Strat 5-way switch to control modeled/COSM pickup selection

Started by Elantric, January 23, 2008, 07:29:00 PM

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Elantric

<Ed Manning wrote>
In an earlier post I outlined how I intend to fit a new 5-way switch
to my piezo and GK3 equipped guitars. This is for both an improved
range of ordinary pickup sounds and (mainly) to be able to use the 5-
way to switch between VG pickup positions like a normal guitar.

I'm fitting a 4-pole 5-way switch. One of the poles will be switching
a small bank of 2K2 ohm resistors. The sum resistance (relative to
ground) will go to the rear/external controller input of the VG-99
(or earlier) via the unused pin/wire in the GK cable.(Pin #9)

Each switch position corresponds to an EV7 pedal position and so is
easily assigned to the pickup switch position parameter in the VG.
Of course it could be assigned to any VG parameter.

The above involves minimal wiring within any VG unit, just one wire (Spare pin #9)
from the GK input socket to the external controller jack.

Source for 4-pole 5way Switch

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Components:_Switches_and_knobs/Super_Switch.html

Watch for plans on how to implement this great idea!

Elantric

Reposted from here:
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/midiguitar/message/25902
<Wayne wrote>

I started an ebay auction with VG-99, VG-88 and GR-20 video demos:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130192626784

You can read the text of the auction, but I'm using a standard toggle
switch on the guitar in place of the S1/S2 push button switches.

This gives you a new 3-position switch, and in the video demos I use
this switch to turn VG-99 COSM guitars on and off, mimic a Les Paul
pickup switch, or duplicate the MODE switch on vintage GR controllers.

I've done the same mod of a standard Fender Roland-Ready Strat by
replacing the Gtr/Gtr+Synth/Synth with a toggle switch.

I primarily use the VG-99/VG-88, so replacing the Gtr/Synth toggle
switch was a easy way to mod the guitar without making any permanent
changes.

I will post the programming details later, but this works by NOT using
the standard S1/S2 assignments, but using the more flexible
assignments in the VG-99.

Wayne

Darter

Wayne:
The link is dead. Do you have another? Any plans you can throw at us? Schematics? What about a GK3? The pin (9) is used. Have you found a work-around? I setup an FS-6 foot-switch and programmed CTRL3,4 to function as the toggle switch but it is a pain. Do tell. I'm really curious!

Elantric


musical_edmond

GK3 on a Steinberger/Hohner PLUS new VG99 pickup controller

I finally finished fitting a GK3 to my Hohner G3T. My main VG guitar is a Godin so I did this both to create a small, portable VG99 backup guitar and to test my idea of using a 5-way switch as a VG99 pickup controller and so make virtual pickup switching more intuitive.  I selected the Hohner G3T not just for its size but it's a lot cheaper than a Steinberger and will be as good for virtual guitar sounds.

There was a lot of trial and error involved in completing this so I'm sharing my experience.  Some points to note:

1) The GK3 in this position fits very snugly on such a small body. Obviously I took off the metal clamp but only a small part (at input switch) overhangs the guitar body.  The Hohner still fits fine into its small guitar case.  All wires come up through the old tone control hole and into the GK3's centre hole.  The GK3 is secured using a clamp via the same centre hole and the normal screw at the 13-pin lead socket.

2) The guitar mag pickups are permanently wired into the GK3 mag input so no need for an external lead.  The old guitar socket is also still active.

3) As the GK3 sits over the old tone control postion, I originally used a stacked volume/tone in the volume control position.  But it was a bit tall (likely to hit it when playing) so I reverted to the old volume control.  I never use the tone anyway and can programme the GK3 volume if I need one.

4) The hex pickup lead goes into the bridge pickup surround plate and passes into the volume chamber alongside the mag leads.  This worked really well as the hex lead and its connector passed through the existing hole so no woodwork routing was needed.  The lead exits the old tone hole and into the GK3.

5) I changed the Hohner's old 3 pickup toggle switches to a 4-pole 5-way switch for the reasons below.

