gk3 mouting

[the]

SOOOOOO, first post. and a qvestion for you techies out there.

What i got, is a JS1000, like the guitar, wanted a synth, bought a GK3/GR20 setup, mounted the GK3 between the bridge and the bridge pickup after cutting away some of the pickup ring. NNOOOWWW, i can play techno on my guitar, which as we all know is every guitar players dream. techno. yea. anyhoo, what i have now is a really annoying wire where i put my hand, ( red box in pic below) and i thought i;d get used to it, but after 3 weeks i;ve only grown more annoyed with it. HOWEVER, i noticed that on the other side of the guitar (blue box in pic below) there is no wire! in fact, the gk3 doesn't extend beyond the bridge pickup! oh joy! Now what i wanna do, is mount this pickup upside down so the wire exits from the bottom of hte guitar (into the blue box) so i can have my palm plant back My question is, has anyone taken apart this pickup to try and mount it backwards in its case? If so was rewiring the pick for an inversed installation hard? is it PCB? does anyone have schematics? if this is impossible can we do something like get some source code from roland and reverse the pickup sensors programmatically? would rewiring the gr20 be easier? YEA. so lets here some opinions out there.

[EL-CeeDee]

Indeed !
I just installed a GK-3 on a "lying-under-the-bed" guitar for that exact reason!
I thought about installing the pickup the other way around on a good guitar, but figured it wouldn't work,.. My axon ak100 has a retune function in which I can retune the strings to their opposing strings, but this adds a little delay. Not good.
It freaks me out as well that this design is literally backwards.
There is the option of fixing the cable to the guitar, but this would only partially solve the problem.

To make a long story short..
If anyone has any idea, please share !

( reverse pin connector ? )

( damn all those strat players with their volume knobs getting in the way of a bottom cable exit! )

[the]

that is EXACTLY what we need to do, either build a coupler that reverses the pins for us, or just build a cable with the reverse pins. NOW, which of us is gonna do the pin out? i gotta gig tonite, so i vote you do it.

**EDIT**
UH OH!! LOOKY WHAT I FOUND, i'll be working on this tomorrow woo WOO!

I found this pinout on another site for the output off the pickup:
DIN-13 PINOUT - guitar
1 = string 1
2 = string 2
3 = string 3
4 = string 4
5 = string 5
6 = string 6
7 = mono guitar signal
8 = synth volume (0-5VDC)
9 = n.c.
10 = SW 1
11 = SW 2
12 = +7VDC
13 = -7VDC
Shell = Gnd

I have built my own 13 pin din cable with all the connections I think I need, I am supplying 7v and -7v pins 12 and 13 respectively, ground to the shell, and I have tried supplying 4v on pin 8 as well as leaving it open. I have an oscilloscope connected to pin 1 and ground as I test one string to try to get a signal, but I dont get any results. The power indicator light isnt on either, Im not sure if it needs something more to power it than just the +-7V.

Anyone know anything that I dont about these pickups?

[EL-CeeDee]

so,... reversing 1 through 6 should do the trick, if you reverse the pickup ofcourse..
Cool,. let me know if it works ( and good luck soldering a 13-pin cable )

[EL-CeeDee]

check this:
http://www.rolandus.com/products/pro...35&ParentId=55
It seems the pickups string outputs have a separate connector. At least, the kit version does. If you are brave enough to open the control box, you might find a similar connector ( using the same parts is cheaper for roland,.. so that makes me expect more or less the same parts )
Soldering or attaching the cables to the connector seems easier than doing it on the cableplug.

[the]

Right now, this is where im at, i;ve taken apart a connector on the stock cable. All i;ve done was grabe the metal ring and pull, the large plastic ring slid back pretty easily, and gives you access to the pins, from here you pull back two tabs on the ring and you an slide the ring out, what i did was open it up and pull it back on a 90 degree angle to avoid any solder. now i just need to pull the pins and replace them in the order i want, i'll keep you posted. My girl just got here and we're gonna go to the bluffs, its my birthday woo woo!

[EL-CeeDee]

Any luck ?

