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GK-13 Reference Knowledge => GK-13 Interface Top things to know => Topic started by: mooncaine on October 05, 2011, 06:18:57 PM

Title: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: mooncaine on October 05, 2011, 06:18:57 PM
Quote from: Rhcole on May 12, 2011, 05:04:26 PM
I'm with Elantric on this issue, I don't see the 13 pin guitar dominating the marketplace anytime soon.

Something's gotta change on the GK to make it easier for a newbie to put one on the guitar, or that'll never happen. The downsides that confront a potential GK user are:

1. Can't get the pickup in the spacing that fits your guitar's string spacing
2. Control box (the 'wart') is big
3. GK volume knob and GK switches aren't where you'd want them
4. Switching virtual pickups doesn't work as quickly and well as the old-fashioned, 5-way or 3-way toggle switch because you can't do it 'by feel.' You can't feel when the pickup switch is on neck or bridge pickup
5. Related to #4: the controls aren't in a convenient place, like a guitar's 'normal' controls.
6. Cable is huge.
7. Considering those drawbacks, the pickup costs too much.

I'd like to see a modular pickup set: you buy a pickup that fits your guitar's string spacing, and plug it into the same wart they all use.

The volume knob, and a pickup switch, would be on a second, very flat wart that can be plugged in to the main wart using cables that are easy to find, like 1/8" stereo cables. You can put it where you want, or leave it off (the GK should work without them). Sell it separately. The wart comes with a 5-way switch, like a Strat's, or a 3-way like a Les Paul's.*

All these things need to be cheap enough to rival a 'normal' pickup's cost, and easy enough to install that it won't take a newbie all weekend.

Nowadays, you can use Velcro, putty, double-stick tape or maybe even nylon zip-ties to attach stuff to your guitar, if you want to avoid drilling holes or routing. You can buy a wide variety of knobs, faders, switches or buttons. Seems like a modular system might cut costs, for those who want to try it out, and yet also offer enough options, using ready-made parts, to make it easy for players to put the controls they want, where they want.

*Use the same switches guitars already use, but wire them to resistors, so that a 5-pos switch is basically just changing resistance on a 5-volt circuit, and you only need a mono 1/8" cable, or even smaller. That way, the field is wide open for alternative controls, for the players who'd want that.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on October 05, 2011, 06:36:06 PM
Its my opinion its the poor 1989 decision to use that damn FRAGILE DIN 13 pin circular connector, (with Zero Analog Ground pins?) and the ugly "Borg" GK-3 controls which restricts the ability to put the guitar in a hardshell case, and negates mass acceptance of Roland Guitar Synth  / VG systems.

As a test -
1) Using your foot (wear shoes!),  put out a cigarette. Observe the results  - a flattened cigarette.

2) Now replace the cigarette with a DIN 13 connector (as used on a Roland GK13 cable) under your foot, and use the same physical motion with your foot employed as in step #1 above,  Observe the results  - a flattened damaged connector, making the Roland VG-99, GR-55 useless.

3) Now replace the cigarette with a Neutrik Ethercon XLR connector (as used in the Variax) under your foot, and use the same physical motion with your foot employed as in step #1 above,  Observe the results  - no damage to the robust  Neutrik Ethercon XLR connector, making the Line6 Gear far far more road worthy that Roland gear.

Its that simple. Its these basic fragile elements to the Roland GK User experience, that negates its use by many major artists when on the road.



 
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: MCK on October 05, 2011, 07:03:22 PM
#1 - Ouch, my feet burned. Blisters forming...

#2 - Ouch, blister popped, blood oozing.

#3 - Double ouch, that neutrik XLR was so strong it is now permanently embedded into my feet. Blood still oozing...

Moral of the story, make sure to keep your shoes on before trying Elantric's experiment posted above!  ;D

Joke aside, I really like how Tronical solved the hex signal over stereo cable riddle. mux/demux is the way to go. You can then even offer wireless capabilities.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: gumtown on October 05, 2011, 07:23:36 PM
1) Either wireless, or use of a standard 6.5mm jack.

2) A GR/VG unit that can detect a GK or normal guitar plugeed into it, if normal - mono modeling + effects only, if GK compatable is sensed, provide 12 volt DC supply and a multiplexed bi-directional signal to the guitar on the same standard TS 6.5mm plug/cable.

3) Make drop-in replacement bridge pickup for strat or LP which operates as a combined normal PU plus a hex PU, and still looks like the guitar's original single coil or P90.
Same for the knobs and PU switches, after market 'dual purpose' 3 or 5 way selector which does the normal PU plus position data to the controller.

I am sure it is the specialised 13pin cable and the black cancerous growth on the guitar that is 'off putting' to 'traditional guitarists'.
I am also surprised that Roland haven't invested in polyphonic pitch analysis from a mono composite signal, such as seen in computer based software (TS-Audio2Midi) which as of 7 years ago worked very well, no need for a GK guitar at all.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: aliensporebomb on October 05, 2011, 07:28:56 PM
Quote from: Elantric on October 05, 2011, 06:36:06 PM
Its my opinion its the poor 1989 decision to us that damn FRAGILE DIN 13 pin circular connector, (with Zero Analog Ground pins!) and the ugly "Borg" GK-3 controls which restricts the advance of Roland systems.

As a test -
1) Using your foot,  put out a cigarette. Observe the results  - a flattened cigarette.

2) Now replace the cigarette with a DIN 13 connector (as used on a Roland GK13 cable) under your foot, and use the same physical motion with your foot employed as in step #1 above,  Observe the results  - a flattened damaged connector, making the Roland VG-99, GR-55 useless.

3) Now replace the cigarette with a Neutrik Ethercon XLR connector (as used in the Variax) under your foot, and use the same physical motion with your foot employed as in step #1 above,  Observe the results  - no damage to the robust  Neutrik Ethercon XLR connector, making the Line6 Gear far far more road worthy that Roland gear.

Its that simple. Its these basic fragile elements to the Roland GK User experience, that negates its use by many major artists when on the road.





Elantric:  How about:

Roland 13-pin connector to Neutrik adapter with Neutrik cable then on the other end the adapter switches back to a Roland 13-pin?  It would be doable, no?  Maybe more complicated than I think just thinking about it.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: aliensporebomb on October 05, 2011, 07:36:59 PM
Quote from: gumtown on October 05, 2011, 07:23:36 PM
1) Either wireless, or use of a standard 6.5mm jack.

2) A GR/VG unit that can detect a GK or normal guitar plugeed into it, if normal - mono modeling + effects only, if GK compatable is sensed, provide 12 volt DC supply and a multiplexed bi-directional signal to the guitar on the same standard TS 6.5mm plug/cable.

3) Make drop-in replacement bridge pickup for strat or LP which operates as a combined normal PU plus a hex PU, and still looks like the guitar's original single coil or P90.
Same for the knobs and PU switches, after market 'dual purpose' 3 or 5 way selector which does the normal PU plus position data to the controller.

I am sure it is the specialised 13pin cable and the black cancerous growth on the guitar that is 'off putting' to 'traditional guitarists'.
I am also surprised that Roland haven't invested in polyphonic pitch analysis from a mono composite signal, such as seen in computer based software (TS-Audio2Midi) which as of 7 years ago worked very well, no need for a GK guitar at all.

The "wart", as I like to call it - if we must be forced to use the 13-pin setup why not set up a series of service centers to do GK-KIT internal installs since I don't really want to try such a complicated procedure myself and I'd rather pay someone who knows what they're doing unlike myself who would just try to convert the external GK3 to an internal in a failure ridden explosion probably.

But yeah, since the FC-300 uses an ethernet connection why couldn't the GR and VG products?  Even maybe doing some kind of 13-pin adapter on the GR/VG end to a "more convenient form factor cable" then converting back on the guitar end.

It's not ideal but I only have one 13-pin cable and it's amazing how much I've been gigging with the VG99.  I guard the cable like it's the most expensive part of the
setup short of the VG itself.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: mooncaine on October 05, 2011, 08:20:19 PM
Good discussion and good ideas. :)
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: acousticglue on October 06, 2011, 04:43:40 AM
Yes specialized 1/4" cable that goes to device and receives at the 13 pin (receptor) so the device (VG99) does not have to be modded and guitar does not have to be modded.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Gastric on October 06, 2011, 05:03:51 AM
The biggest hurdle is the cost. All of the related GK gear simply costs way more than the average musician can afford in one lump sum. Most musicians I meet are broke.

Beyond that installing and setting up the friggin' pickup is head bangingly difficult. Stickers and spacers to adjust height of the pickup? Insane! And insanely difficult! Drilling holes in my guitar? Insane! But 2 screws and 2 springs are so much easier to adjust. And then there's the string spacing and individual string height adjustments, or lack thereof. The whole thing is INSANE! They need to spend some time engineering the hardware in a more robust, and yet more easy-to-install package. And shrink the controller somehow as it's so huge it's hard to install on some instruments, namely just about every bass guitar in the world other than a Jazz bodied bass.

Really the entire GK pickup/controller/cable from a hardware perspective is INSANE. That's the biggest turn off.  Note I have 2 basses and 1 guitar with the GK pickup so it's not like I can't do it or it's impossible. But it's challenging and time consuming and I feel pretty handy/technical. An average user simply won't try.

And this is all before you even get to plug it into the unit and start trying to setup the GK parameters in the GR unit. :) INSANE!
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: tekrytor on October 06, 2011, 07:18:54 AM
Great discussion, and tip my hat to mooncain, another old timer in the GR landscape.

Just wanted to add that the14th conductor on the 13-pin cable is the shield, and my Variax cable is now flat and useless. I stomped it a little to hard I guess. Damn python boots!
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: mbenigni on October 06, 2011, 08:46:43 AM
My god, wireless GK would make me SO happy.   :o  It's a costly proposition though, encoding 7 audio signals + control signals into one broadcast signal.  Then receiving and decoding at the GR/VG/whatever.

Going analog wireless you'd run into compression/fidelity concerns, going digital would mean moving lots of A/D to the guitar (an external beltpack-type transmitter would kill much of the appeal) which would be a killer on whatever battery solution you arrive at.  And these days a rechargable onboard battery is a must, which in itself is pretty costly.  Then there's all the mechanical engineering in figuring out a modular solution for an external kit, a reasonably approachable DIY solution for an internal kit...

Expensive to engineer, expensive to manufacture.  It would be more appealing for sure, but the resulting price would probably result in fewer sales.  I'd buy it!  (Probably sell everything else to pay for it.)

(You can probably guess by my rambling here that I've considered trying to tackle this problem myself.  It's way beyond me, is what I concluded.)
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: mbenigni on October 06, 2011, 11:49:42 AM
QuoteI am also surprised that Roland haven't invested in polyphonic pitch analysis from a mono composite signal, such as seen in computer based software (TS-Audio2Midi) which as of 7 years ago worked very well, no need for a GK guitar at all.
I've said the same thing!  PC's with general purpose audio interfaces were doing this years ago; surely if a veteran company like Roland paired a purpose-built preamp with filtering with a fast embedded system optimized for code like this, they could get the job done quite well and offer a cheap, accessible solution. A stompbox with a guitar in, a guitar thru, and a MIDI out.  Maybe throw an expression pedal on it for good measure.

And WIDI works even better than TSAudio!  http://www.widisoft.com/english/widi-audio-to-midi-vst.html (http://www.widisoft.com/english/widi-audio-to-midi-vst.html)   It doesn't do multitrack analysis based on different timbres the way TS-Audio can (a pretty amazing feat) but it's fast enough to use in real time.  For a while I was using it to track MIDI from my analog guitar signal.  Because it was all one signal, I could get guitar audio + MIDI over wireless.  I had a guitar bug transmitter, and a tiny wireless receiver velcro'd to a laptop with an Echo Indigo IO, running Ableton Live, Guitar Rig, and various softsynths.  We're talking about a rig that could theoretically do anything - amps, effects, synths, backing tracks, looping ... even recording and post-production - and it weighed a couple pounds and could be run completely wirelessly, save for headphones or your runs to a PA.