6) The 5-way switch uses 3 poles for the mag pickups giving me my favourite settings of neck; middle; single-coil bridge; middle + single-coil bridge; humbucker bridge.

7) The 4th pole of the 5-way switch is switching a resistor array to emulate a 5-position Roland EV-5 controller.  This is connected to pin 9 of the GK3's 13-pin socket.  At the VG99 end, I removed the lead connecting pin 9 to the motherboard (was very easy!) and wired this internally to the external controller socket.  So the guitar 5-way switch can now be programmed like a standard external EV-5.

There is more that I learnt but it's probably not of general interest here, such as disabling GK3 use of pin 9, ungrounding the GK3 mag input.

I expect there is some interest in using the 5-way switch as an EV-5 controller.  This was a big success and works so well that I frequently forget whether I'm playing the mags or a virtual guitar and have to look at the input switch position. Of course it can be used for other VG switching functions and the up/down switches are also freed up for other uses.  The resistor steps I used are 0, 100, 200, 300, 400 (all Kohms).  These were arrived at using a meter as the EV-5 is not straight forward (uses tip and ring resistance).

The only hard part of the project was soldering on the GK3 board.  I accidently fried a surface resistor by holding for a fraction too long!  I also tried using a GK-2A.  This is much easier to work on but doesn't fit as well on the guitar body so I would have cut some of it off.

I was apprehensive when no one replied to my question about the GK3 pickup poles not aligning with the strings.  Although I saw this before starting, I took a chance and went ahead, slightly biasing the position for the high E as it has a narrower vibration swing.

Hopefully the above information will be of use.  Feel free to ask questions.

Ed

HAMERMAN409

Ed,

I really like your pickup switch idea and am considering doing the same.

I understand how this all works out when using a Strat model. How does the selector behave when using something else like a Les Paul model with a 3-way switch. Ideally it would be something like positions 1 or 2 give you the neck pickup, 3 gives you both and 4 or 5 gives you the Bridge pickup.

Thanks,
Dave

musical_edmond

Dave,

Yes it's close to that.  Actually 1 or 2 give the neck, 3 or 4 give both and 5 gives the bridge so it's fairly similar.  The main thing is that positions 1, 3 and 5 give what you would expect from a LP switch.

Ed

HAMERMAN409


guitarnstuff

I have been thinking about the possibilities of adding such a 5 way switch control to my guitar so that I have more indication of which pickup position I am in when playing live. I play a Carvin AE185 and I love the feel of the neck and the sound of the pickups, but find I am not using the mags as much if at all as nothing bets the VG99s sounds AND total absence of pickup noise in single coil positions. I would also like my volume control for the VG99 to be located where the guitar volume control is located.  Therefore, I started to consider how to make a dedicated VG99 controller guitar that works more traditional as far as controls and operator feel is concerned. But I didn't want to have to do deep electronic mods to the GK or VG99 that were over my head and undoable. Therefore, I have thought up the following and putting onto a Carvin Bolt (strat copy) along side a GK3Internal Kit. The 5-way switch modification you described AND an additional pot for tone control. I would like use a category 5 cable (ethernet cable) to carry the current for the 5-way switch and the additional pot, both of which would plug into the Roland FC300 expression jacks. Thus in the end I would have the pot from the internal GK for volume plus to assignable switches and then a pot for assigning to tone run to the FC300 via cat5 cable and the 5-way switch resister array you described also runing to the FC300 via the Cat5 cable.  I would need to make some can of junction box on the FC300 end of the cat5 cable to split the connectors back to stereo 1/4 inch plugs to insert in the expression jacks. I would tape the 13 pin roland cable and this cat5 cable side by side.

Therefore I have two questions.

