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| The Roland/Fender G5 |
Straight off the line is the re-release of the Roland/Fender joint venture G5-VG Stratocaster. The original VG Strat which passed through in 2007 I suspect was a joint venture between Fender and Roland (in that order). This issue was based on an American Standard Strat. The current re-release is built on the cheaper Mexican Standard Strat so in my cynical mind this sounds like Roland has commissioned Fender to fit their left over V-Guitar bits into a cheap Mexi STD. I see this as a Roland/Fender venture particularly when the guitar will be marketed by Roland and not by Fender.
So what is it? Roland have been pioneers in virtual technology and have been toying with midi guitar add-ons for over 30 years. Now that we are in the digital domain and sounds can be 'modeled' as opposed to emulated these things actually work pretty well. The new G5-VG Strat is Roland's latest offering even if it is a few years old. But I hear you say.. Line 6 are the modeling champions of the music industry. Well I guess Roland don't want to let Line6 have the title. Both Roland and Line 6 have been at it for a while now, both taking different routes. Roland gave us virtual guitar trickery in a floor pedal unit with an add-on pickup system that could be fitted to any guitar, even an acoustic, where Line 6 gave it to us in a Korean made guitar, plus an over priced Japanese deluxe version with the exact same electronics. While we were blasted with much promotion on this amazing whizz bangery neither really took off. Roland suffered from the unreliable tracking of their past midi guitar efforts and Line 6 with their cheesy guitar and dodgy reliability. Both companies had better things to do and probably left virtual guitar development to a couple of Gyro Gearloose's in a back room somewhere. Line 6 were hammered by their fans to make the electronics editable which they eventually did but Roland chose to put their box into a real USA Fender Strat. This was a big tick for Roland as over at Line 6 the buzz was in transplanting the Line 6 electronics into custom made instruments and disposing of the cheesy guitars. Roland, never being one to give up their magical secrets decided that their offering was to provide the V Guitar side of the Strat with fixed (preset) modeling in a non-user-editable system.
Time will tell for the new G5 if this will be satisfactory to the buyers but (personally) I would rather have 30 odd great sounds available than have 30 editable sounds I can mutilate.
So while Roland/Fender and Line 6 are still at it head to head, with Line 6 now having a 'name' behind their guitar design and Roland/Fender downgrading to a cheaper guitar it will be interesting to see how this virtual battle progresses.
Check out the G5-VG Strat web site here.. http://www.rolandus.com/go/v-guitar/
Check out the Line 6 Variax website here.. http://line6.com/guitars
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