Since the middle '70's many manufactures tried to give the guitar players the possibility to expand the timbral palette and the expression level of the electric guitar thru synthesized sounds.

Roland is one of the leader in this field in terms of continuity and quality of the systems released on the market. The company started introducing the GR series and then, in the middle '80's, continued to produce a wide range of MIDI converters.

At last, in 1995, Roland introduced a new revolutionary product: the VG8. For the first time, being based on advanced DSP technology, the VG8 allowed to use the guitar strings vibrations to generate the sound, eliminating the limits of the MIDI conversion.

The problems of the previous "guitar-synths" generation (delay, notes drift, lack of sensibility to the expressive nuances of the performer's playing style) were solved at last. The VG-8 allowed both to create completely new original sounds and to reproduce the most common guitar-amplifier systems by combining various modeling techniques.

Featuring improved technology, new timbral possibilities and a better user's interface, the VG-88 is the last result of Roland VG technology.


Technical Details

Technology
All the acoustic, electric and magnetic elements generating the guitar sound are included into the VG-88 as "models" that can be combined during the sound programming. This Roland technology is called COSM (Composite Object Sound Modeling).

COSM Guitar
In the COSM Guitar section it is possible to select:
- the instrument type: acoustic,electric, solid-body or hollow-body;
- the tuning: each string can be tuned individually thanks to the GK-2A hexaphonic pickup;
- the pickup type: magnetic, single coil or humbucker (different types and customizable configurations), or piezo;
- the equalizer.

The VG-88 provides a large number of algorithms that emulate the ordinary guitar sounds or allow to create completely new sounds that is impossible to obtain from a traditional system.
An example is the polyphonic distortion, where each string is distorted individually. Polyphonic distortion allows to play harmonically complex and heavily distorted power chords with distinctive harmony.
A large number of synthesis algorithms is also available where the guitar string is still the sound source. The waveform created by the string vibration is processed to become brass, synth bass, strings, woodwind, metal and so on.

The VG-88 provides a large number of algorithms that emulate the ordinary guitar sounds or allow to create completely new sounds that is impossible to obtain from a traditional system.
An example is the polyphonic distortion, where each string is distorted individually. Polyphonic distortion allows to play harmonically complex and heavily distorted power chords with distinctive harmony.
A large number of synthesis algorithms is also available where the guitar string is still the sound source. The waveform created by the string vibration is processed to become brass, synth bass, strings, woodwind, metal and so on.

The COSM Guitar is a polyphonic section: in order to control this section it must be installed a Roland GK-2A pickup or equivalent (i.e.: the divided pickups mounted on the guitars manufactured by Godin, Fender, RMC, Yamaha and others).
"Polyphonic section" means that this part of the VG88 is able to process the vibrations of each string individually, while the normal electric guitar (even if generates a polyphonic sound) sends the mixed strings signals to a monophonic output.
Thanks to this feature,the COSM GUITAR section allows to mix the strings sound individually. For instance, each string can be panned individually in the stereo image.

COSM Amp
Once the instrument has been created (guitar or anything else), it's important to combine it with a suitable amplifier. Any player knows that the final sound of his guitar mainly depends on the amplifier.
We can say that the amplifier and the guitar deeply interact together to become a single instrument, as happens for the strings and the resonance body of an acoustic instrument.

The COSM Amp section provides a wide range of amplifiers and speakers featuring the original controls.
There is also the possibility to set the virtual position of the microphone (near or far, in front of the speaker or angled) and to balance the direct and microphone sounds.

Effects
This section features a wide range of effects: all the most common BOSS pedal effects are included providing a variety of options.
One of the strong points of the system is the free setting of the amplifier-effects chain: it is possible, for instance, to place compressor and wah before the amplifier (to better control tone and overdrive) and then to process the amplifier output - yet "miked" - by the other effects, faithfully reproducing a typical recording studio setup.
Unlike the previous VG-8 model, the VG-88 allows to use the COSM Amp and Effects sections with the built-in guitar pickups too.

Real-Time Control
Besides the built-in pedalboard (that allows a direct selection of banks and patches), the VG88 also features a [CONTROL] foot switch and an assignable expression pedal. This one allows a real time control of volume, wha, pick-ups blend, pitch shift and so on.

Memory and MIDI Control
The VG-88 provides 100 User + 160 Preset Programs. They can be directly recalled thru the built-in pedalboard or via MIDI.
Eight continuous controls can be assigned to as many parameters that can be programmed and stored in each patch individually. MIDI Maps and Bulk Dump are also available.

It should be underlined that the VG-88 has been projected to directly process the real strings sound in real time without any convertion in pitch information. Therefore, the MIDI Out of the unit cannot work as a MIDI converter.

Editing
Despite the sophisticated modeling-based engine and the wide range of options, the VG-88 has been designed to be intuitive and easy to use. The user interface, largely based on graphic icons, is agreeable and attractive for programming.

All sections can be selected thru a dedicated key, allowing the user a quick and easy switching from a section to another one. A full range of preset parameters (that can be edited when required) and a EZ Edit function (programming simplified control) are available for inexperienced or a bit lazy musicians.

Two things are important to get the best results: the right instrument setup and the GK-2A pickup location with the relevant setting parameters. .