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About the Workshop Booklets
Roland’s GR-20 Guitar Synthesizer opens up spectacular new sonic
possibilities for the electric guitarist. With the included GK-3 Divided
Pickup installed, any six-string electric guitar can play the GR-20’s amazing
collection of synthesizer sounds and sampled real-world instruments. You
can also mix your guitar’s own sound with those in the GR-20 to create new
timbres that are all your own.
Each GR-20 Workshop Series booklet focuses on one GR-20 topic, and is
intended as a companion to the GR-20 Owner’s Manual.
This booklet requires GR-20 O.S. Version 2.00 or higher. You can download
the latest GR-20 O.S. for free from www.RolandUS.com.
About This Booklet
A MIDI sequencer captures and plays back MIDI performances. It’s a powerful
tool that allows you to layer multiple performances, and do all sorts of things
to hone your sequenced music to perfection. The GR-20 provides a way for
you to record MIDI data into a MIDI sequencer from your guitar, using the
GR-20’s own sounds or any other MIDI sounds you like. This booklet explains
how to sequence with the GR-20.
Understanding the Symbols in This Booklet
Throughout this booklet, you’ll come across information that deserves
special attention—that’s the reason it’s labeled with one of the following
symbols.
A note is something that adds information about the topic at hand.
A tip offers suggestions for using the feature being discussed.
Warnings contain important information that can help you avoid
possible damage to your equipment, your data, or yourself.
Hot Links
Each Workshop booklet is meant to be read in order from beginning
to end. However, if we mention an upcoming section—and you see
this arrow—you can click the arrow to jump there immediately.
About MIDI, Sequencers, and the GR-0
If you’re experienced with MIDI and sequencers, feel free to skip this
section.
A full discussion of MIDI is beyond the scope of this booklet—in fact, we
have an InFocus booklet devoted entirely to MIDI called An Introduction to
MIDI. You can download this booklet from the Support Documents section of
the Roland US website.
Meanwhile—if you just want to get started—there are three basic things
you really need to know about MIDI, sequencing, and the GR-20:
MIDI isn’t sound, it’s instructions—When you play a MIDI instrument,
your performance is converted into instructions that tell a sound-
producing MIDI device what notes to play, and how to play them. These
instructions are called “MIDI messages.”
A sequencer—captures MIDI data, and can play it back. This can make a
sequencer seem like an audio recorder, but it’s not: it’s just playing back
instructions that cause a sound-producing MIDI device to recreate your
performance. A sequencer, by the way, can be a software program on a
computer, part of a keyboard workstation such as the Roland Fantom-X,
or a standalone hardware device.
Your GK-3 and the GR-20—convert your playing to MIDI data, which can
play the GR-20 sounds and/or be transmitted to another device, such as
a sequencer, from the GR-20’s MIDI OUT jack.
Many sequencers offer standard audio tracks in addition to MIDI tracks.
You can, of course, easily record standard audio from the GR-20 into
this kind of sequencer by simply connecting the GR-20’s OUTPUT jacks
to the sequencer’s audio inputs. To learn about the GR-20 OUTPUT
jacks, see the Getting Started with the GR-20 Workshop booklet.
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