a tough find I suppose

I know this is dead tech for many (I'm not actually using it for MIDI) so maybe there's one around
then again, they also aren't modding them anymore so that could make for an availability problem

or, if anyone has any details about the mod that used to take place...My soldering skills are basic, but I have a dive buddy who's ace at that so maybe there's a chance

Now that I took some decent closeups, I'm rather embarrassed by the dreadful soldering job I apparently did here, but here's a GK-2A that I butchered many many years ago, just to see if I could pull it off.

Inside a Roland hex pickup you will find these 6 tiny individual pickups soldered onto a thin, flexible circuit board, under which lies a plastic profile that keeps it curved to align well with the somewhat arched string profile that most electric guitars have.

What I did was I unsoldered them from the flexible board and moved them to this piece of prototyping PCB. It just so happens that the hole spacing on this particular type of board makes for a very nice alignment for a 12 string Stick. As you can see, it also happens to be such that the 6 pickups sit right next to each other, so a perfect fit in every way. For other than 12 strings, I suppose you need somewhat wider spacing.

Electrically, it is very simple: there are 6+1 wires to keep track of: one for each pickup and a common ground. What you see is the original GK-2A wire that I've just cut to a convenient length and peeled off the outer rubber insulation.

What I suppose SE, or their supplier of modded pickups do/did, is to encase it in epoxy or something like that, to protect everything and make it sturdier and nicer. I haven't gotten to that stage yet, but this actually works fine. I use to have a piece of tape on the underside to keep the leads from touching anything.


Also found this page if you want to see what a GK pickup looks like inside before you take it apart: https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=410.msg8268#msg8268

awesome! is that .1in perf? (like the kind for thruhole ICs)

do you remember what the leads on the pickups looked like? were they pins or did you have to deal with the tails of the actual windings?

is there any anchoring of the pickups to the perfboard besides the wiring itself?

THANKS FOR THE HELP

I measure very close to 5 mm across 3 holes, so I guess that makes it 0.1 inch board, right?

These pickups do have pins, so they're just soldered in place, that's all that's holding them.This board has solder pads, on the underside.

No glue or anything here.

Happy to help!

2.54 -- yep, it's the standard for throughhole for DIP (Dual Inline Pins)..ICs DIP (hey! imagine that) switches and such

Good information there!

I noticed something interesting in your picture - https://stickist.com/download/file.php?id=5994&mode=view

The top of the pickup pins on your pickups point to the *side*, and there's some black goo on them as well. Those seem difficult to put very close together for 12-string spacing at least.

Here's another closeup of my pickup again: the pins point *up*. Mine was definitely a GK-2A, and your's is a GK3, right? The pole pieces are different too. I wonder if GK2 is preferable if one wants to attempt this kind of conversion, at least if you want to put them very close together.

hmm, maybe we should peel this convo over to the other thread as it's technical (as opposed to the classifieds)

I have a GK2-A "stick" pickup

longshot, but I wonder if Roland wld sell the pickups (coils, etc) separately
[I doubt it b/c the volume would be too low to even bother...but if anyone has a contact, I'd give it a try]

but I digress

The is what the 12 string GK3 pickup looks like from SE.
I modded mine for a 10 string, by cutting a trace on the board.
I used a black permanent marker to blackout the unused coil.

From my perspective and experiences:
- GK3 coils are larger than those from GK2A,
- making a pickup for the Grand Stick from GK3 coils on your own is very difficult. Things are definitely easier with those from GK2A,
- the coils used in GK2 are even smaller. The problem with them is that they use a very thin wire. Even my experienced electronics friend with very good equipment couldn't solder them properly because the wire simply melted;
- most likely the same type of pickup (and coils) as in GK2 was previously installed in GK1;
- instead of coils from GK pickups, you can use their equivalents from Yamaha G1D, G-Vox, or Axon AX hexaphonic pickups. It all depends on what you get on the secondary market;
- over the years, Roland has changed the structure and parameters of the GK2a coils. I remember that 20 years ago, when my friend (from 2 used GK2a) built for me a 10-coil GKXXL pickup, he complained a lot about it;
- SE not only used Roland coils. In my Alto I have an original Stick GK2A Preamp from the 1980s, with a 5-coil pickup mounted to it, which to me looks like a German production by Shadow. I have two GK3 modules in my Grand Stick. One of them is equipped with resin-covered coils that look original from GK3, but the other ones are definitely different. They were probably made by the person after whose retirement SE lost the ability to equip their instruments with GK pickups. I don't think a corporation like Roland would want to fulfill such low-volume orders as GK pickups for Stick.

If only anyone can find someone who would be willing to make such small coils to order, I will be grateful for sharing such good news!!! I would love to order divided pickups for my various instruments.