More than anything it's kind of a cool parlour trick, to make your friends go "How are you doing that??".  I should get it set it up again; I still have all the parts.  But of course WIDI doesn't track anywhere near as well as a hex solution - good for slow pads and backing strings where you don't mind the stray 5th or octave, not too good for anything more precise.  And obviously you're not going to replace guitar modeling, alternate tunings, etc. with a solution like this.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: datsunrobbie on October 06, 2011, 01:27:27 PM
I definitely agree with Elantric on the durability issue. The flimsy 13-pin connector has always been a concern. Lack of installers is another big issue. Most of the players I know won't even attempt their own setups on a "normal" strat, so the thought of setting up even an an external GK stops them cold. But if you really want to see more success for GK-equipped gear somebody famous is going to have to use it and make a big deal about it, like Clapton/Hendrix/Dale with the Stratocaster or Clapton/Page/Slash with the Les Paul. I've had my old G-707 hanging up on the wall for nearly 10 years, and my daughter (almost 15) never took note of it until she saw one in a music video on Disney channel last week. Suddenly it's the coolest of all the guitars in the studio, and she has no idea it's a synth controller  :P
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Gastric on October 06, 2011, 03:10:26 PM
Going beyond the hardware. How about doing everything LINE6 does regarding supporting their user community?

* Providing a company hosted online community for questions, support, chat, etc.?
* Providing software editors for their products?
* Providing easy upload/download/search for factory, artist, and user patches for their products?
* E.G., all the things to make using the products so much easier.

When I meet non-technical guitarists that want multieffects I always steer them towards LINE6 products as they're typically much easier to use and program thanks to the editors. Not that Gumtown's editors are bad, they're excellent. But Gumtown shouldn't even need to be spending hundreds/thousands of man hours programming them.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: drbill on October 06, 2011, 06:43:37 PM
Quote from: Gastric on October 06, 2011, 03:10:26 PM
Going beyond the hardware. How about doing everything LINE6 does regarding supporting their user community?

* Providing a company hosted online community for questions, support, chat, etc.?
* Providing software editors for their products?
* Providing easy upload/download/search for factory, artist, and user patches for their products?
* E.G., all the things to make using the products so much easier.

When I meet non-technical guitarists that want multieffects I always steer them towards LINE6 products as they're typically much easier to use and program thanks to the editors. Not that Gumtown's editors are bad, they're excellent. But Gumtown shouldn't even need to be spending hundreds/thousands of man hours programming them.


All so true. There are even actual Line6 employees answering questions and following up on problems in the forums -- not to say that the guys here are not amazingly friendly and helpful. Roland basically throws the products over the wall and walks away.

Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: aliensporebomb on October 06, 2011, 06:58:19 PM
Definetely.  And with more and more companies using social media to stay connected with their users and building customer bases (heck, Steve Jobs even personally answered emails from customers if you emailed him) the "Big R" folks tend to stay somewhat remote and disconnected from their user bases - there are some signs of communication here and there (twitter in particular) but really Roland in the UK is more connected than US and who knows about Japan?  After what BillR said about "don't even try to contact Roland Japan, it will just make it worse". 

Yeah, great customer service attitude there.  Great products but leaving bugs unsolved as "unproven" or the like doesn't help the user base.  Look at Fractal - users report a bug and it's fixed that afternoon.  Frequent updates, etc.  I'm preaching to the choir, I know.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Macciza on October 06, 2011, 07:52:10 PM
Hi All
I must admit I don't have too much of an issue with the 13pin connector - it is a somewhat necessary evil. It has greater pro's than cons
The only better system I have seen was the Passac Sentient Six - which used TRS connectors and mux'd the piezo outputs but this required replacing your tremolo with a Kahler unit with builtin electronics. The system did work very well unless you left the cable at home - no-one else would have a stereo guitar lead . . . .

As to the install comments - I don't buy it - it is pretty simple to install and setup; and could easily been done by any half-decent guitar tech imho. Or you can buy guitars with it builtin so I do not see the problem here either.

From the limited exposure I have had to Line6 gear I have never been as impressed as the Roland stuff - To me, lot's of updates suggests a half-baked initial release that needs fixing. And this 'HD' stuff?? I can't find anything to explain the 'HD' claim - it's advertising MumboJumbo to make you think it's better than other presumably SD stuff . . .
Oh and all there claims about 'inventing' amp modelling and being first with guitar modelling really shits me, particularly when the punters start repeating it.
The Ethernet connector on Variax is sending mono digital audio from the guitar not polyphonic. 
The WIDI system seems very poor after a quick look at it and could never provide the sort of info that individual pickups gives.

I love the fact that the Roland gear is far more complex than the others - it does not need to be 'easier to use' imho . . .
If you want a guitar multi-effects get a GT10 or similar , if you want futuristic options the VG99 is the only way to go.

Just my opinion . .
MM



Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: mbenigni on October 07, 2011, 08:14:32 AM
Quote from: Gastric on October 06, 2011, 03:10:26 PM
Going beyond the hardware. How about doing everything LINE6 does regarding supporting their user community?

* Providing a company hosted online community for questions, support, chat, etc.?
* Providing software editors for their products?
* Providing easy upload/download/search for factory, artist, and user patches for their products?
* E.G., all the things to make using the products so much easier.

When I meet non-technical guitarists that want multieffects I always steer them towards LINE6 products as they're typically much easier to use and program thanks to the editors. Not that Gumtown's editors are bad, they're excellent. But Gumtown shouldn't even need to be spending hundreds/thousands of man hours programming them.

All good points.

While Roland has done a lot of great work in modeling guitars, amps, and effects, the one cue they haven't taken from Line 6 is how to "model" guitar-playing culture.  They tend to pitch their gear as if they were sterile computing devices, whereas Line 6 knows how to spin things so they are in context with a guitarist's experiences, e.g. vintage gear, etc.

Roland's anachronistic user interfaces and reluctance to provide modern accomodations like PC/Mac editing software, etc. is all an extension of this problem IMO.  "Throwing the products over the wall", as drbill puts it, sums it up pretty nicely.  It's like they don't quite know who we are.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: vanceg on October 09, 2011, 05:55:17 AM
I absolutely agree that the 13 pin standard is silly. I'd much rather see an RJ-45 connector or a 1/4" connector.

I absolutely DISagree that installing a GK pickup is difficult or cumbersome. 1000% disagree.  I mean, I hear people say that it's a pain to set the 13 pin pickup at the right height and angle because they are using the plastic spacers to adjust the height of the pickup. Why not drill into your guitar and put the GK pickup on screws with springs under it?  These are included in the install kit?  Oh, you don't want to drill into your guitar?  Well - Frankly - Too friggin bad!  I mean, to me this is like saying "I had to COMPLETELY RUIN my strat because I  had to ROUTE A HOLE IN MY GUITAR to put the magnetic pickup in it".  Nobody would ever say that.  If you feel like the 13 pin pickup is part of your instrument - then MAKE it part of your instrument. Dont plan on ever taking it off. If you want to add any part to your guitar, and want it to be reversible, then you have to use some temporary affixing technique, and these will be less sturdy than something you plan to attach forever. How is this a surprise or disappointment to anyone?

So what we are REALLY saying is - How do we add hex capabilities to guitars whithout altering the guitar at all, so that people can remove them later.  I'd say we should be encouraging people to have hex pickups as permanent installations. 

Then there is the string spacing issue - this is a tough one - we simply need more types of hex pickups to be available on the market.  THere are several humbucker sized hex pickups available on the market but most of these cannot be mounted close enough to the bridge and suffer from crosstalk and loosing signal strength when strings are bent.  That's problematic.  So I do really approve of the little GK sized pickups in that they can be mounted so close to the bridge. Perhaps there needs to be a GK3 that has adjustable pole positions.  I can imagine that this is possible.  Or perhaps just several string spacing sizes....

Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: guitarhelper on October 09, 2011, 06:25:02 AM
wireless based on gk/13 pin(?)maybe at Namm 2012
András Szalay: Diamonds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WCIXxU-mr8#)

by the inventor of the Axon

USB???Why Not?

Brian
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: aliensporebomb on October 09, 2011, 07:48:34 PM
Quote from: vanceg on October 09, 2011, 05:55:17 AM
I absolutely agree that the 13 pin standard is silly. I'd much rather see an RJ-45 connector or a 1/4" connector.

I absolutely DISagree that installing a GK pickup is difficult or cumbersome. 1000% disagree.  I mean, I hear people say that it's a pain to set the 13 pin pickup at the right height and angle because they are using the plastic spacers to adjust the height of the pickup. Why not drill into your guitar and put the GK pickup on screws with springs under it?  These are included in the install kit?  Oh, you don't want to drill into your guitar?  Well - Frankly - Too friggin bad!  I mean, to me this is like saying "I had to COMPLETELY RUIN my strat because I  had to ROUTE A HOLE IN MY GUITAR to put the magnetic pickup in it".  Nobody would ever say that.  If you feel like the 13 pin pickup is part of your instrument - then MAKE it part of your instrument. Dont plan on ever taking it off. If you want to add any part to your guitar, and want it to be reversible, then you have to use some temporary affixing technique, and these will be less sturdy than something you plan to attach forever. How is this a surprise or disappointment to anyone?

So what we are REALLY saying is - How do we add hex capabilities to guitars whithout altering the guitar at all, so that people can remove them later.  I'd say we should be encouraging people to have hex pickups as permanent installations. 

Then there is the string spacing issue - this is a tough one - we simply need more types of hex pickups to be available on the market.  THere are several humbucker sized hex pickups available on the market but most of these cannot be mounted close enough to the bridge and suffer from crosstalk and loosing signal strength when strings are bent.  That's problematic.  So I do really approve of the little GK sized pickups in that they can be mounted so close to the bridge. Perhaps there needs to be a GK3 that has adjustable pole positions.  I can imagine that this is possible.  Or perhaps just several string spacing sizes....

I don't have a problem mounting a GK3 to any of my guitars.  What I do have a problem with is removing the GK3 guts and trying to turn it into a GK internal type setup.  I have no backups and I gig too frequently to find out that two hours before a gig I've wrecked a working GK3 and turned it into a non-working GK3.

I'd love to make my GK3 an internal mounted setup on my strat - that's a setup I could live with. 

I never did manage to find a Roland Ready strat locally so I ended up with a Strat with GK3 - that's just my dumb luck.  No matter though.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: gumtown on October 09, 2011, 08:54:50 PM
Quote from: aliensporebomb on October 09, 2011, 07:48:34 PM
I don't have a problem mounting a GK3 to any of my guitars.  What I do have a problem with is removing the GK3 guts and trying to turn it into a GK internal type setup.  I have no backups and I gig too frequently to find out that two hours before a gig I've wrecked a working GK3 and turned it into a non-working GK3.

I'd love to make my GK3 an internal mounted setup on my strat - that's a setup I could live with. 

