The Boss EURUS GS-1 infuses decades of guitar pedal and synth expertise into an actual guitar

Best known for things you can plug guitars into, Boss has unveiled its own guitar. The EURUS GS-1 ($2199, available October 2021) is swish, if traditional, with a 24-fret neck, fancy custom-designed pickups, a two-point fulcrum bridge and staggered-height locking machine heads. But you also get two jack outputs – one each for regular guitar and synth sounds. Combining guitars and synths admittedly isn’t unique, but Boss’s wealth of experience points to something special. With the flip of a switch, you can engage the EURUS GS-1’s polyphonic synth engine and access a wide range of analogue-flavoured sounds. Six on-board memories are packed with presets, and you can use an app to edit your own. There’s plenty of scope for live performance too, whether having synth sounds respond to your strumming, twiddling the synth control knob for hands-on dynamic expression, or utilising the separately available EV-1-WL Wireless MIDI Expression Pedal to add whooshing sweeps for a pad. Just the ticket for confusing everyone by belting out the next electronica hit right from your axe.