jonbondy

Well... that depends on how comfortable you are with electronics. ... I cut the cable and re-spliced the six wires in reverse order inside the control cavity. To replace the guitar's 1/4 inch jack with the GK-2's jack ... I had to solder small flexible wires from the p.c. board to each pin of the jack and to the pot and switches. At the moment, the GK-2 p.c. board is suspended in the control cavity by the connecting wires. I've been thinking of replacing this improvised installation with a real internal kit to make it a bit neater. I'm totally comfortable with electronics: I've been home brewing my own sound effects for decades. I understand the problem with the pickup cable: the kit I used was better in this regard, but there still was a connector, and it was fairly large. I had to route a larger hole than I would have liked in order to get the thing installed, but at least the cable exits down, rather than out the end. BTW, I didn't have to reverse the 6 pickup wires, because the VG-88 has a setup parameter to allow you to reverse them automatically. The problem I see has to do with the multi-pin DIN connector. It is attached to the PC board in such a way that it does not seem possible to use that connector without doing some major surgery on the PC board. I guess you were more willing to do that surgery than I am. It's not that I'm incapable of doing it; it's more about making sure that what I end up with is reliable. If you have a working guitar, I'd not bother with the internal kit.

On my guitar, I replaced the 2 buttons by 1 toggle switch that has a spring-return to the center. For the other toggle that switches between conventional guitar and synth, I got a switch that's identical in appearance. The kit you're talking about wasn't availabe when I installed it so I used the guts of the outboard model: This is exactly what I intend to do with my next guitar. I'm not sure whether I'll rip the current guitar apart, or try to get another pickup kit. The internal kits are not easy to find at a reasonable price. I've seen articles on the web about how to convert the external pickup into an internal one, but they're not very satisfactory. How difficult was the conversion from external pickup to internal? Jon

There is no tracking delay because there is no tracking. The VG series of sound effects boxes are not really MIDI or synthesizers. Rather, they're six channel audio devices (one channel per string) with digital signal processing (DSP) performed on all of the channels in parallel. The VG-88 has distortion, sustain, echo, all of the same kinds of effects as you would find on, say, a Line6 POD, including pickup, amp, speaker, cabinet, and microphone simulators. It's not perfect, but tracking delay is not an issue at all. Jon

Canuck: Roland sells the GK-2A in two configurations. One is an add-on, to be slapped onto a guitar: that's the one you see most often on eBay. The other is a kit of parts that you can wire into a new guitar. I found the latter at a local guitar store. They'd had it in stock so long that they sold it to me for $150, rather than the $225 list price they normally sell it for. You have to be comfortable with electronics to go this route, but it worked out fine. Jehle: Yeah, the lack of regular pickups results in a very mimalist, clean design, that shows the most possible wood. That was the idea. Brian: Yeah, that was the whole idea: pretty AND a nice guitar! nyjbkim: Thanks for turning me onto this site! The guitar sounds just like any other Roland VG-88 guitar: nothing especially different than any other. James: The two black dots are the pushbuttons that come with the Roland kit. They're momentary contact buttons, that allow you to tell the VG-88 to go Up or Down by one stored voice. The only problem with them is that they are VERY easy to push, and sometimes when I end a run with a flourish, I accidentally hit one of them. Next time, I'll use a momentary contact toggle, and put it further down on the body. So far, this is the only problem I've had with the guitar. As explained above, Roland sells a kit of parts for installation in custom guitars. It sells for the same as the add-on pickup, but is much more difficult to find on eBay at a reasonable price. There are plans out on the net for taking the add-on pickup, disassembling it, and using it like this, but I didn't take that approach. Jon jbondy at sover dot net

I've completed a lacewood clone of a Steinberger "P" body guitar. Moses neck, Steinberger Trans Trem, Roland GK-2A pickup. I decided not to have regular guitar pickups so as to create a minimalist guitar, with as much wood grain as possible. Aluminum plate on the back is temporary. Check out the following links to LARGE pictures: full guitar from front: www.jonbondy.com/DSC02444a.jpg guitar body from front: www.jonbondy.com/DSC02444b.jpg guitar body from side: www.jonbondy.com/DSC02445a.jpg guitar body from back: www.jonbondy.com/DSC02446a.jpg Jon

I've built a new project guitar, and want to show it to the group, but I find the web site to be impenetrable. No contact information about the webmaster. Nothing about how to provide information about new guitars. How do I go about this please? Jon