PreSonus Forums

Does anyone have any advice on how to connect my Roland GR-55 guitar synth to Studio One 3?

I'm a newbie and was able to easily connect an Akai MPK mini but cannot figure out how to connect the guitar synth by adding it as an external device (the way I did for the Akai keyboard). For my Akai, I connected the USB out on the keyboard to a USB slot on my PC.

Do I need a different connection for my guitar synth like using an audiobox or something in between my guitar synth and my PC?

Thanks for any and all advice! Sorry for my newbie question.

Depends on what you want to do.

I've never owned one but I've owned a lot of GK gear over the years and am just getting going using a Boss GP-10.

From a little bit of searching it looks like it can be used as an audio interface.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gch4U263sDA

I tried that myself:
viewtopic.php?f=151&t=30104

I'm not using my pedal as an interface though because I have a really nice interface which sounds better.

That's the way most use it I would say is to plug the audio outputs into your interface to hear/record what you play.

Then there's the midi side of things if you're going to use the midi output of the GR-55 to trigger soft synths.

Do you have an audio interface? What sort of things do you want to do with the GR?

I found my old GR33 and Roland Strat had too much latency to record Midi. I just use my analog outs of the unit into my interface and skip the "issues" of trying to make the synth an interface

I was able to record the midi output of the GR-33 and it sounded good as long as I sent it back to the GR-33, maybe the 55 is like that. That can be good for recording a solo but if you didn't hold the note long enough, you can go in and edit that in midi and make it last longer etc.

Getting other synths to sound that good not so easy. It can be usable for some things but requires lot of effort of the guitarist to play perfectly and not have anomalies.

I've had a GR-50 since they came out (God, I paid $1200 for that thing). It works great through my MIDI ports of a MOTU patchbay, then into a Presonus Audio box. The audio outs of the GR50 into the audio inputs of the interface. The MIDI and audio naturally separate. With the GK-2 tracking, I have on my Fender Strat (54' Vintage), it tracks pretty well, but the real latency comes from the GK-2, due to the sheer physics of when a plucked string becomes enough of a stable frequency to read pitch. That's about 8-12 milliseconds. No matter what sensitivity the GR-50 is set to. It's always been a black eye of MIDI recording through a guitar (then, and largely now). Especially when playing anything staccato, like a tight bass line. The GK-3 I hear was a tad faster for reading pitch, but nothing to brag about. Still, you should have no issues hooking up your GR55 through your interface, if it has MIDI, and the interface is equipped with some respectable monitoring bypass.

As for the audio out of the GR, you should not have any delay, other that the normal through an audio interface latency, you would experience from that interface and internal mixer path.

You'll need some sort of Midi interface with a DIN five pin connector. I have a Casio MG-510 Midi guitar that I connect using a Roland UM-1G Midi interface. That interface is now discontinued but there are plenty of other options out there. There is a lot of latency but it works fine for entering chords into the PRV that I can edit afterwards.

Thank you all for your sage advice!

I'm a guitar player and wanted to use the GR-55 as a midi instrument. I have an Akai MPKmini and that works great a midi instrument. Problem is, I suck as a keyboard player and thought it might be easier for me to use a midi instrument I was familiar with.

I'll try out the suggestions this weekend and see what happens.

Thank you again

davidhinojosa1 wroteThank you all for your sage advice!

I'm a guitar player and wanted to use the GR-55 as a midi instrument. I have an Akai MPKmini and that works great a midi instrument. Problem is, I suck as a keyboard player and thought it might be easier for me to use a midi instrument I was familiar with.

I'll try out the suggestions this weekend and see what happens.

Thank you again

You might want to try JamOrigin for guitar. It has a little lower latency than myGR 55, and I find I have less editing to do afterwards. I believe it can be demoed.

The guitar to midi conversion on the GP-10 is supposed to be better than the GR-55.

I wasn't very happy with it though, I was using an Godin XTSA. It got a lot better when I put a GR-3 on my Schecter.

It's usable now.