I never did manage to find a Roland Ready strat locally so I ended up with a Strat with GK3 - that's just my dumb luck.  No matter though.
Perhaps the Internal GK-3 Kit might be better??
http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.php?ProductId=235 (http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.php?ProductId=235)
(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dv247.com%2Fassets%2Fproducts%2F35535_l.jpg&hash=350c0ec42fb32c07bb48882e641ed6f7aae34c19)

And as with normal gigging guitar setups, it is always good to have a spare guitar and lead on hand too.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Rorster on October 10, 2011, 06:26:40 PM
I've got a Fender power Tele that came with a fishman bridge. Soon after, I switched to a graphtech set up because the piezos on the Fishman were unreliable. They shorted out due to moisture (So says the guys at Graphtech). Needless to say the new setup worked good. Years later I then tried adding the Hexpander and couldn't get it right even though a guitar tech was doing the work. Finally I myself had to remove the acoustiphonic as it sounded like crap even though they were a newly updated boards from Graphtech and I tried a couple of different ones that they sent me. Their stuff is not usually unreliable and is just basically plug and play.  I'm wondering if another guitar tech did something with the mag pickup wiring I had done around the same time.  I got the Hexpander working but the 13 pin jack has a really poor connection where you plug in the 13 pin cable. And when I spoke with Morgan at Graphtech he in as much stated that their 13 pin jacks were not the same ones that my Godin uses (Nice and tight click) . He said that they buy their's from their own distributor and that they don't lock the same way that the Godins do. I now enjoy the GK3 I installed on a Korean made PRS and would like to install an internal GK3 on the tele (and maybe restore if possible the acoustiphonic parts as well if I can find out what it's problem is).  Since the Tele has been modified with the small switches that came with Graphtechs gear, I wonder if the internal GK3 can be easily connected to the small up/down switches I already have on the guitar as well as the MIDI volume that came with my Hexpander...? Does anyone have experience connecting these switches and volume pot/Graphtech components with an internal GK3? This is a project I'd like to resolve once and for all! Thanks for any advice/suggestions.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: gumbo on October 11, 2011, 02:40:05 AM
Hi Rorster..

In my own experience, connecting the GK3 Internal kit bits to your switches and pot should not be that much of a drama...I have attached the GK3 Owners Manual for you to look at.....connections to these items are by soldered tails in the standard Internal Kit Installation anyway.

Be aware however, that the 13-pin socket that comes with the kit involves a LOT of wood removal from the edge of a Tele body (mine's a 72 Custom RI) in order to clear both the 'body' of the socket AND the PCB under it...I chose in my case to take out a ton of wood and cover it all with a custom-made jack plate which contains both the 13-pin and a normal 1/4" jack  (pic attached).

I was also 'lucky' that I was using the Custom which already had significant routing in the general area to accommodate the LP-pattern pots layout...in a standard Tele layout, that might (?) prove a little more difficult.....   bear also in mind that you have to work out how to get enough room to connect the TWO multiplugs that go onto the trailing edge of the PCB to connect with the Roland main board.

WARNING:  Shameless Self-Promotion follows:-

Because I am doing some other weird stuff as well as learning a few lessons along the way with the Custom, I decided that I could 'improve' a few things...well, here & there, anyway...

I am presently in production of (what I believe to be!) a far more easily installed 13-pin socket that will lessen the need to take to one's axe with a chainsaw in order to get it where it's needed.  This will also include a positive locking function when used in conjunction with the appropriate 13-pin plug.

The item will hopefully go on sale before the end of this year and will NOT be massively expensive....it will include solder connections that can be modified to suit a wide range of applications, and will open up greater possibilities for people wishing to modify stuff and / or marry-up dis-similar Synth/Midi equipment.

Watch this space..field trials are beginning!!!   :o


HT  (& the pics) H

Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: datsunrobbie on October 11, 2011, 10:18:06 AM
I'll be looking forward to seeing your new 13-pin jack. The amount of routing required to mount the 13-pin in the GK-kit is certainly intimidating. On my strats I started with a drill, then just kept expanding the hole with a dremel tool until the assembly fit through the hole. All it takes is time and patience (and a dremel tool) once you commit to actually doing the installation, but be prepared to route out a LOT more wood than it looks like when starting  :o
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: mbenigni on October 12, 2011, 06:57:21 AM
Quotewireless based on gk/13 pin(?)maybe at Namm 2012

Hey, guitarhelper.  I've seen that device before, and while it is definitely cool (I'll be watching out for it), I'm pretty sure it's just wireless MIDI + wireless audio.  This isn't the same animal as wireless GK, where you have 6 distinct audio signals, MIDI, and some proprietary control signals.  Granted, wireless MIDI + audio will get you 90% of the same functionality, but it won't allow for alternate tunings, guitar modeling, etc. and obviously it won't allow for compatibility with existing GK products.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on October 12, 2011, 08:21:14 AM
Mr Andras Szalay posts progress on this new Fishman Wireless MIDI Guitar device on the Yahoo MIDI Guitar group. Most recent version was sending MIDI only to a wireless USB dongle that must be used with a Windows PC. No audio

More here
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3444.0 (https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3444.0)
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Bill Ruppert on October 12, 2011, 09:01:41 AM
What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?

Getting it down a 1/4 cable!
Thats what keeps it from being jumped on in my honest opinion.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on October 12, 2011, 09:56:23 AM
QuoteWhat would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?

Getting it down a 1/4 cable!
Thats what keeps it from being jumped on in my honest opinion.


Yes the Gibson Dark Fire does this, as did the 1986 Shadow/Takamine/Ovation GT6  - but at the end of the day the tradeoff is a battle of taming the residual crosstalk. (its horrendous on the Dark Fire) Although in the case of Dark Fire this crosstalk is possibly due more to mechanical coupling of adjacent piezo saddles in the bridge, as opposed to the analog Mux/Demux circuit sending 8 discreet audio channels down the ring of a 1/4" TRS  cable.

Here's an example of a typical 4 channel PAM(Pulse Amplitude Modulation)  Analog Mux / demux circuit - (similar to the type used in Shadow & Dark Fire)

(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi412.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fpp208%2Felantric%2FPicture22.png&hash=a7d0af43da8f91da7ad02b8f3b5f5312f2c4cd6c)

   
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Bill Ruppert on October 12, 2011, 10:54:09 AM
That would do it built into a GK-3!
But more important how did the audio sound??
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on October 12, 2011, 11:26:04 AM
QuoteThat would do it built into a GK-3!
But more important how did the audio sound??

I have thought about designing this PAM mux into a GK-3 replacement with a small box at the other end to provide a tru 13 pin output.

The nature of a PAM mux /demux process renders reduced bandwidth audio - about 20hz to 8khz freq. response - adequate for guitar and feeding VG-99 / GR-55. 
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Bill Ruppert on October 12, 2011, 12:32:42 PM
I dont like the 8k.
Might not be a lot up beyond that but there is some.
I would pass.

QuoteThe nature of a PAM mux /demux process renders reduced bandwidth audio - about 20hz to 8khz freq. response - adequate for guitar and feeding VG-99 / GR-55.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: A2theT on October 12, 2011, 12:47:53 PM
What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?

two things:

1) Wireless.  skip the 1/4" cable aka the middleman.
2) Wider selection of manufacturers of 13-pin guitars.  (I like to play rock/metal mostly and Ibanez but they no longer make a GK model. Either does ESP or Jackson.)

So unless these guys turn one out I will probably never purchase a 13-pin guitar but rather continue installing gk-kits which is unappealing for 99% of the guitar playing population due to cost and or tools/skillset required to install.

Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Rorster on October 12, 2011, 07:23:15 PM
Thanks for your input Gumbo. My tele already has Graphtechs 13 pin jack and their Hexpander board installed plus a separate 1/4" jack as well as holes, knobs and switches already drilled. So I don't think space will be my problem. I have a new 13 pin jack  (from graphtech) that I intended to put in one day and see if the first one was somehow defective but haven't done it yet. The best actual connection setup for an internal GK3 will then likely reveal itself to me when I'm actually looking at the equipment... Also, I too would be interested in any improvement in the quality of these jacks as I'm sure most on this site would also. I'm looking forward to your progress. Good luck.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: kenact on October 12, 2011, 08:02:27 PM
Quote from: Elantric on October 12, 2011, 11:26:04 AMThe nature of a PAM mux /demux process renders reduced bandwidth audio - about 20hz to 8khz freq. response - adequate for guitar and feeding VG-99 / GR-55.

Elantric, I'm not an electrical engineer, so if I'm misinterpreting the problem, please forgive me. What is the overall bandwidth of the PAM mux/demux? On a 6 string, I would think it would have to be around 8khz x 6, since you're trying to multiplex 6 singles.  You also need a control signal which would need it's own bandwidth allocation. I'm just wondering if cctv technology might not provide better bandwidth over a coax cable, knowing that the cable spec is different. If I recall correctly, cctv had a bandwidth of 495mhz back in the 1980's, which was multiplexed to carry numerous cable tv channels.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: gumtown on October 12, 2011, 08:21:20 PM
Analog stacked wideband channels would be ideal, but the hardware needed to mux/demux would be enormous,
then the next best option would be 8 x PCM analog/digital channel converters (6 x hex + normal PU + data supervisory for knobs & buttons which is acutually 7 + data) to serial data.
Then a high pass/low pass filter for the standard guitar jack cable to mix PCM data with a DC power supply all on the same coaxial cable = Awesomeness  ;D.

Had one of those 13pin plug "moments" last night at practice, left the end of my GK cable laying on the floor and someone nearly stood on it.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Bill Ruppert on October 12, 2011, 08:50:56 PM
If I could have a nickel for ever time I thought I stepped on and smashed a GK cable I would be rich:-)

I want full band with 20 to 20 with a multiplexed signal down a twisted pair or 1/4 cable .
Its 2011 it should be here by now, don't you think
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on October 12, 2011, 09:03:49 PM
Latency of any analog multi A/D then D/A system as a " digital GK-13 cable"  will add approx 6 milliseconds latency before the signal hits the VG-99/ GR-55.  And will require a PC board the size of the Variax for the A/D side at the guitar.  Studies show that humans can not detect latencies below 15 milliseconds. But remember the GR-55 GTR To MIDI processing takes 30 milliseconds under the best conditions. Most folks will definitely " feel" any added latency.
Title: Re: Re: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Kevin M on October 12, 2011, 11:39:57 PM
Quote from: Bill Ruppert on October 12, 2011, 08:50:56 PM
If I could have a nickel for ever time I thought I stepped on and smashed a GK cable I would be rich:-)

I want full band with 20 to 20 with a multiplexed signal down a twisted pair or 1/4 cable .
Its 2011 it should be here by now, don't you think

I would love to see a real high-quality 13 pin cable.

Sent via mobile device
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: mooncaine on October 15, 2011, 06:36:30 PM
Quote from: Macciza on October 06, 2011, 07:52:10 PMAs to the install comments - I don't buy it - it is pretty simple to install and setup; and could easily been done by any half-decent guitar tech imho. Or you can buy guitars with it builtin so I do not see the problem here either.

Sure, it's not a challenge for Macciza--a master builder who moved the VG99's actual ribbon onto a guitar, fer cryin' out loud! I think I could handle an internal kit now, too, but not perfectly, not professionally well done.

The reason I say GK adoption should be easier is a business reason, though: overcome the obstacles that convince a player not to try it. I was thinking of an earlier convo on this board, that vanceg started, I think, about business ideas that could help Roland's GK product line be more profitable. I'm thinking of myself, frankly, because the more the GK stuff sells, the more likely it'll be there for me when I want more of it.

Macciza, vanceg, and others here on this group might be willing and very able to install a GK, but my point was about how to convince more players to choose a GK pickup (or something compatible with Roland GK gear).

To get those players, I think it needs to be easier to fit to their guitar. More string-spacing choices are an absolute must. Roland's got the double-stick tape idea going, and that's an absolute must, too. A smaller wart's a good idea.

It might not make sense to *us*, the gadget-loving pioneers with the arrows already in our backs, but for someone who's thinking, hmm, do I even want this?, the pickup system must be easy, must work with the player's existing guitar of choice, and should not require any modification (or as little as possible).

Personally, I *like* making holes in guitars, but I realize most folks don't, whether it makes sense or not. They like their guitars to look pretty (whereas I like them to look like a grubby old tool bench). I'm up for covering my guitar with tape. I'm not the guy they need to convince.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: gumbo on October 15, 2011, 07:08:43 PM
Unnerstood, Moonie...

