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Monday, March 14, 2011

1970s Kay LP-type guitar with on-board FX

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Here we have what is listed on eBay as a "Rare Kay Les Paul with onboard effects. Collectors item". OK, so I realise that as a seller on eBay you have to apply a certain amount of spin when listing your item, but really, these guitars are neither rare nor what would ordinarily be considered a collectors item. Seriously, these come up for sale all the time, and the fees slapped on them are somewhat optimistic. The singer/guitarist in a band I was in several years ago had one of these. It was alright, I suppose, but no great shakes. (It couldn't have been that great because he always wanted to borrow one of my Fenders.) The on-board effects were gimmicky and largely unusable.

What nearly everyone seems to forget, however, is that the guitar isn't an Les Paul copy per se, but is modelled after the Roland GS500 controller for Roland's very first guitar synthesizer, the GR500, which was introduced in 1978. This was back in the day when any new and exciting guitar spawned Japanese-made imitations - in this instance the guitar that was being "copied" was also Japanese. Obviously, it would have been prohibitive to make it a guitar synth, hence the on-board effects as a suitably high-tech alternative.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

2 comments:

  1. Hi, I've got a Kay LP Synth. I'd be willing to sell it to you, but if you're not interested, I'd greatly appreciate if you could help me out. I need to wire in the pickguard, but I'm not sure where to connect the pups and the 9v leads... I'd really appreciate it if you could help! If you can help, email me at davidince08@gmail.com please!

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  2. I've a copy of the wiring diagram if you want I can e-mail you a copy. My email is sjkowak@bellsouth.net

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