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Above: Clark S. Nova's Roland G-707 guitar set-up- May 2006.
"Since it came out in the mid 80's I have been obsessed with the Roland 707 guitar synth. It is somewhat archaic by today's standards, which makes it even more desireable to me now. (I love the limitations of certain older equipment - limitation is the mother of creativity, I find...though that doesn't stop me from maniacally collecting more & more old equipment!).
I remember going into Arnoldt Williams Music store in my hometown of Canton, Michigan and drooling over the 707 they had in a glass cabinet. Of course they would never let a kid like me get near the thing, especially since it had a $3K sticker price on it back in the day. One day I went into the store and some dude was trying it out and for whatever reason the clerk wandered off for a minute. I was standing there staring with my jaw hanging open & the guy says, 'here, you wanna try it?' and handed it to me. I got to play it for maybe a minute before the anxious looking clerk returned & promptly removed the guitar from the zit-faced kid in 707th heaven.
Fast forward 20 years (yikes) and I find myself equiped with the 707 guitar synth set-up. Fairly rare, but certainly not $3K anymore, this thing was made for me to play. It is perfect for what I am interested in doing as a guitarist and synthesizer tinkerer.
Now I realize even just the look of these things, let alone the fact that it's a 'guitar-synth,' really bums certain people out - kinda the same way the Chapman Stick has that effect on some people. However, this thing is the best feeling guitar I have ever played and the synth portion consists of digitally controlled ANALOG oscillators - it sounds AMAZING and you can really tweak out the parameters to get some incredible sounding tones. The tracking isn't as good as the newer guitar synths, but that just makes things more interesting. Keeps you on your toes. The presets are mostly pure '80's cheese, but get into the guts of the programming and you can lose your mind. You can also save right over the presets with your custom-programmed sounds (unless you WANT to play the keyboard riff from 'Final Coundown' on guitar - then the presets will be quite helpful).
There is a 'hold' button that works much like a keyboard sustain pedal that I have naturally modified to be an on/off switch so I can hit a note or chord & click the switch & it will drone forever.
I have to say, I'm kinda surprised this thing turned out to be as cool for me as I thought it would be when it came out."
-CS Nova
Above: Nova's current set-up getting put together in early 2006.
(Yes, that's an Atari Pong unit on the right.)
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