[the]

does it work? check your pm's for an mp3, cuz momma, it works. Just got done testing my new cable, only thing to know is the stock cabling i got from Roland is different colors than my previous post. The actual colors of the pins are listed below. What i did was just cut the end off the stock roland cable and put connector #0954 (13 pin DIN, link to it is in your pm, i can't post links yet) on the end, reversing pins 1 - 6. I gotta play a halloween party tonite, so i need to pack up and git, but tomorrow i shall follow up with pics etc.


1 brown
2 blue
3 grey
4 orange
5 pink
6 purp


brown/purp
blue/pink
grey/orange

[the]

ah sweet success. So here are some pics of the whole thing.

First test, i took the stock Roland 13 pin cable and cut it in half, then spliced all the connections back together with phone splicers. You can see here that the left most wires are the reversed colors, brown to purple, blue to pink, and gray to orange. This cable works and i played a gig with it, with the upside down mounted gk3! woo hoo!


Here are some pics of the guitar itself, its a 2002 or 2003 js1000, look closely to see that i dremeled off part of the pickup ring to make it fit. It's sloppy work, but pick up rings are cheap and i did this while it was still on the guitar with strings on it. The ring is still damn secure in the guitar, so no worries there. Now what it looks like is the GK3 is still extended out a ways on the guitar, what you;re seeing is the small plastic riser i put on the guitar before i mounted the GK3 upside down. the GK3 does not extend past the bridge pick up ring, and is completely out of the way. soooo nice.




What i did for my main cable was order part number 0954 from the link below. Then i went to guitar center, bought a replacement roland 13 pin cable, cut one end off and put this new connector on with the reversed pin order. I was planning on having a pic of this new cable, but i left it at the bar with my rig, as we play there again next friday and saturday night. Poor planning on my part, sorry. heres the link i ordered from, part #0954 http://www.universal-radio.com/CATAL...s/dinconn.html

Now the main reason i bought the synth was for the talkbox. although it's not quite a fitting as some of the keyboards, its definitely will fit the bill with some tweaking. Here is a sample of me practicing with a song that was really easy to pick out. along with sloppy playing. You can hear some of the tracking issues i have with a super light touch on the fast notes. More than likely what i'll end up doing is use midi in and outs to an external synth for a better patch for talkboxing.
http://www.efegs.com/someguy/gtrsynth2.mp3

[EL-CeeDee]

Very cool!

Thanks for the "how to"

For now, I'm still futsing around with my guitar ( frets need to be leveled ), to prevent string rattles, which are picked up as notes sometimes
On top of that, the gk-3 pickup will not fit behind a floyd, so there is work to do to get it mounted on the right guitar, but once it's mounted again, it will be reversed !

[GuiltySparc]

man, i played one of these at GC saturday, freakin loved it. Now if only i can come up with the $700 for the pup and module.

[nosi0]

Ive always wanted the to use the roland GK pickup on my JS guitars. I never really thought about cutting of that part of the pickup ring to make it fit! Great idea if i find a GK-3 / GR-20 i will do the exact same thing. Except i will cut the pick-up ring detached from the guitar :P

Whats the seeming to be a plastic band going from your strap button to the input jack?

[the]

Originally Posted by nosi0

Whats the seeming to be a plastic band going from your strap button to the input jack?

welp, as you probably know, the jack in these guitars wears out, and all it takes is a knudge to unplug the motha. step on the cable, hit the bass player, walk out on the floor to far and give the slightest pull, or even just bending over to snort some fine columbian snow off a hookers incredibly round haunches, and the guitar comes un plugged. now, i don't know about your guitar, but when my guitar is unplugged, it doesn't seem to send any signal to the amp. none. this, my friend pisses me off. so after the 2nd jack replacement i gave up, and decided to research a highly effective solution that would some how keep the cable plugged into the guitar. After many many minutes of research and a few shots, it hit me. If i just put a screw in the guitar, then run a rubber band from the strap button past the output jack to said screw, and twist the rubber band up, i can run the guitar cable through the rubber band, and bow chicka wow wow i got a cable 18 times as connected to my guitar as it was before. so i did. its just a screw and a rubber band :P i have never been the guy that was for pretty guitars btw, just ones that work. kidna why cutting into the guitar with a dremel didn't phase me. as far as im concerned its a battle scar, well worth the blood sweat and beer.