1) Can you please post a schematic of the 5-way switch and resistor mod?
2) Do any of you anticipate issues with running the controller current down a Cat 5....such as hum or noise. I wouldn't think so because it is not a guitar signal path. Thoughts?


guitarnstuff

Anyone with some electronic knowledge, please help:

I have been thinking about how to make switching pickups easier and more visual on the VG99. I like the idea of using the expression pedal to switch between the pickup settings. I have tested this and it works if the controll parameters in the VG99 are set right.... but was thinking it would be really cool to have a five-switch momentary footswitch array with LEDs to indicate pickup switch location that would emulate the resistance of the EV5 at various positions. So for example, if there were five switches arranged left to right you could push the one on the left to emulate the EV5 resistance corresponding to the front pickup and a LED would help you know which is selected, then if you wanted to select the rear+center you would push the second switch from the right which would emulate the position of the EV5 that would trigger the VG99 to have the pickups at rear+center and a LED would light to help you remember what is selected. I could definately build this but I am not sure how to engineer the thing...it seems like it would require logic switches or relays or something. Anyone have some guidance? It would be greatly appreciated.

MusicOverGear

When I first got my GP-10 - like literally within the first hour of fiddling - I remember thinking that I would like to find out how people use the guitar's regular pickup selector switch to select COSM pickups. I was certain I had seen it in a demo video, but as it turned out I had misunderstood when I saw someone using the GK switches to switch pickups. I kinda filed that idea away because (1)I didn't know where to look for info, and (2) I had a lot of other hacking to do.

I don't know what made me think of it again just now, but my subconscious must have been working on the problem.  It turns out it's so easy that someone MUST have done it already. I can't find any info searching on the forum, so here's my submission. This uses a strat 4-pole, 5-way switch for an almost-standard strat wiring (middle position is Tele style middle). Two poles are used to replace the GK volume pot, so that if you assign GK VOL to control e.g. EG > LP PU SEL, the COSM pickup selection will track with the 5-way switch.



Like I said, I'm sure someone has already done this - seems obvious now - but I couldn't find any info with search.

Don't know whether I'll implement this myself. My only GK guitar is a Dot (and a 1:1 clone for backup). Adding any kind of 5-way switch (probably rotary) would present a usability challenge to me. Someone will want this, though. Can't imagine strat players not wanting to do this.

HTH, Michael

alexmcginness

#11
Im sure the pic makes sense to some people. Id like to see a pic of this actually done so I can see how to implement it.
VG-88V2, GR-50, GR-55, 4 X VG-99s,2 X FC-300,  2 X GP-10 AXON AX 100 MKII, FISHMAN TRIPLE PLAY,MIDX-10, MIDX-20, AVID 11 RACK, BEHRINGER FCB 1010, LIVID GUITAR WING, ROLAND US-20, 3 X GUYATONE TO-2. MARSHALL BLUESBREAKER, SERBIAN ELIMINATOR AMP. GR-33.

Elantric

Quoteknow what made me think of it again just now, but my subconscious must have been working on the problem.  It turns out it's so easy that someone MUST have done this before. . .
They have.
Great minds think a like.  Your COSM PU switch scheme on 5 way Strat Sw matches Ed Manning's idea from 2008.

he used a switched resistor ladder array of 2k ohm resistors and fed this to spare pin 9 on 13 pin cable then to a floor mounted break out box to feed external expression pedal input. Assign COSM PU Switching to external expression pedal on VG-99.

www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=45.0

QuoteEd Manning wrote>
In an earlier post I outlined how I intend to fit a new 5-way switch
to my piezo and GK3 equipped guitars. This is for both an improved
range of ordinary pickup sounds and (mainly) to be able to use the 5-
way to switch between VG pickup positions like a normal guitar.

I'm fitting a 4-pole 5-way switch. One of the poles will be switching
a small bank of 2K2 ohm resistors. The sum resistance (relative to
ground) will go to the rear/external controller input of the VG-99
(or earlier) via the unused pin/wire in the GK cable.(Pin #9)

Each switch position corresponds to an EV7 pedal position and so is
easily assigned to the pickup switch position parameter in the VG.
Of course it could be assigned to any VG parameter.

