Okay, so I got this Roland GR-50 & GK-2A via
eBay, as I was saying. Good, cheap, supposedly
a good option to paying ~$700 for the newest
synth in the fleet, the GR-33. The synth itself is, of
course, dated, but the tracking seems fine, and
the GK-2A is compatible with all the Roland synths
thusfar, even after, what? 13 years? Heh... I dunno
exactly when the GR-50 came out, but it was a
while ago.
First trial: Unit arrives sans mounting bracket for the
GK-2A. Well, that's cool -- the guy selling it had it
permanently screwed down to his axe, and didn't
say otherwise. So, off to Home Depot for a micro-
clamp, and that does a fine job of getting the
control box of the GK-2A to stay on the Hamer. I
place an order for the "official hardware" direct to
Roland that day.
Then comes placing the "divided pickup" (hex pup
for those so inclined). Just need to get that puppy
closer to the strings... Roland suggests 1mm between
the pup and the string when fretted at the highest
fret. Q: Why in the hell aren't the poles adjustable?
The GK-2A's pickup has a curved profile... for what
radius, what guitar? Sheesh. Anyway, a $2 bit of
balsa was employed to create a riser, and we're off
and running in test mode (supply of double-face
tape used to adhere pup to balsa, and balsa to
Hamer). It tracks okay, but the E strings are too far
from the pup to register when picking with normal
force. Hmmm. Decide to wait for the Roland
mounting bracket before trying to figure out how
to resolve this.
Trial Two: Bracket arrives. Oh, it mounts via the
strap pin at the south end of the guitar. Looks like
the Hamer is out -- it has countersunken Schaller
StrapLoks, which I thought was a great feature...
up until now.
I take the Ibanez Sabre off the living room wall,
and start wondering about how that might work
out for the GK-2A. With a couple of wood blocks,
perhaps; the body is so incredibly thin at the edges,
it'd take 3/4"+ shim inside the bracket's clamp to
make *that* happen, grrrr. Also, pushing the bracket
north (towards the headstock) meant that the
assembly would interfere with the vibrato tailpiece
on the guitar. Again, a wood block and a longer
wood screw to attach the strap pin, and... well,
hell! I have other guitars!
Trial Three: Bingo. It seemed an unlikely choice,
given its extremely flat fretboard radius of 20", but
I went ahead anyway, installing the GK-2A on my
Carvin H2T. Oddly enough, the tracking works well,
and the bracket fit the "southwest" strap pin with
no intereference with other controls, and with
excellent results (the H series guitars all have two
"southern" strap pins). Again, balsa was used to raise
the pup to the appropriate height.
So NOW begins the real adventure. I should have
64 different patches available to me, and the
previous owner already saved some of his own on
here, of course. He has a decent glockenspiel patch
that I've been foolin' with for the last 30 minutes.
Looking at the manual, I am freaking out trying to
make sense of it all, but I WAS warned about the
complexity of this unit (and the Japanese TechWriter
Syndrome, heh). I downloaded the GinoSoft MIDI
patch-editor/librarian from the net, and have a low-
octane Toshiba laptop (normally used for OBD-II work
with my car, heh) available to run this... should I suffer
the pains and arrows afforded by the steep learning
curve which only *might* make it possible.
Any advice, RMMG? Prayers? Support groups?
--
Toucan
"I could never force
A Three-Legged Cat
To do anything like that
To do anything like that"
1st foray into guitmosynths: Trials & Triblulation w/GK-2A mounting
Linear Mode