...one of the reasons I'm pursuing my own brand of 13-pin surface-mount socket... 8)

While I see where you're coming from in your 'tool bench' comments, I believe there's also a middle ground that should be able to be achieved without too much heartache..

Although a number of us cringe at the 13-pin din, (and I DO include myself at times!) I agree that the more stuff is out there, the more likelihood exists that more (and extra!) solutions will be found...

...now I'll sit down with a nice cup of tea before my mind explodes with the next great idea.. :o
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on October 15, 2011, 07:43:37 PM
To replace the fragile 13pin DIN cable, I have thought of simply using a DisplayPort Cable as a new analog / digital interface to the Roland GK guitar, but run GK-3 analog signals + MIDI up to the guitar.
(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F41E05EIpOJL._SX385_.jpg&hash=ee0c029c255c992ad87669b5188ac55b2e929afd) 
(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2Ff%2Ff1%2FDisplayPort_Connector.svg%2F300px-DisplayPort_Connector.svg.png&hash=fa7a0868681d9b5d45fd22d391595e08d5ae9e85)

(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hillmanweb.com%2Fg707num.jpg&hash=bdd22487d3f8cbd6c31c1b4d1f413f90496a1e56)

Then I could use a new guitar mounted Ardiuno based stealth MIDI knob controller for more user control right on the guitar - rather like the old Roland 24 pin guitars.

(RARE-JIMMY-PAGE-OWNED-PLAYED-ROLAND-G-707-GUITAR-PROTOTYPE-SERIAL-SAMPLE-01 is available here: (http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-JIMMY-PAGE-OWNED-PLAYED-ROLAND-G-707-GUITAR-PROTOTYPE-SERIAL-SAMPLE-01-/280751462384?pt=Guitar&hash=item415e1757f0#ht_9714wt_847)
Full size DisplayPort cables are more robust than DIN13 cables, can be readily found in 25ft length. Perhaps have a DisplayPort  to DIN13 adapter at the GR-55 / VG-99 end. And a redesigned GK-3 "pod" at the guitar with more user controls.

Just  a dream for now.

The issue is the DisplayPort cable capacitance is designed for high speed data, and not analog audio. While it may not be ideal without  well designed active analog buffers, its really worth pursuing for my need for a more user friendly road worthy cable IMHO.

For example, the JamHub does OK using essentially a video DisplayPort type connection to its proprietary DisplayPort analog audio option adapters (SoleMix Remote) .
www.jamhub.com (http://www.jamhub.com)
(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.snapagogo.com%2Fuploads%2Fsource%2F1842014%2F1404486029_1904596057_ScreenShot20140704at7.59.21AM.png&hash=3780a96af58099acd3ad7dd4b64692c904869adc)

and DisplayPort cables are cheap
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: gumbo on October 15, 2011, 09:04:56 PM
Elantric...

FWIW...that HDMI -to- DIN13 adaptor is already on a drawing board near me...it's something I've been thinking about for some time...

...one of these days we need to compare dreams..    ;)
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on October 15, 2011, 09:15:27 PM
QuoteFWIW...that HDMI -to- DIN13 adaptor is already on a drawing board near me...it's something I've been thinking about for some time...

...one of these days we need to compare dreams..    ;)

Or simply create our own  GK Analog Display Port  Specification 1.0

Latching Display Port Cables at 25 ft lengths are available, but more expensive but perhaps a better choice for Live gigs. the cable ends will actually "Lock in place at the Guitar !

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-DisplayPort-Cable-Latches-DISPLPORT25L/dp/B00273QVO2 (http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-DisplayPort-Cable-Latches-DISPLPORT25L/dp/B00273QVO2)

and Display Port has the advantage of 20 pins

(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2Ff%2Ff1%2FDisplayPort_Connector.svg%2F300px-DisplayPort_Connector.svg.png&hash=fa7a0868681d9b5d45fd22d391595e08d5ae9e85)
We have over 4,000 people here now and we represent the largest user base of Roland GK gear, and Roland has been so damn slow in evolving and ineffective at bringing real change.

A more robust Guitar to VG-99 / GR-55 connection method is mandatory right now.

I feel its time we take control of our own collective destiny.

Id like to see all the existing 13 connections of the GK-3, plus at least one dedicated  Analog Ground Reference pin,  and a Digital Ground Reference pin, and 2 pins for MIDI + and MIDI -, or other bi-directional RS485 type interface. that leaves  spare pins for a  Variax AES/EBU connection too for future use.

At the GR-55/VG-99 destination side is where the "smart GK Analog DisplayPort breakout box goes, with output ports:

* GK-13 DIN 13 pin output: To feed Roland GK13 gear (VG-99, GR-55,etc)

* MIDI Output: To feed external MIDI controllable gear.


and finally have a real strat 5-way switch to control VG-99 COSM guitar selection , and virtual Volume and Tone controls  same as the Variax JTV-69 currently enjoys.


Building a prototype of the above will be added to my winter project list!


Perhaps down the road we could migrate to the full 8 channels of digital audio transport + control lines that the true HDMI specification supports, but as a startup product/protocol, that path has many penalties, restrictions, and expense.
* It becomes expensive (must join the HDMI.org and a yearly fee)
* A/D then D/A conversion at either side of the cable WILL ADD LATENCY THAT WE DO NOT NEED!)
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: aliensporebomb on October 15, 2011, 09:54:29 PM
The only concern is:  is there a licensing fee per cable for use of HDMI?  I do like the idea and the cables are more robust.

They're easily available.  Try this: it's 8 p.m., you're onstage at 9 sharp and your drunk lead singer took hedge clippers to your 13 pin cable - where do you get a 13-pin cable on short notice?

With HDMI - it's Best Buy to the rescue and a 20 foot HDMI cable and you're out the door and onstage by 9.  Phew!

Might it be possible create a 13-pin to HDMI connector and vice versa on the other end?  To retrofit an existing system?  An adapter box of some sort?

Another thought - wouldn't it be nice if there was a double-stick tape mountable hex pickup and a reduced/flattenened "wart" - there's no reason for it to be so darned tall. 

Half the height would be fine.  Reducing that even more would be better.   

I had a thought that the cable from the pickup to the wart could be disconnectable and the "wart" could attach to your guitar strap and you would access volume and preset up/down from just above where my straplok button goes.  Then if you wanted to just play normally without the GK system you didn't have to have the wart cluttering up the works.

The appeal: unobtrusive.

OR:  if you had a hex pickup or bridge with piezo pieces built into every guitar with a 13-pin or HDMI connector you could have a system that was
usable or not.  That was the beauty of my old Roland G-202 guitar - there were gigs I brought it to just to use it as a guitar because it was a good guitar.

There are times I just want to plug my regular guitar into a regular amp so the convertable aspect is appealing to me.

Look at Godin - they released a guitar that had a regular guitar out and then a USB out.  Gibson experimented with firewire and ethernet. 
Only problem with ethernet is that working in I.T. those little plastic tabs that keep the cable connected always break off after you use it enough times.

So yeah, HDMI would be a good idea.   Keep us posted.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on October 15, 2011, 10:02:14 PM
Upon reflection,

I strongly vote for the creation of a  "GK DisplayPort Cable Specification 1.0"

* 20 Pin LATCHING CABLE, that will not fallout!
(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.computercableinc.com%2Fccinc%2Fimages%2FConnectorFace-DisplayPort.jpg&hash=af0f429d92247b2a8592271c44ffc966cea2657a)

* Zero licensing fees and more robust Locking cable, and 20 pins+shield)
FWIW - The lack of requirement for annual licensing fees is the reason Apple, Dell, and Jamhub do not use HDMI.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on October 15, 2011, 10:12:11 PM
QuoteI had a thought that the cable from the pickup to the wart could be disconnectable and the "wart" could attach to your guitar strap and you would access volume and preset up/down from just above where my straplok button goes.  Then if you wanted to just play normally without the GK system you didn't have to have the wart cluttering up the works.

Indeed - this must be addressed and is a crucial requirement for external installations.

Perhaps use the GK-3 hex pickup, but add a quick disconnect connection to the removable "GK Displayport Pod" that would be smaller than the GK-3 control pod.

The Guitar must be able to easily fit in a hard shell case, and have a swift method of installing and removing the control pod!

Perhaps we "borrow" the design of quick release mounting clamp , and adapt that for the removable "control pod"?     
(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fh10003.www1.hp.com%2Fdigmedialib%2Fprodimg%2Flowres%2Fc00593757.jpg&hash=29843e68b12f6b8d31f5456235c16ac8f581d5c0)


Rather like the old "quick release" 1985 Roland GK-1
(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rivercityfm.com.au%2F%7Eclassifieds%2Fimages%2Fgk1.jpg&hash=90ab7b4897e2fcc646be441ab6d2d5640803fb55)
(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.joness.com%2Febay%2F2010%2FGK-05%2FGK-1_LRG_01.JPG&hash=f046d35b2bcc1ec3070a9973d8fa63f926c57fce)
(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.joness.com%2Fgr300%2Fpics%2FBC-13-CORD.jpg&hash=efa3fb84d25821a655e5a77c2d379fa40de87279)


But a small Strap Mounted Control Pod on the lower bout does sound very appealing too!
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: gumbo on October 16, 2011, 05:36:57 AM
Now we're talking...

I DO like where this is going.... :D

Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: FreeTime on October 16, 2011, 07:10:16 AM
A while ago I was looking for a new 13 pin cable in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, a city of 1.1 Million. There was not one music store that had a cable of any length in stock ( I had the whole day to just drive around and look ), they were all special order.

I'm not aware of walking in circles, but after a while of playing the cable gets all twisted.

On a sidenote, I'm all for getting rid of the cable/connector altogether and going with a multichannel (multiplexed ?) RF solution; with the rapidly evolving technologies of the last decade this is feasible and not outrageously expensive.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: cynegetic on October 16, 2011, 08:07:35 AM
While fine for a digital signal, would those cables be able to handle analog cleanly?
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on October 16, 2011, 08:57:27 AM
True, the cable capacitance is designed for high speed data, and not analog audio.

I anticipate this will require some R&D,and well designed active analog drive buffers. You will NOT be able to feed a passive high -Z guitar signal with this cable.
But the goal is really worth pursuing for my need for a more user friendly road worthy cable IMHO.


Multichannel wireless, and LOW latency, and affordable   - that solution may be around the corner, but I do not have the capital or time to create that path.

I'm aware  of the emerging technology. perhaps Wireless Ethernet AVB in 2014.

Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: mooncaine on October 17, 2011, 10:56:43 PM
I'd favor a smaller connector. An HDMI connector seems alright to me. I don't know if it should be locking, or not.

Which is worse? Cable yanks out and your guitar goes quiet, or cable hangs on and a) you pull your VG-99 crashing to the the floor or b) your cable pulls you crashing to the floor?

Yeah, wireless would be ideal in that sense: no cable worries at all. But is it cheap, easy? Very small? I think the GK wart could be shrunk so small you can get it onto the face of your guitar, down among the rest of the guitar's knobs and switches, without it ever being in your way.

My ideal wart would just be a hub: you plug in your GK pickup here, your outgoing cable there, it's one a single knob on it *that you can replace with a knob that matches your guitar*, and it has input jacks round the edges for options: a pickup selector switch, a knob or two, or a pair of push-buttons. Mine would have pressure-sensitive pads for those (gonna wire up my own this winter). Others might want a flat-mounted, digital whammy bar. Buy the ones you want, ignore the rest. Fit it onto *your* chosen guitar, fit it where it suits you best. Hide it under chrome dome knobs or a stock strat pickup selector.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: drjoness2001 on October 18, 2011, 12:41:30 AM
I would like to see a divided hex pickup that looks, and works, like a standard pickup, similar to the Sound Garage design. You could drop the pickup in a standard humbucking slot. Then, either using some kind of backwards compatible trs guitar cable, or bluetooth wireless, etc. the signal would go to the synth.

