don't think so.
There is a noticeable difference between
the five non-modeled sounds and the five
Strat COSM emulations. The most obvious
when A/B-ing between the two is the volume; the non-modeled pickups sound louder, which is easy to compensate for at the
amp. On the bridge position, the modeled
Strat seems to offer a bit of extended treble
and more scooped sound than the conventional pickups-a nice tonal option.

also able to instantly retune! Trying alternate tunings can be a nightmare when you
have a floating tremolo, but it couldn't be
easier with this guitar. (If this guitar was
mine to keep, I would add springs in the
back to add stability and void the floating
action, but that's my personal taste.)
Even on a guitar with a fixed bridge, it
can be a hassle to physically retune to try
an open G or D Modal tuning. But with the
G-5, you click a knob and bang, the
strings are retuned for you. You can quickly start to familiarize yourself with the fretboard logic of those tunings, which open
up a whole new dimension of creative possibilities, without feeling like retuning will
be too much effort. The Baritone setting is
a great addition as well-the only other
way to obtain this sound convincingly is to
actually buy a baritone guitar!

Moving to the Telecaster, the sounds were
great! I love a good Tele, and having a bit
of twanginess and the uniqueness of the distinct upper-mid growl when cranking up
was awesome. In both the neck and bridge
pickup settings of the 5-way switch, the G-5
offers standard Telecaster tones, and in the
in-between settings it models the WideRange pickups from the 1970s Telecaster
Deluxe, Thinline and Custom, which are
basically richer and fuller sounding.
The humbucking models, played through
a 50-watt Peavey Joe Satriani combo and
a Marshall JCM 2000 Dual Super Lead,
made the Roland VG Strat sound like I was
playing through a Gibson Les Paul or SG,
or a Fender Fat Strat with humbuckers.

Then I tried the acoustic sounds. At first I
wasn't impressed at all when trying them
out through my electric guitar amps, but
then I realized that I was doing it wrong. I
wouldn't plug a real acoustic guitar into an
amp, would I? So I went ahead and
played through the direct Line Input of my
Avid interface into Pro Tools, and it made
a huge difference; the acoustic emulations
came to life and sounded great. To my ear
it felt like I was playing through either solidbody acoustics in the style of Godin, or
composite acoustic guitars reminiscent of
the Ovation bowlbacks-but I was hearing
realistic acoustic tones nonetheless.
One really cool feature of the Acoustic
mode is that the Tone knob becomes a reverb
dry/wet mix. You can't shape the EQ of most
of the acoustic sounds, but you can add useful ambience. There are two exceptions to
that feature within the Acoustic emulations;
one is the archtop "jazz box" guitar and the
other is the sitar. That's right, there's a built-in
sitar, so you can play anything from Beatles

T Knob: Tunings
With so many fun sound combinations
to explore in standard tuning, it felt like a
fun surprise bonus when, after jamming for
hours, I remembered that within the Strat,
Tele, or any other modeled sounds, I was

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Recording - July 2014

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