The above involves minimal wiring within any VG unit, just one wire (Spare pin #9)
from the GK input socket to the external controller jack.

MusicOverGear

Doh. I would have found it if I searched for expression pedal instead of GK Volume.

I did say this must have been done already LOL


STOP READING HERE. FOLLOWING IS A CRANKY RANT --------------|
My mind got working again after this thread and another recent one - a guy with a Gibson who wants a GP-10 but doesn't want to put a GK-3 on his guitar. He's right - he shouldn't put a ****ty piece of third-rate gear on his nice guitar. Nobody should. I wouldn't recommend the stock Roland gear for anyone playing at any level. It's fundamentally broken. Without unreasonable care, the signal is unusable because of the grounding problems. Without hacking that is just too difficult for the average player or mom-and-pop-shop tech, it's not possible to make an interface on the guitar that makes any damned sense. Roland got everything to the 1 yard line, sat down, and let the ball just drop out of their hands. Everything needed to make a great V-Guitar system is RIGHT THERE, but Roland seems to have deliberately obscured the potential of the system.

Here's the joint where it all falls apart. There is plenty of electronic control available with a GK-Kit or GK-3 pickup and PCB - and most players could, if inspired by examples, design an interface for themselves that worked exactly the way they want for their V-Guitar system. The part that seems to lie just beyond the skills of the average player/tech is translating the physical interface to the electronic controls. The way the electronic controls work on GK pickups is baby simple, but they aren't really presented to the user, other than PLUG IN THE 7-PIN MOLEX HERE.

Also there's the grounding problem, which is just goddamned asinine. Luckily that's an easy fix. But it's not easy for an average player or tech.

Here's my idea for a solution. I don't have any legit engineering chops or I'd do it myself. As it is, I'm totally willing to pitch in some time and effort to help if anyone else wants to head this up. We need an open source kit project: a hex mag pickup; a proper circular jack; a PCB with really standard headers, a jumper to use pin 9 for ground, etc; add-ons for pushbutton tone pots, dual ganged volume pot, 5-way switch that drops in for GK Vol (this thread), switching 1/4" jack, etc. etc. etc... There are lots of different ways to combine standard interface elements with the few simple GK electronic controls. Like LIVID for V-Guitar, but open source.

What would it cost a kickstarter contributor to get a kit with a pickup and PCB? I have no idea, but I'd bet that it'd be a damn sight less than the $250 Roland gets for their shameful kit. And the OS kit would have the benefit of a wiki, demo videos, copious documentation, and constant user contributions.

It might be as simple as designing the pickup and PCB and releasing the files for some enterprising eBay youngster to realize. Same effect, much less work. The pickup might be as simple as calling up Roland's supplier and just ordering 100 pieces.

The modeling units themselves all need the ground issue addressed. As far as OS kits go, on the GP-10 for example, it could be as easy as a direct-replacement molex connector from the jack to the main board - the ground is redundant in that assembly. Better yet a good quality metal jack with prewired molex connector - anyone can replace it with just a screwdriver.

Anyway, what needs to happen for V-Guitar to survive IMHO is some option - any option - for players to get a usable, beautiful, reliable interface on their favorite guitar. This is absolutely unavailable from Roland right now, and judging from the trajectory from GK-2a to GK-3, they are not working toward these goals at all. It's not hard to achieve; it's just slightly too hard for the average player or the average solder-by-pictures guitar tech.

People are willing to buy modelers, but they are unwilling to do what they would currently have to do in order to end up with a usable GK guitar. How could they? What do you tell someone who doesn't own a soldering iron and takes his guitar to a tech who can't figure out how to wire unmatched humbuckers in phase? There's no clear path for the average player. An inexpensive, voluminously documented OS kit - with all deal-breaker problems fixed - would give the means and reason to anyone interested.

I can't guess what kind of shape the V-Guitar line is in at Roland, or how Roland is doing in general - I'm very afraid that the whole thing will go tits up without someone making some effort to bridge the promise of V-Guitar technology with the needs of guitarists. An OS kit might be just the shot in the arm needed to keep the whole movement alive.