This system would be easy to install, and maintain conventional appearance.

But, more than anything else, if there was a way to make the tracking flawless, that would 10x current sales.

Wayne
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: gumbo on October 18, 2011, 04:02:54 AM
I'm loving this thread!!!!    ;D
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: 3Play on December 26, 2011, 07:58:32 AM
I followed this thread over from the thread about wireless MIDI.
[url]https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3444.msg34060#msg34060/url]
Thanks Elantric!

My two cents about HDMI:
1. The connector isn't particularly robust and it's prone to falling out, so a good strain relief would be in order.

2. It's been a while since I looked at the spec, but intrinsically, audio is compromised by being relegated to stealing clock cycles from the video stream. So (I'm just blue-skying, here) if one is thinking of converting the mag signals to digital at the guitar and sending dig audio into a modeler via HDMI, there's a price to pay. Some may notice, some may not.

HDMI does offer advantages, but it seem that there's so little data to send when sending MIDI, that it seems like overkill, and HDMI won't really ever support analog. I seems the same amount of time could be spent on a wireless solution, with a better result - Wireless MIDI and standard guitar cable.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on December 26, 2011, 10:56:38 AM
Supposedly at NAMM show next month Fishman will debut its wireless guitar to MIDI adapter.

Reread the top of this thread, will reveal the plan was send analog signals down a locking DisplayPort cable.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: acousticglue on December 27, 2011, 04:02:11 AM
I was asking Amplitube folks (I have both the VG99 and Amp3) why they couldn't get the midi calls from Amp3 to software synths and pull that information. Would be cool to use 1/4" cable and the Amp3 module chain to synth access in computer.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: kenact on February 10, 2012, 05:54:08 AM
I was just reading about an older guitar/midi technology from a company called Passac.  They sold both guitars and an outboard controller called a Sentient Six.

It seems they had an onboard multiplexer that sent all signals through a single 1/4" stereo cable.  From what I've read, the mag pup was sent down the tip and the hex pup was multiplexed and sent down the ring.  The company also claimed to have figured out a way to do pitch analysis with just a half cycle of the waveform (6ms on low E).
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Macciza on February 10, 2012, 07:00:33 AM
Hi
Yeah the Passac Sentient Six was an Aussie invention and were/are pretty novel compared to most other systems
You needed to use a special Passac/Kahler bridge that had the electronics on it -surface-mount mostly.
And yep - stereo cable setup as you thought so a standard cable gave standard guitar only.

It used piezos arranged so they would detect direction of picking, which was pretty good
Onboard midi sequencer that you could record to and loop as well from memory

Quite a good system even for this day an age it has some unique features
I'll have to have a serious re-look at mine and see if theres any life left in it....

Cheers
MM
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on February 10, 2012, 07:17:06 AM
Sending all the signals down one TRS 1/4" cable method was also employed by Shadow, who OEMed the technology to Charvel and Ovation back in the 1980's for their short lived MIDi Guitars.

The circuit is known as an analog Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) multiplexer.

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=2485.msg14389#msg14389 (https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=2485.msg14389#msg14389)



Same type technique was used recently by Gibson with the Tronical / Echo Audio designed Dark Fire / Dusk Tiger.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: ecca on February 10, 2012, 08:38:46 AM
I happily drilled holes in my strat to mount the GK3 pick-up.
It's only a new scratchplate after all.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: ecca on February 10, 2012, 08:47:30 AM
Anyone considered a fibre optic cable ? ::)
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: kenact on February 11, 2012, 07:07:13 AM
Quote from: ecca on February 10, 2012, 08:47:30 AM
Anyone considered a fibre optic cable ? ::)
It's capable of a lot more bandwidth, for sure, but the fiber has a tendency to be more brittle.  IMHO, the way I've seen many musicians, myself included at times, treat their cables, a fiber optic cable wouldn't last long with many players.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: kenact on February 15, 2012, 07:44:42 AM
Quote from: Macciza on February 10, 2012, 07:00:33 AM
Yeah the Passac Sentient Six was an Aussie invention and were/are pretty novel compared to most other systems

Hi Macciza,

Sorry I missed your earlier post.  What I was trying to get at was an earlier comment that multiplexing the signal would take too much hardware to be practical.  It seems Passac was able to overcome that problem over 20 years ago.

It looks like Applied Research & Technology owns those patents now, but it doesn't look like they're doing anything with them.

It would be interesting to see what could be done with that technology today.

Ken
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Sedgewick on February 15, 2012, 02:15:36 PM
I believe that a 20 year old patent is now public domain.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: kenact on February 15, 2012, 06:39:36 PM
Quote from: Sedgewick on February 15, 2012, 02:15:36 PM
I believe that a 20 year old patent is now public domain.

In that case, does anyone know where to locate a schematic?  :)
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: alanw57 on June 30, 2014, 05:00:23 AM
I install the GK pickup 'internally' after re-wiring it so it can be mounted 'upside-down' (so that the the 'Roland' bit doesn't interfere with your right hand).  The 13 pin GK socket isn't very robust and I often replace it with a circular multiway screw connector.  More details at telemods.co.uk
Al
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Frankster on October 21, 2014, 06:09:25 AM
Echoing what others have said, the GK hardware is too flimsy to be "roadworthy", too expensive and requires too much modification to the guitar to fit an internal GK pickup. The thing that really annoys me is the price of the GK cable, asking a musician to shell out £30 to connect a guitar to a processor is a little too much and the US-20 switch box is ludicrously overpriced for the amount of simple electronics it contains. To my mind, that's what's killing the GK and V-guitar in general.

Improvements?   Here's a few just off the top of my head.

Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: mbenigni on October 21, 2014, 06:37:44 AM
QuoteThe thing that really annoys me is the price of the GK cable, asking a musician to shell out £30 to connect a guitar to a processor is a little too much

+10000000

Cost of cables and connectors is always the last thing I consider, but all told it's probably what I've spent most of my money on over the years.  Cost (and scarcity) of GK cables is a serious road block, and it's the real reason I don't use my GR55 much anymore.  Basically any time a problem creeps up, even if I suspect it's "just the cable", I've got a $60 trial-and-error proposition ahead of me to confirm as much.  And if I do, I have to plan on spending twice that (accounting for a backup cable) before I'm comfortable taking the rig live.  It's a lot easier to just shrug and gig something else that week... and then a year gets by you.

Roland needs to find a standard cable/connector solution that meets their requirements, so that customers can benefit from competition and economies of scale.  I don't mind paying Roland a premium for a good processor, but there is a limit to what I'll pay for cables - especially if they are prone to failure.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Jim Williams on October 21, 2014, 10:51:03 AM
Here is a thought for this topic....... think Bluetooth. and think about iOS apps for the gear. My iPad would be great for synths if only the Roland Gear I have could have a USB or Bluetooth conection to my iPad. I think Blutooth would be the best idea for the next generation of Roland gear.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on October 21, 2014, 10:53:55 AM
QuoteI think Blutooth would be the best idea for the next generation of Roland gear.

Bluetooth is Not the best low latency wireless platform by a long shot  - based on my direct experience
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=7019.msg71989#msg71989 (https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=7019.msg71989#msg71989)


Using Bluetooth for live instruments on stage remains in the "not recommended" methods of connections.

Using a pair of these with any Guitar processor with

Avantree Saturn #1 set as BlueTooth  / APT-X Transmitter
and
Avantree Saturn #2 set as BlueTooth  / APT-X Receiver

Yields about 150 milliseconds audio delay latency = unacceptable for my needs.

The best Bluetooth wireless tech today (Dec 2013) is Bluetooth 4.0 / Low Energy Transmitter feeding a Bluetooth 4.0 / Low Energy Receiver
(like an IK Multimedia iLoud
or
Avantree Avantree Cara Bluetooth 4.0
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AEJJRBK/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AEJJRBK/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

- but using this with my 2013 iPad Air and using a synth app as a test, this is still 80 milliseconds audio delay latency!

And explains when you read the IK MultiMedia iLoud Owners Manual, they DO NOT recommend using BlueTooth for live music performance. 

Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: concordal on October 21, 2014, 11:40:33 AM
Bluetooth might not be practical, but Jim Williams has the right idea. 

How about WiFi?  By example here's an audio product that acts as a WiFi hot spot -- it transmits audio with almost no latency:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L26YDA4?ref_=pe_527950_33920290 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L26YDA4?ref_=pe_527950_33920290)

And it's inexpensive. Yeah, it's not the same as a GR-55 but the idea is surely transferable.

Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on October 21, 2014, 11:45:44 AM
I got one of those last week too, to test for use as a transport layer for wireless GK use.
(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F71duj9DYMLL._SL1500_.jpg&hash=8628e20a7cc77d5e50e2c78170e3889bcaf69334)
it uses Apple AirPlay or DLNA and the reality is it still yields higher latency than anything we talk  about and work with here at VGuitarforums.

Consumers dont complain or care if there is an average one second delay between pressing the play button on their iphone media player and the moment sound actually emerges from the Airplay or DLNA connected wireless speakers - but Musicians performing live music care big time!

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2077288&page=5 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2077288&page=5)

http://blog.laptopmag.com/dlna-reality-check-from-phone-to-tv-how-well-does-it-work (http://blog.laptopmag.com/dlna-reality-check-from-phone-to-tv-how-well-does-it-work)


Suggest read the AVNU.ORG site for latest developments on low latency multi-channel audio transport protocols.
http://www.avnu.org/knowledge_center (http://www.avnu.org/knowledge_center)


and

Sony Wireless Audio Transmission
Sony multi-channel wireless microphone systems with improved sound quality and low latency

http://www.sony.fr/res/attachment/file/95/1193315636495.pdf (http://www.sony.fr/res/attachment/file/95/1193315636495.pdf)

Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Frankster on October 21, 2014, 05:59:43 PM
Quote from: mbenigni on October 21, 2014, 06:37:44 AM
Roland needs to find a standard cable/connector solution that meets their requirements

To be fair to Roland, that's precisely what they did. It's a 13 pin DIN plug which is just as much a standard as the 5 pin DIN plug used for MIDI.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: gumbo on October 22, 2014, 03:20:35 AM
Quote from: Frankster on October 21, 2014, 05:59:43 PM
To be fair to Roland, that's precisely what they did. It's a 13 pin DIN plug which is just as much a standard as the 5 pin DIN plug used for MIDI.

At the risk of further blatant self-promotion, the 'plug' is probably the least of the problem...the performance of what they chose to sell as the Roland 13-pin jack under conditions other than never-being-moved-once-you've-plugged-it-in-next-to-your-bed, is where most things begin to come unstuck in a big way..   ::)

..but I do get what you meant.. ;)

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=8888.0 (https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=8888.0)
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Tony Raven on May 20, 2015, 11:48:37 PM
The 13-pin connector predates Roland's use.
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/SDD-130J/CP-2313-ND/252012 (http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/SDD-130J/CP-2313-ND/252012)

What is actually being sent down the GKC? More vitally to this discussion (& the parallel wireless thread), is there any simple, practical way to reduce the number of necessary conductors?

First, let me say that I don't move around much onstage... or at least that's how it feels, but then I recall all the times I've stepped over to adjust something or catch a falling stand or whatever, & had to disentangle myself. While it'd be great to robustly overengineer a GKC replacement, maybe we need to think of these less as rock-&-roll guitars, & more like a jazzbox or even a keyboard -- imagine trotting your Jupiter 50 up & down the floorboards a few hours every night, & how much subsequent griping there'd be about breaking off the 5-pin cables & how they're so crap that you can't slam 'em in the car door more than eight or ten times before they start to get hinky. :o

I'm no stranger to effective kludge -- if it works, I'll use it. Better if it's reliable, too. Or easily replaceable. Here, seems like we're shooting for cheap AND common AND convenient AND reliable, which leads to contradictions -- like, we want little skinny easily-routed cable that'd ALSO resist repeated blows with an axe & cost $20... which we can't even get for a 1/4" guitar cord, so maybe it's out of reach. Robust cable <--> larger cross-section (whether conductors or shielding or jacket), & that's inescapable.

