Any musicians out there? … this is for you.
Taken from Engadget … There’s more than one way to turn a guitar into a synthesizer. But Boss and Roland have always gone for the most elaborate and complicated approach. While the new SY-1000 can be played simply by plugging in a guitar or bass via a standard 1/4-inch instrument jack, it really shines when connected via Roland’s proprietary GK pickup. Unlike a lot of other guitar synth pedals, the GK pickup system allows for polyphonic tracking of notes on a guitar without the use of MIDI, which can be a little unreliable. The SY-1000 builds on the tech in the SY-300 which turns your guitar licks into everything from a gnarly synth lead to a rich pad, or even a thick Leslie-like organ.
Inside this $1,000 pedal are three different types of synths engines that you can control with a guitar, plus simulations of 13 different guitar types, 11 different basses and 31 different amps. Not to mention over 150 effects taken from the high-end GT-1000 multi-effects pedal. And you can combine up to three voices at a time to create richly layered sounds and even dial in a bit of your dry guitar to keep things from getting too alien. Plus, you can connect it to your computer over USB and capture audio directly from the pedal, or control it using MIDI over USB for even more fine-tuned tweaking of your sound.
Source: Engadget