Just snagged a GR-D, waiting for it to arrive. It's just the thing I've wanted for ages with the extra crunch, and I never even knew it existed until a few days ago. Thanks for the comparison, and for your wonderful website.
IMO, the color control is one of the most important controls added to hex distortion, aside from actually having a gain control. hehe By being able to vary the balance between a "monophonic"/traditional distortion sound and the hex distortion sound, you can add in some of that crunchier intermodulation from having all the strings frequency mixed with each other, which you don't quite get with hex alone. I can see myself using that in-between tone, for example, in a progressive metal performance, to get clearer extended chords with drive on than I'd be able to otherwise.
@@WayneJoness What I wish you could do, though, is do something similar to the GR-D's V-DIST 1, where you still have the hex fuzz, but you also have pre-gain compression to allow a little more tone refinement. How many hex effect slots are you permitted with the VG-99 or GP-10?
I just picked up the GR-D for under a hundred bucks. It's a very odd pedal in that it does a few, distortion based guitar models, the Poly Distortion and a GR300 synth and that's it. Very marketed toward a guitarist who wants something a little different in their chain, but not into figeting around with synthesis. But then, you factor in the fact that you need the GK3 pickup to access the full capabilities and the market for this shrinks incredibly. Your rank and file guitarist wouldn't drop upwards of 500 dollars for the pickup and GR-D and your seasoned GK3 guitar synth user didn't really need the GR-D. I have the GK3 because I have the GR-1 (had a GR700/707 for a bit before that), which I love, but it's precarious and doesn't track great. I often ran it through distortion to create weird textures anyway, so the GR-D, especially at the price, was a no brainer. And, hey, the GR300 mode is almost glitch free! So close 🤣
It is still not clear to me what the thinking was when this pedal was released. Perhaps Roland has an insights into what market had a depend for this, but you are correct, you still need a GK-3 to really take advantage of the pedal.
Hi Wayne! Not sure but it seems to my ears that the different cord are not panned the same manner in the three devices... maybe the GR-D is the best mixed between the three. Cheers.
Yes! I think you are right, it was hard to figure out if the design is the same, or slightly different. The VG-99 has the option of individually panning strings, which the other units do not have.
I have a vg8 The poly distortion is brilliant on it Which you you go to for the same tone, and ease of set up? It took me months to get it balanced and right for my ears I use a Parker midifly with Ghost hexpander
Just snagged a GR-D, waiting for it to arrive. It's just the thing I've wanted for ages with the extra crunch, and I never even knew it existed until a few days ago. Thanks for the comparison, and for your wonderful website.
Glad to be of help!
Now I need a GR-D. I have the other two. They are interesting but the GR-D sounds so much more organic. Thank you
Great comparsion. Would be nice with an original GR-100 too.
I like regular 'mono' distortion better, it's chaotic. Hex fuzz sounds like a synth, a smooth sound no matter how much the gain is.
Agreed! Hex fuzz always sounds more synth or symphonic. Really hard to compare with mono fuzz
IMO, the color control is one of the most important controls added to hex distortion, aside from actually having a gain control. hehe
By being able to vary the balance between a "monophonic"/traditional distortion sound and the hex distortion sound, you can add in some of that crunchier intermodulation from having all the strings frequency mixed with each other, which you don't quite get with hex alone. I can see myself using that in-between tone, for example, in a progressive metal performance, to get clearer extended chords with drive on than I'd be able to otherwise.
Absolutely!
@@WayneJoness What I wish you could do, though, is do something similar to the GR-D's V-DIST 1, where you still have the hex fuzz, but you also have pre-gain compression to allow a little more tone refinement. How many hex effect slots are you permitted with the VG-99 or GP-10?
would you do a guitar models shootout between the vg 99 and the sy 1000? That would be really cool
I will try to give that a shot!
@@WayneJoness - Thank you so much. If you can do an alternate tuning accuracy shootout too, that would be awesome!
I just picked up the GR-D for under a hundred bucks. It's a very odd pedal in that it does a few, distortion based guitar models, the Poly Distortion and a GR300 synth and that's it. Very marketed toward a guitarist who wants something a little different in their chain, but not into figeting around with synthesis.
But then, you factor in the fact that you need the GK3 pickup to access the full capabilities and the market for this shrinks incredibly. Your rank and file guitarist wouldn't drop upwards of 500 dollars for the pickup and GR-D and your seasoned GK3 guitar synth user didn't really need the GR-D.
I have the GK3 because I have the GR-1 (had a GR700/707 for a bit before that), which I love, but it's precarious and doesn't track great. I often ran it through distortion to create weird textures anyway, so the GR-D, especially at the price, was a no brainer.
And, hey, the GR300 mode is almost glitch free! So close 🤣
It is still not clear to me what the thinking was when this pedal was released. Perhaps Roland has an insights into what market had a depend for this, but you are correct, you still need a GK-3 to really take advantage of the pedal.
I think the GP10 does the GR300 hex fuzz better
Hi Wayne! Not sure but it seems to my ears that the different cord are not panned the same manner in the three devices... maybe the GR-D is the best mixed between the three. Cheers.
Yes! I think you are right, it was hard to figure out if the design is the same, or slightly different. The VG-99 has the option of individually panning strings, which the other units do not have.
I have a vg8
The poly distortion is brilliant on it
Which you you go to for the same tone, and ease of set up?
It took me months to get it balanced and right for my ears
I use a Parker midifly with Ghost hexpander
I have the VG-99 setup all the time...but I really like the GR-D. I hope to do a demo using the GR-D with the normal guitar input only.