Price? Sweetwater has the GKC-5 at $50, & the cheapest ProCat Ethercon at $80. The GKC suffers by a lack of demand, so there's zero economy of scale.

Yah, it'd be tres groovy if the GKC had a shell half so robust as the ProCat, but quality comes at a price... & RJ45 is by definition eight conductors, so there's a wall.

If I had to come up with a GKC replacement, I'd say two standard RJ45 cables stuck together. Common components, cheap to replace -- as previously said, Best Buy (or even Walmart) to the rescue, at least to get through the show. Not so common but more robust would be two DB9/DB9 cables, standard for RS232. Less common but faster: a DB15 serial cable, here all of $16 for 10':
http://www.vetco.net/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=14202 (http://www.vetco.net/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=14202)
Given the connectors, we can worry later about the cable itself.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Tony Raven on May 20, 2015, 11:56:29 PM
One last thought for the night: maybe get rid of the "Roland-ready" label.

Sure, nobody wants to mislead the noobs into thinking that a hex pickup means they're ready to start making wild synthy tones, but the term makes it sound as though the GK-loaded guitar is somehow incomplete, that there's a gaping hole in the back waiting for someone to install a Roland, whatever the hell THAT is. ::)
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on May 21, 2015, 06:19:31 AM
Luckily they already dropped using that "Roland Ready" term in 2011 when the Fender "Roland Ready Strat ceased production.

It's replacement (Fender/Roland GC-1 ), dropped that term from the Headstock and all marketing material.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: guitarno on May 21, 2015, 06:39:18 AM
  It would be great if they made the pickup easily removable so you could move it to different instruments like the FTP pickup. Also the "Wart" control module bugs a lot of people. I've heard people say they would never put one on their "vintage" guitar just for aesthetic reasons. I have mine currently mounted on my EJ Strat and it gets a lot of dis-approving looks from purists. If they could do something to make it a little less obtrusive, it would help, but I don't know if that will ever happen.

  Guitarists by and large are a pretty conventional group (except of course for us Virtual guitarists), and some are reluctant to try new tech unless it's mainstream or currently fashionable.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: CodeSmart on May 21, 2015, 08:46:33 AM
Perhaps Roland should redesign the wart so cheap plastic cases/shells in various colors (or various shapes), could cover it smoothly to match your guitar color perfectly (stealth mode) or expression of mind.
Perhaps someone want to paint their own casing. Perhaps one would like it to look like a yellow banana or a death skull. I don't know. Just brain farting...  ;D
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on May 21, 2015, 09:04:13 AM
QuotePerhaps someone want to paint their own casing.

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=13540.msg99517#msg99517 (https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=13540.msg99517#msg99517)

(https://www.primovasound.com/gfx/lp2.jpg)
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: JolietJake on May 21, 2015, 09:33:29 AM
"What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing"?

11 less pins!
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Orren Merton on May 21, 2015, 10:30:49 AM
Quote from: JolietJake on May 21, 2015, 09:33:29 AM
"What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing"?
11 less pins!

This.

I bought my first 13-pin system in about 1997. I owned a VG-88 back then. Eventually got the Roland US-20 and ran a VG-88 and a GR-33 together. When our other guitarist was asking for help hauling his tube head and 4x12 up the stage ramp, and all I had was two padded bags and some guitar cases, I felt like I made the right choice. But he—and everyone else who worked the club—thought I was weird.  ;D

I don't think that there is anything one can do to make 13-pin systems more appealing. If that had been the standard from 1950s on up, then guitarists would be fine with it. But guitarists as a rule are not a cutting edge bunch. The majority of guitarists yearn to play 50 year old guitars through 40 year old amplifiers.

That's why in most threads I try to include at least a little praise for Roland; they get a lot wrong, but at least they've tried to keep this technology alive. God knows that this is so nichy—and always will be, even if the niche gets a bit bigger—Roland would be completely justified in abandoning it altogether, and just using it's COSM technology to make stompboxes and competing with Line 6 in the all-in-one rig-in-a-footpedal category.

And lets give some credit to Fender and Gibson, here, too. Fender has had "Roland Ready Strats" for years. Gibson has played around with digital guitars for years. Again, sales on these have been at the "onsies and twosies" level. One can point the finger at marketing and demos and whatever you want but the reality is that there is simply not a vibrant market for anything but the guitars of yesterday. Look at how much flack Gibson gets just for adding robotic tuning systems (which work brilliantly) to the newer Les Pauls. Even stereo guitars get sideways glances, and those have been around for decades!

I think that Roland is definitely on the right track making the SY-300 work with the 2-pin, 1/4" jack that every electric guitar has had for 50 years, and that every guitar player (and guitar builder and tech) feels is "right." I think eventually we're going to see the days of experimentation with different guitar output systems (remember, there have been USB and Firewire systems, too) fade completely, and everything we can do today with 13-pin connections, we'll do with 2-pin 1/4" connections. It will take time (think of how many iterations Melodyne had to go through before they developed "DNA," their technology by which they can manipulate individual notes in a chord), but that's the future.

And you know, I love my old guitars, and my tube amps, and my stompboxes, as much as my synths and cutting edge capabilities. So I'm not in the least upset with this.

Orren
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Tony Raven on May 21, 2015, 11:58:28 AM
Quote from: Elantric on May 21, 2015, 06:19:31 AM
Luckily they already dropped using that "Roland Ready" term in 2011
...um, because GK-Ready is supposed to be a massive improvement??
http://www.roland.com/products/gc-1/ (http://www.roland.com/products/gc-1/)
http://www.harmonycentral.com/news/roland-expands-quotgk-readyquot-guitar-product-lineup (http://www.harmonycentral.com/news/roland-expands-quotgk-readyquot-guitar-product-lineup)
http://www.thomann.de/gb/onlineexpert_page_midi_and_modelling_guitars_gk_ready_guitars.html (http://www.thomann.de/gb/onlineexpert_page_midi_and_modelling_guitars_gk_ready_guitars.html)
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitars/roland-gc-1-gk-ready-stratocaster-electric-guitar (http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitars/roland-gc-1-gk-ready-stratocaster-electric-guitar)
http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-ROL-GC1-LIST (http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-ROL-GC1-LIST)
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Roland-GC-1-GK-Ready-Stratocaster-Electric-Guitar-108101874-i2386973.gc (http://www.guitarcenter.com/Roland-GC-1-GK-Ready-Stratocaster-Electric-Guitar-108101874-i2386973.gc)
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/StratGKBLK/ (http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/StratGKBLK/)

No longer will there be a huge hole in the back of your guitar requiring you to buy a Roland to turn it into a complete instrument!!! Now, you only have to... um, buy a GK... to... um, turn it into a complete instrument... I guess.

;D
________________

Now, what (IMNSHO) ought to leap out at anyone scanning that list is a classic example of the Henry Ford Problem: "You can get a Model T in any color you want, so long as it's black."

You can get a GK-ready guitar that suits your playing style... so long as it's a made-in-Mexico Fender Stratocaster with vibrato.

Off the top of my head, I can name like eight other "ready" models (six of which are OOP), most offering some hope of a humbucker or two.

Sure, I understand the MIJ Fender/Roland connection, but it does add to the preponderance of high-handed dictation perceived (however accurately) by many, that has gone unaddressed by Roland Corporate for so long. "Don't like it? Well, ain't that just tough, ya punk! Learn to like it if you want to use our super-cool stuff. Or you can buy from someone else -- hahahahahahah!!"
________________

For $900, I get an import Fender, & a gig bag. ("A $55 value!!!") How "ready" could the damned thing be IF IT DOESN'T INCLUDE A CABLE?

Imagine... The guitar arrives. Next day, the GR-55 arrives. You're all excited, you carefully unwrap it all, lay everything neatly out, clean up the packing, browse the (ugh) manuals, & you're all ready to make your first sounds...

...and you can't find the GKC-5.

It slowly dawns on you that you spent $1,599 ($2,358 SRP), & you'll have to wait another week because nobody thought you deserved a highly specialized $50 cable.

That is NOT good marketing.
________________

And some effort to produce intelligible, logical, beginner-friendly User Guides would go a long way as well. Too many Roland manuals are less useful & entertaining than Army field manuals!! (We used to guess that some were intended to be leaked to the enemy to induce suicide among the intel analysts.) Nowadays, it's easy enough to put this upon YouTube & in PDFs, but a simple center-stapled octavo brochure -- something right at hand while the excited new owner is still sitting on the floor surrounded by cardboard & styrofoam -- is actual marketing.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: admin on May 21, 2015, 12:26:38 PM
Suggest forward your Roland US Marketing requests here

http://www.rolandus.com/company/press_releases/30070 (http://www.rolandus.com/company/press_releases/30070)

Rebecca Eaddy
Marketing Communications Manager
Roland Corporation U.S.
(323) 890-3718
Rebecca.Eaddy@RolandUS.com
pr_2015-03-18_roland_new_appointments.pdf

Los Angeles, CA, March 18, 2015 — Roland Corporation U.S. announces three new personnel appointments that align with the company's current strategic business plan. The announcement was made by Jay Wanamaker, president and CEO of Roland Corporation U.S., and reflects Roland's ongoing commitment to the expansion of the company and its brands.

Steve Spak joins the Roland U.S. team as District Sales Manager (DSM) for the Mid-Atlantic District, spanning from New York City to Washington, D.C. Spak comes to Roland most recently from KMC Music Inc., where he was a respected sales team member and consistent top performer. In his new role, he will develop and maintain dealer relationships and sales programs, offer dealer resources in support of Roland products, strategy and objectives, and provide product training, merchandising and promotions at the retail level.

Daniel Lee comes on board as Local Marketing Specialist. Lee will augment Roland's marketing efforts to effectively partner with the dealer community as part of their Local Marketing initiative. An M.I. industry expert, he brings to Roland many years of experience in the local marketing field, having served as Local & Retail Marketing Administrator during his tenure at Guitar Center. Lee is a working DJ and a graduate of UC Berkeley.

Ruby BC (a.k.a. Ruby Biloskirka-Conley) also joins as Social Media and Content Specialist. She comes to Roland with a background in the music and entertainment business as a Keyboard Instructor at Musician's Institute (Hollywood), a touring keyboard player for the American Idol band and also a keyboard clinician for Roland U.S. She is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music.

"Steve, Daniel and Ruby will be great additions to our company," stated Wanamaker. "Each has a unique skill set that will contribute to the overall growth and expansion of Roland U.S. and enable us to work toward our short- and long-term goals."
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on May 21, 2015, 12:44:54 PM
QuoteYou can get a GK-ready guitar that suits your playing style... so long as it's a made-in-Mexico Fender Stratocaster with vibrato.

