Midi / Roland GK-3 on a 7 string?

[SnowfaLL]

I hate to keep bringing up the Midi pickup topic, but it still interests me for the future..

Heres what im curious about.. If I was to get a GK-3 (right here Roland U.S. - GK-3: Divided Pickup ) And put that on a 7 string, lining it up with the normal 6 strings, ignoring the low B string, Would that make any issues for tracking? My plan, is to have midi capabilities on the top 6 strings (cause thats the only way it tracks correctly) but still have it as a functional normal guitar when not using midi, which I only want to play 7s.

I do realize its impossible to track 7 strings at a time, and im fine with that, I dont want to track the low B, I just want the normal 6 string tracking to work, then when I turn midi off, to be able to play a 7 still.

So I guess if anyone knows if having that B string there will do any sort of tampering to the tracking, like if I hit it by accident lets say, or weither just being where it is, if it'll vibrate and cause a ruckus or whatever.. Hmmm. Anyone know about this?? I wanna know so bad, I might order the GK-3 right now, test it on my 7 string (using double sided tape) then if it works, go ahead and order up the 7 string I was planning on installing it on, but if it doesnt work, keeping it for at least a 6 string, cause uh I think either way, im gonna get a Midi guitar. I thinks.

Any help is appreciated, thanks abunch.

 

[noodles]

The Roland divided pickup has extremely weak magnets, and set so close to the bridge, there is barely any string vibration. The low B is not going to effect any of the other strings in the slightest.

 

[SnowfaLL]

Fun.

So by weak magnets, you mean in terms of actual magnetic pull (in comparison to say, pickups), Not weak as in, shitty in terms of MIDI pickups? What are your opinion of the tracking from Roland's GK's? Are they sufficient enough?

 

[noodles]

Yes, weak as in terms of magnetic pull. They don't bleed over to the strings next to them.

Tracking isn't bad, but it there is still a lag on really fast runs.

 

[plusyear]

also the gk-3 is hexaphonic which means each magnet tracks only the string above

 

[Mr. S]

i really would quite like to get one of these too ive played briefly with one and it was great fun, its just such a pity they dont make one for seven strings... darn niche market

 

[bgmsmg]

You should have no problem with the Gk-3.
What unit are you going to use? Roland Gi-20, Gr-20 or Axon Ax100 , Ax-50?

Brian
GuitarHelper.net/Midi,13 pin interfaces

 

[SnowfaLL]

I dunno which unit I would use, I have yet to decide that.. Hopefuly whatever is best tracking, but not overly expensive in comparison to the others.

I want the GK-3 or the Axon pickup because I wanna put it on a guitar without actually doing any physical mods to the guitar (drilling holes/etc) so incase I dont like it, I can remove it. Thats the plan anyways.

What module unit do you suggest? I heard the Axon Ax100 blows away the Roland units.. but is abit more money. Anyone have experiance with it?

PS. Im looking mainly for these sounds... Cello, Violin, Tenor and Sop sax, Trumpet. Mainly Trumpet and Cello are most important, as my band has like two songs that have trumpet/cello solos, yet we dont have a celloist or trumpetier, but we do have a Tenor sax and Flute, so those arent as important. But generally I want something that can replicate other instruments good.

 

[Justin Bailey]

ghost piezos. Thats all I gotta say.

 

[SnowfaLL]

ghost piezo's would require alot more money, esp for a 7 string form, which wont work anyways since midi technology so far only tracks 6 strings (unless you make the B and E string as one, whch I dont plan on doing) soo.. not for me

I like the idea if I dont like it, I can remove the GK-3 and still have my normal kick ass guitar.

 

[frank falbo]

I've also heard the Axon unit beats the Roland, but I haven't tried one myself. We just designed a new Midi pickup for them, which should be shipping in a month or so if you can wait that long. I'm hoping once they start shipping, maybe they'll send a sample our way or something so I can poke around with it.

The magnets aren't "weak" in reality. They're actually extremely strong ND's, they're just really small. Plus the two coil "mini rails" configuration makes the magnetic field highly concentrated. I would assume you could diminish or eliminate any cross-tracking from the low B by reducing the sensitivity of the low E string within your device. But in all reality you have no greater chance of mistriggering with the low B than you do any other string skipping over to a neighboring string's pickup, aside from the fact that the B is the largest string, and the most magnetically active.

 

[SnowfaLL]

Thanks Frank,

I guess I can afford to wait a month or two, to see if theres something new coming. Is this from Axon, or from your company (which is??)

 

[dpm]

Frank is from Seymour Duncan

I haven't tried out the Axon yet, but out of the Roland gear I've tried the GR20 tracked best, and was basically flawless in that regard during the short test I had. It tracked quarter tone bends and stuff like that without issue, and didn't have any immediately apparent lag. But it's a limited unit in terms of sounds and programming. To my knowledge Roland's synth units trigger their built in sounds with very minimal processing. The MIDI output requires more processing and lag may become more evident. I've had a good trial of a GI10, and it seemed fine, with the tiniest of latency. I assume the GI20 is better. The new VG99 is pretty spectacular and has built in MIDI conversion, but it's pricey.

I'm really curious about the new stuff Frank mentioned. Is there any word of a new Axon synth/converter too?

 

[SnowfaLL]

isnt there already a duncan one out? associated with Axon?

 

[frank falbo]

Yeah it has been released, it's just not shipping yet. It's a Terratec (axon) product, we just designed the pickup for them.

 

[SnowfaLL]

is it the one that says Duncan Designed under it?? I think thats the one I saw a picture of.

 

[jazzsinger]

I just installed an interal Roland pickup into my DeArmond seven string (three bass strings, four guitar strings) and it works pretty well. The tracking is not as good as the RMC piezo system on my Godin, but is acceptable for live Rock and Roll.

 

[Tymon]

I've owned all big guitar synths (roland gr33, axon, yamaha) and always got fed up by its tracking issues. A device I really love is Roland's VG-88 (or VG-8 and VG-99 for that matter). If you're unfamiliar with the concept: it also uses the GK pickup but it doesn't translate the audio to MIDI, instead it uses the 6 independent audio signals (each string) to process the sound. It gives you a bunch of synthy sounds but without any tracking issues and (very important to me) it keeps your playing nuances intact. Of course it doesn't have as many sounds as a "real" synth coud give you, but for me this is definitely worth the penalty!

 

[jazzsinger]

I had a friend with the VG-88. It is a very nice guitar processor that does modeling of all kinds and even allows for alternative tunings, but like you said, it's not really a synth. I suppose one could say it's almost six different guitar processors in one. I would've bought one a few years ago if I could've found a rack mount version to control via my GR 30. Instead I bought a couple of Boss VF-1's (now gone). But even though I use a guitar synth, I now prefer a small tube amp with few effects for my "real" guitar sound with the synth mostly in the background. Part of the reason I used strings, organs, pads in the background was because of tracking problems on the old guitar my internal Roland pickup was in. I could never get the pickup close enough to the saddles because of the way the bridge was made. Now that it's on my seven string guitar it seems to track a bit better so I'm trying more solo piano sounds.

 

[Stan P]

RMC does a system that allows you to have 7-tring piezo out in combination with 6-string MIDI out. It is also possible to have 7 and 8 string MIDI, but that requires a 2-preamp -> 2-converter setup. There are apparently tap guitar players that do it.