on the market today, as well as an
intimate and extensive knowledge of
effects. The combination of these two
traits, as well as some very intuitive
designing, helped create a new system
that requires no special pickups, and
doesn’t sound like a jar full of clanking
nails.
Many guitar “synths” will just add a
couple of octaves above or below,
some extra harmonic dirt, an autowah, and call it a synth. While initially
I imagined the SY-300 being another
one of these cheap impersonations of
a synthesizer, I was completely blown
away with what Boss accomplished
with this unit. It has three separate
oscillators with filtering and envelope
options, tons of synthy guitar effects,
and a visual representation to show you
where and how they are routed. You
can blend different patches together
to create totally new and wild sounds,
sounds that I rarely hear in the best
software synths, let alone my own
guitar. It’s incredibly hi-fi without
having that harsh digital sheen that the
older all-digital units have—a pretty
incredible feat for my ears.
28
TONE TALK //
While I could go on and on about how
complex and incredible this unit is, I
don’t want you to take my word for it.
For you dear readers, I have created
a small taste of what one can do with
the SY-300 and an empty evening. All
effects and sounds are coming from the
SY-300 and my guitar, with the help of a
few unconventional tools. Have a listen
to the track below, and I will break
apart the different settings and sounds
I used to get it.
For this track, I wanted to create a sort
of Tangerine Dream vibe, so like any
good mimicry of their classic sound I
started off with a sequencer, tweaked a
bit to sustain longer and give violin-like
pulsations.
A Study in Guitar Synthesis: Cracking the Code of the Boss SY-300