Review the complete list of production GK Ready Guitars here:

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=19.0 (https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=19.0)


--

Fender Standard Roland® Ready Stratocaster®
http://www.fender.com/products//search.php?partno=0134660380 (http://www.fender.com/products//search.php?partno=0134660380)
http://www.samash.com/catalog/showitem.asp?SKU=F4660306X&ovchn=FRO&ovcpn=FROOGLE&ovcrn=F4660306X&ovtac=CMP (http://www.samash.com/catalog/showitem.asp?SKU=F4660306X&ovchn=FRO&ovcpn=FROOGLE&ovcrn=F4660306X&ovtac=CMP)
2011 Roland GC-1
http://www.rolandus.com/products/details/1189 (http://www.rolandus.com/products/details/1189)

1997 Ritchie Blackmoore Signature Strat with GK-2A

Switch Wild IV MIDI
http://web.archive.org/web/20060711041321/http://switchmusic.com/guitar_view.aspx?pid=21 (http://web.archive.org/web/20060711041321/http://switchmusic.com/guitar_view.aspx?pid=21)

Switch Innovo III MIDI
http://www.switchmusic.com/guitar_view.aspx?pid=22 (http://www.switchmusic.com/guitar_view.aspx?pid=22)
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Switch-Innovo-III-MIDI-Electric-Guitar?sku=511791&src=3SOSWXXA (http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Switch-Innovo-III-MIDI-Electric-Guitar?sku=511791&src=3SOSWXXA)

Switch Innovo IV MIDI
http://www.switchmusic.com/guitar_view.aspx?pid=23 (http://www.switchmusic.com/guitar_view.aspx?pid=23)


(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.snapagogo.com%2Fuploads%2Fsource%2F1402015%2F1432239897_895852215_Godin_SA2.PNG&hash=78fc0ed761166b4db41bb1eeba2bc84b904fc6f9)
Godin with Synth Access
http://www.godinguitars.com/godingman.htm (http://www.godinguitars.com/godingman.htm)
http://www.godinguitars.com/berklee/davidmash.htm (http://www.godinguitars.com/berklee/davidmash.htm)
http://www.godinguitars.com/grquickstart.htm (http://www.godinguitars.com/grquickstart.htm)


Godin Freeway SA
http://www.godinguitars.com/godinfreewaysap.htm (http://www.godinguitars.com/godinfreewaysap.htm)


Godin xtSA
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Godin LGX-SA AAA Flamed Maple Top Electric Guitar
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Godin LGXT
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Godin Multiac Jazz & Multiac Jazz Spruce
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Carvin SH575
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Carvin NS-1
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Parker Adrian Belew Signature
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Teuffel Birdfish MIDI
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FRAME Works MIDI Guitars
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Brian Moore
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Washburn Jennifer Batten JB-100 MIDI
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Ibanez RG1520GK
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Roland GK Ready Guitars Japan
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Breedlove Synergy
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Martin Alternative-X GK
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Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Tony Raven on May 23, 2015, 02:23:39 AM
Nonono. Let me try to clarify a little: 13-pin guitars will not become more popular without appealing to a wider range of guitarists.

Your extensive list only illustrates the LACK of synth-ready guitars that're accessible to the "hobby" players that drive demand. At a glance:
I think that Roland may have totally missed the boat, not working harder to get 13-pin gear to the masses before the crest of the Internet Age. Nowadays, buyers expect to buy something NOW (raising hell if it takes three days to arrive!!) & put it to use NOW with no learning curve. Something so groundbreaking had better have LOTS of presence & activity on Facebook & YouTube & Twitter, or it's doomed to fail, quickly or slowly. (In this regard, anyone know how Roland's doing...?)

To have ANY hope of getting the 13-pin concept flying, it must be made accessible. That's going to mean real-world, brick-&-mortar dealers putting out guitars that'll catch the attention of their clientele, which would mean a few models in various pickup configs, beginning with s-s-s AND h-h -- sure, you know & I know that COSM makes "old fashion" pickups redundant, but guitarists sure seem to expect a fallback plan in case the whole "MIDI guitar" thing doesn't work out.

And not just a GK-bearing guitar hung on the wall: it has to be on a floor stand, tuned up, plugged in, all the lights on, & ready to go. It has to have regular in-store demos, even if it's just a bored clerk making wonky noises before handing it to anyone curious.

Speaking of which. Some years back, I walked into a Music-Go-Round in Minneapolis. There was a used GK Strat on the wall... high up... behind a low wall of combo amps. At the far end of the store (easily fifty feet away & across a central cash-register island), I spotted a used VG-8... over by the keyboards... locked in a glass case behind an MC-500. As curious as I am about offbeat gear, it seemed like far too much trouble to get the pieces somehow brought together... & in retrospect, does anyone believe they'd have the cable?

Price is forever going to be a barrier. It's now easy to find a decent-enough cheap guitar ($350 new, $150 used). A used GK-2A can be found for $150 or less. But then there's the cable, pricey enough to dissuade buying a backup or three. The device itself... well, maybe so little as $150, but easily running toward $1,000. Compared to solid-body guitars & or tube amps, the VG/GR is new, untried, & unfixable -- a gamble, no matter how you look at it. Overcoming THOSE obstacles means there'd have to be more real-world vendors, suppliers, & Service Centers.

I wouldn't be surprised if Roland simply drops 13-pin gear in the next five years. Seems like those who want synth/COSM guitar are totally happy with stock pickups & 1/4" phono input -- it's cheaper & more immediate, even if (by comparison) it sucks. Look at how .mp3 has mostly replaced .wav audio;in much the same way, MIDI-over-USB has largely replaced 5-pin cabling. If Roland doesn't get in front of this, then progress is not something that just going to spontaneously happen.

Shopping lists of past near-misses -- while entertaining as any other form of nostalgia -- aren't much of a goad for progress.
Title: Re: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Kevin M on May 23, 2015, 11:16:17 AM
Brick and mortar dealers are less relevant these days. It's really the power of online marketing and forums that will drive demand one way or another. As far as availability of GK-equipped Godin guitars online goes, I've never had any problem getting one.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on May 23, 2015, 11:25:10 AM
QuoteAs far as availability of GK-equipped Godin guitars online goes, I've never had any problem getting one.

+1

I have purchased four Godin's during Amazon Sales  - much cheaper than a GC-1
(details)
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=4946.0 (https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=4946.0)
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Orren Merton on May 23, 2015, 10:18:20 PM
Quote from: Tony Raven on May 23, 2015, 02:23:39 AM
I wouldn't be surprised if Roland simply drops 13-pin gear in the next five years.

Ask yourself: what is Roland's goal here, the endgame: is it to create synthesizer products for guitar players, or is it to create devices that require 13-pins? I think the endgame was always—even back in the 24-pin days—to create synth products for guitarists. So if that's the goal, then creating synth devices that are as accessible as possible is the way to go. If that meant 13-pin, that's what Roland delivered. If in the future a mono 1/4" jack is enough, that is what Roland will deliver. I'm sure they—and to be fair, most others—see any value in creating new 13-pin gear if it isn't necessary to make it require 13-pin just for the sake of those who think it's cool.

Orren
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Headless68 on May 24, 2015, 02:49:47 AM
Personally I have always been OK with the trade off of GK V's what the Roland systems actually deliver. The only compromise to that has been using internal kits (even when they did not exist I stripped a GK2 and made it internal - still using that as number one guitar today)

In terms of fragile - I have used 24pin and 13 pin system consistently for 25+ years - in that time no cable failures (surprisingly)  and only one 'worn out' 13pin socket on my guitar. I rehearse / gig regular so my gear is not sat in a bedroom either.

I do think that the future of 13 pin is probably at an end though, who knows maybe the GP-10 could be final call?  SY-300 technology (over std guitar cable) & its future evolutions are the way forward, exciting times! 

Headless
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Frankster on May 24, 2015, 08:47:20 AM
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that 13-pin GK guitars will never be appealing to the guitarist mass market.

Certainly not as an ugly add-on GK3 piece of plastic on your guitar anyway. It's too ugly, not roadworthy, a hassle to install and expensive to upgrade. The percentage of guitar players who are able to take advantage of the programmability and flexibility of a GK/V-Guitar system is vanishingly small compared to the legions of bedroom guitarists who are happy thrashing distorted idiot music on a Squier Stratocaster.

Having recently carved up a Strat to install a GK kit I am in no hurry to repeat the process. GK pickups need to be factory installed and there's simply not enough interest from manufacturers or customers to sustain production. 13-pin guitar is an unwieldy solution to the question of individual string processing, until the system is changed then it cannot gain popular acceptance.

Personally, I'd love to see a factory-installed unit that can do the digital conversion inside the guitar body then connect via a cheap standard cable using an open source digital guitar protocol. If I can plug say, an ethernet cable into my Strats and connect it to products by Roland, Korg, Moog or whoever then I'll be a happy man.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on May 24, 2015, 08:52:27 AM
Quoteinstalled unit that can do the digital conversion inside the guitar body then connect via a cheap standard cable using an open source digital guitar protocol. If I can plug say, an ethernet cable into my Strats and connect it to products by Roland, Korg, Moog or whoever then I'll be a happy man.


You essentially just described the Variax. It has a hex PU, an internal DSP and sends Audio as AES/EBU and MIDI I/O (For Control Only) ,and Power on standard Ehtercon RJ-45 Cable
Title: Re: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: sixeight on May 24, 2015, 10:57:02 AM
It would be great if Roland and line6 would use the Dante protocol for communication. The sound market is really embracing that protocol. You could plug your guitar straight into the Ethernet port of your laptop.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: MusicOverGear on May 24, 2015, 12:43:24 PM
Does anyone know how well the GP-10 sold relative to Roland's hopes? Was that their gambit to save the 13-pin concept before brushing it into the dustbin? I can tell you that in Kansas City I haven't run into anyone else who's even heard of one before I start demo'ing mine. People seem amazed by it and I know my work has probably picked up because I am the clever guy with the whiz bang guitar rig and tailored sounds, but nobody has ever shown the slightest interest in buying their own GP-10.

Isn't Roland cutting deep into their own 13-pin market by releasing the SY-300? Does that mean they are done with 13-pin? I don't know enough about any of it to guess whether the GP-10 was an attempt to save the VG line or a crass cash-out. Or something else. Didn't they develop new models that only exist on that box? Business is hard enough to understand, and Roland seems to operate under alternate rules of logic.

My bet in the SY-300 pool is that it will get used in some novel way by some slick young artist - e.g. on something obvious like a Rhodes (seems simple/stupid to us but to young iTunes patrons it is a feat of unparalleled genius - like bolting a Korg Kaoss to a guitar) - and the SY-300 will become an instant classic. Other companies will rush to make similar boxes and there will be lots of them in 10 years. All the 13-pin stuff will be seen as primitive prototypes, and the Roland guitar-to-midi stuff will go in the same category as the Arp Avatar, except that nobody will bother retrofitting the old Roland stuff because it's more effective to just get an old JV. Also everyone will have the old JV sounds as sample libraries - that must be a thing already? Are JV-1080's still not collectible? C'mon hipsters, you're really starting to lag...

In big-BIG picture scope, it does seem like dedicated hardware for music computing is destined for obsolescence. Almost seems more relevant to talk about how we'll all be connecting our guitars to our phones in 20 years. Whoops I mean how will we be wirelessly connecting our guitars to our phones. I also predict there will be backlash against purely electronic sound reinforcement/reproduction. I know I'm sick of it LOL.

WHAT'S USEFUL ABOUT 13-PIN?
Nobody wants the third- or fourth-best guitar-to-midi tracking. There is a quickly shrinking list of reasons for producing another wavetable or old school hardware guitar synth, which I guess makes COSM the raison d'être for the 13-pin idea. I think COSM is the ultimate for a blue collar, bottom-rung musician like myself - or I guess any musician/producer on guitar; but I don't know anybody else IRL who's shown anything beyond detached interest - like, "oh, isn't that fascinating how a F1 car works," not "hmmm, maybe I'll start racing F1..."

Friday I played for a 21-year-old artist and the bass player was 16 years old (I'm 43). The 16-year-old I've played a bunch of gigs with. He's a real big talent, and I assume he'll go far. His mom has produced and sung on big name stuff. Anyway at a rehearsal last week this young cat was telling me all the software he is proficient in - Logic, Reason, Ableton, Maschine... damn there were more I can't even remember the names of them all much less how to fly them... We got to talking about how you can spend a lot of time taste testing, at which point he wanted to know how many guitars I own. He was puzzled that he'd only ever seen me play the one. I explained that the Roland stuff is convincing in a track and better than what you need for a club show. He's always impressed and interested in my minimal, omni-capable guitar rig (just an invisibly integrated GK guitar, GP-10 with a foot controller, FTP and optional Macbook), but never shows any interest in building something like that for himself. He just wants to acquire a bunch of badass guitars. IDK kinda blows my mind because he is a first-rate producer, first-rate musician, plus he was raised by a singer; I just assume his sensibilities are at least as good as mine, but he just likes the idea of having a lot of stuff. IDK maybe because that guy is destined to be a name artist with techs building pedalboards for him and handing him guitars between songs... no reason to waste time on stuff for the sake of flexibility/portability...