Who's gonna lead the charge?!

Elantric

These threads are worth reading:

Gumtown's "Wireless GK Guitar Controller" project here
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=7984.50



What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=4634.0

Quote
The modeling units themselves all need the ground issue addressed. As far as OS kits go, on the GP-10 for example, it could be as easy as a direct-replacement molex connector from the jack to the main board - the ground is redundant in that assembly. Better yet a good quality metal jack with prewired molex connector - anyone can replace it with just a screwdriver.

Gumbo is already working on an all metal GK input replacement jack assy.
www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=8888.msg83165#msg83165

MusicOverGear


gumbo

Quote from:  Elantric on September 25, 2014, 10:06:36 AM
These threads are worth reading:


Gumbo is already working on an all metal GK input replacement jack assy.
www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=8888.msg83165#msg83165

Thanks for the bump... ;D

Hopefully bolt-in (and plug-in) Synth-Linx Jack replacements for RR Strat & GC-1 output, GP-10 & GR-55 inputs will be up-and-running in the next month...prototypes up now..

Will let everyone know when things get a little closer.. 8)    ...and the soldering fumes clear... :P

Read slower!!!   ....I'm typing as fast as I can...

admin

Quotehave been thinking about how to make switching pickups easier and more visual on the VG99. I like the idea of using the expression pedal to switch between the pickup settings. I have tested this and it works if the controll parameters in the VG99 are set right.... but was thinking it would be really cool to have a five-switch momentary footswitch array with LEDs to indicate pickup switch location that would emulate the resistance of the EV5 at various positions. So for example, if there were five switches arranged left to right you could push the one on the left to emulate the EV5 resistance corresponding to the front pickup and a LED would help you know which is selected, then if you wanted to select the rear+center you would push the second switch from the right which would emulate the position of the EV5 that would trigger the VG99 to have the pickups at rear+center and a LED would light to help you remember what is selected. I could definately build this but I am not sure how to engineer the thing...it seems like it would require logic switches or relays or something. Anyone have some guidance? It would be greatly appreciated.

Virtual Madness

The greatest power in the universe is imagination!

admin

Just bumping an old post, Its still Its a good idea worth pursuing

Elantric

QuoteJust had an idea. Is it possible to replace the s1 s2 switch with a pot and use that for a tone control or just replace just the s1 with a pot and use it for tone control?

Many folks use a EV-5 Expression pedal ( which is a 10K Linear Pot in a pedal) and connect it to the external Expression pedal input, and use a Control Assignment  mapped to COSM Modeled PU Selection, and then change the current pickup with your foot.

Prior to the release of the GK-3 PU in 2004, inside the GK13 cable , Pin #8 was a spare / not used connection, and folks modded their VG-8 / VG-88 by connecting a wire from the VG-8 / VG-88 External Expression pedal jack to GK 13 Pin #8 to and mod their guitar by installing a 10K linear with the pot wiper feeding Pin #8 , and use a Control Assignment  mapped to COSM Modeled PU Selection, and then change the current pickup by rotating the pot.   

musical_edmond

Quote from: Elantric on June 11, 2016, 08:01:37 AM
Many folks use a EV-5 Expression pedal ( which is a 10K Linear Pot in a pedal) and connect it to the external Expression pedal input ...

Yes an EV5 pedal plugged into the VG or into an FC300 is one way to switch pickups when not wanting to modify a guitar switch, which is often the case.  But it's a little hard to judge pedal position for 5 position switching.

I posted the original GK3 mod post and I still use a modified low-end Hohner Steinberger-clone (so no depreciation implication) that involves replacing the pickup switch.  The key advantages are:
  -  It uses a guitar-familiar 5 position pickup switch
  -  Setting of said switch is clear from its visual position
  -  The same pickup switch changes both virtual and real pickups
The third is an important playing point when moving between VG and real guitar sounds.  But I do understand why some do not want to modify a good quality guitar.

Ed