It seems to me that MIDI tracking guitar synths are going to be softsynths from now on. And the COSM stuff isn't appealing enough to make people want to jump into a whole different stream of gear. As far as my rig goes, all my stuff is homemade, so it's not the best sales tool: "Here, it's easy, see? Just go to the lumber yard and get some good, straight mahogany..." 

WHY WAS I NOT MADE AWARE OF THE VG-XX BOXES?
I came to this forum looking for info on the VG-99, at which time the GP-10 had just been announced and that seemed more inline with what I wanted, anyway. So the GP-10 is the first and only full VG box I've had. I had a GI-20 before that. I remember seeing the VG stuff since I was in college - I guess that would have been the VG-8. I think I thought it was an upscale GR-1, which was neat but not interesting at the time. At the time I had a Roland keyboard (can't remember the model - it was a low end one they sold on pallets in Guitar Center LOL), a floppy disk sequencer, etc... I kept seeing those VG-XX models and never really wondered much about them. In the meantime I read all about how to get more sounds from one guitar, learned real basic electronics, learned to make pickups from Jason Lollar's original book, hung out with an old arch top guy and learned to build my own guitars, laid out and etched my own stomp box PCBs - all the while never knowing that there were whole worlds of sound design in those VG boxes - WITHOUT the latency of the guitar-to-MIDI thing. I had been actively searching for info on getting sounds out of guitars for decades but it wasn't until winter before last I finally grokked what the VG series was.

This amazing feat of hiding in plain sight seems like something out of folklore. I'm sure I knew what a Variax was the first time I ever heard the name. I don't know much about marketing or what is Roland's approach, but I can say that I am probably the type of person they could most easily reach/convert and I never knew about V-Guitar the whole time they were putting in all that effort and capital. I definitely remember having the impression that Roland guitar gear was for metal/rock kids, not for musicians who work in any of the idioms I know. So their demos and factory patches have probably always been a source of trouble.

Also I remember being repulsed by the idea of a desktop box for guitar. I've seen plenty of pedals racked, set on consoles, draped over music stands, etc... Never once seen any kind of desktop box on a pedalboard. And I know the VG-99 had controls for a guitar player's hands - sounds like a joke. I seriously can't imagine what could have led to those decisions. Overall I get the sense that the VG line was less like tools for a user base and more like an eccentric engineer's hobby project - and he didn't give a single f*** whether anyone could use it or liked it or even knew about it.

IDK I don't have any expertise in marketing. Seems like Roland doesn't, either.

WHAT CAN ROLAND DO ABOUT 13-PIN?
Roland SHOULD HAVE put some energy into designing, marketing, and supporting a usable GK kit; IDK but it seems too late now. Nobody wants the wart. Nobody wants a shitty, unreliable ground connection. Nobody wants a conversion kit that their local guy can't competently install. Nobody wants an expensive, specialized, hard-to-buy-in-a-strange-town, fragile, unreliable guitar cable. Nobody wants two interfaces for one musical instrument. Nobody wants half-baked gear. And in 2015 the world has completely forgotten about companies that arrogantly ignore expert feedback.

Roland should have made a new GK installation kit with every new generation of products, always including a 13-pin adapter for the older stuff. The very first revision - this would have been decades ago - would have fixed the ground problem and upgraded to a better connector. Every revision should have moved toward better integration with existing guitar interfaces and easier installation.

Additionally, it seems to me like they were trying to make HUGE margins on the kit when they should have been selling them at a loss to get people in the door. I can't imagine what led to that decision. They clearly didn't have a lot of R&D in the GK kit itself; a middle school kid could design that board in Eagle if you gave him a full afternoon to figure it out, and he wouldn't use an antique connector. I wonder if they made all the GK Kits that were ever made back in the 1980's and the expense was just sitting on their books - and some abstract accounting concept kept them from making an effort to unload them? IDK nothing I can imagine makes sense out of the way they rolled out a half-assed product that cost little to manufacture, priced it for professionals (but engineered it for toy stores), made it so that it required deep hacking to make it barely usable IRL, used a jack that required hogging out a giant hole in your favorite guitar...

Then there's the wart. Those seriously should have come free with any 13-pin product as a stopgap while you work on getting a kit installed. They are mainly valuable as a makeshift, hackable installation kit. The only way the wart could present a worse interface for a musician would be if you had to type commands instead of reaching for a knob and poorly chosen switches far away from the rest of the interface. And they were ugly. And they didn't fit in cases. And they were overpriced. And generally not available in neighborhood music stores.

It's absolutely shameful how Roland neglected to fix the problems with the 13-pin system over decades. I can imagine a scenario in which V-Guitar could have become popular in spite of marketing if the hardware had worked out of the box. As it is the GK hardware is fundamentally broken/unusable on top of being ugly and overpriced. When I got my GP-10, I didn't just buy a multi-effects box, I built an instrument, of which the GP-10 was a component that needed lots of hacking. I really don't think the average guitar store tech could build a usable V-Guitar rig, given any amount of time or resources. And it is definitely out of reach of any typical guitar player to make a usable rig out of what was commercially available.

You do have the guitars that come with a 13-pin pickup+pre installed, but then you are paying a lot of extra money (much more than is warranted IMHO) for an orders-of-magnitude smaller selection of instruments. And you still don't have a reliable ground connection no matter what the builder does on the guitar side. Hmm, I wonder why none of those took off...

THE INSTRUMENT IS EVERYTHING BETWEEN MY BRAIN AND YOUR EARDRUMS (OR VICE-VERSA)
This is what's so crazy about guitar in general, but the Roland stuff takes the cake. A musical instrument is a prosthesis. In Music Learning Theory they talk about moving from verbal association (Do Re Mi) to tactile association, which means operating literally any musical instrument that is not integral to the human body. Could be a hollow log under your fist. Could be a theater organ. A musical instrument is bolted onto the human body like a synthetic leg or heart valve. It is in the employ of the organic brain; it might have one part or one million parts.

With something like a bamboo flute it is easier to see - I operate this very simple machine and eventually I get so good at it that it is as natural as manipulating my vocal folds. With guitar it takes longer to get everything together, to the point where many guitar players never quite grok that the whole thing - pick, cables, pickups, strings, pedals, amp, speaker - comprises a single whole.

For me personally I have found the [relatively low] threshold for the complexity of controls under my hands and feet, and the normal GK arrangement with separate knobs and buttons and pedals for everything is far out of reach for my mind to be able to fly in real time without taking my mind out of the music. My GK guitars use the tone knobs as the GK buttons and the guitar volume knob as the GK volume knob (switches functions between an old-school 1/4" application or V-Guitar application). To me this is the most obvious, simple arrangement but it took a lot of home hacking to get it set up. I.e. without working on a GK interface that is much more integrated into a simple, coherent interface, only people who are advanced far beyond me are going to be able to achieve good tactile association with the instrument as a whole. AFAIK Roland has done zero work toward that end; so it's no surprise that GK kits and warts are unappealing. It is literally not possible to make a good musical instrument with the intended installation of GK pickups.

D-Beam? Ribbon controller? Okay here is my best guess: Roland HQ is situated directly over some kind of gas leak. They are unwittingly inhaling fumes and they are high as **** all the time.

SO WHAT WILL ROLAND DO TO SAVE 13-PIN?
My uninformed guess is that recently Roland considered the question we're talking about in this thread - what would make the 13-pin thing more appealing/successful. Maybe they took a realistic look at what it would actually take, or maybe they just decided it's too hard... But I do suspect that they thought about it, did some research, and then went ahead with the SY-300. If the GP-10 does turn out to be the last of its breed, it's a real loss for musicians. V-Guitar was so powerful and useful.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Headless68 on May 24, 2015, 03:47:59 PM
I don't see it as the end of V guitar - I see it as the start of the next evolution- V guitar with no special pickup, only a matter of time :-)
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: stratrat on May 25, 2015, 01:41:28 AM
Guitar synth and, to a lesser degree, guitar modelling has always been a smaller market. I think this is because your average guitarist has always been a fairly simple creature and MIDIguitar/modelguitar is, by the very nature of all the options it makes available to you, a complex beastie. If you try make it simpler to use to reach a larger buyer base, you limit the flexibility, power and possibilities and turn off your core user base (GR-20 anyone? Hell, they stopped me from buying a GP-10 just by omitting MIDI).

All it would take is for one big name popular artist to start using 13-pin and wowing audiences (which as others have mentioned, isn't difficult to do). Preferably not an '80s throwback either ;D. But for a regular gigging player to use these devices, Roland would have to beef up a few things properly for the rigours of the road: XLR outs, internal PSUs and of course, better quality 13-pin plugs and sockets (I don't actually have a problem with the design of the 13-pin stuff - just the build. I'm sure if Neutrik or Switchcraft manufactured the plugs and sockets, they'd be a whole lot more robust and reliable).

I don't see the SY-300 as competition for the GR stuff any more than the VG stuff is either. They each do different things. Until they can get convincing natural sounds like pianos and strings, the SY just cannot replace the sample-based stuff.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: supernicd on May 25, 2015, 06:42:07 AM
I don't know... It would seem to me that Roland has been making guitar processor products that appeal to only a very niche audience for at least 3 decades now.  At the same time, they continue to make products with mass appeal - e.g. the Boss line of stomp boxes, ME-80, the GT series, etc.  Maybe they're making just enough on 13-pin products from that niche audience to justify continuing to put them out.  After all, the technology discovered in the R&D for these can eventually be chopped up and put into more affordable stomp boxes and 1/4" jack MFXs...  They seem to know what they're doing, whatever that is. :)

I have had no real problems with the 13-pin system, other than the initial hurdle of installing my first GK-3, but really once I decided to do it, it only took an hour or two.  I guess I could think of some improvements I'd like to see to the GK-3 system, but at the end of the day it works and provides a lot of benefits in exchange for its downsides.  Eventually I think we'll see the technology evolve to where all these benefits are available without a special pickup, and even are wireless.  It will get there...
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: JolietJake on May 25, 2015, 07:42:25 AM
The first time I used a Variax and later the GR-55 my reaction was "I don't understand why everyone doesn't use these!". I would find it difficult now to do without my acoustic and electric modelling, and my alternate tunings. That is even before starting to look at PCM tones. WHAT GUITARIST WOULDN'T WANT THESE THINGS.

I think the slow takeup of GK technology is due to multiple reasons.

1. Availability.
I stay in a large(ish) city with several music shops and only one has any Roland V-Guitar products. In addition to this their knowledge of the product is somewhat limited.

2. Purists
There are certain sections of guitarists that simply cannot see past their purist tone and will always shun digital technology.

3. Technophobes
There is no doubt about it the technology is more complex, even if it is simply sticking a GK-3 pickup to a guitar with double sided tape and plugging it into a pedal. Anyone who has wrestled with the setup and then the massive amount of options within the GR-55 menu would agree that many casual users could easily be put off.

4. Durability
Most of us have been there where the cable/socket goes faulty. I've had the GR-55 lock up due to mains interference. For some people these occurrences are completely unacceptable and a show stopper. Before I bought mine I looked at this very website for information and one of the first mails I read was regarding dead strings. Not a great advert for the technology.

5. Price
This is the real crux of the matter, isn't it. No doubt about it 13 pin product are incredibly expensive. When I purchased my GR-55 with GK-3 and 5 meter cable it cost nearly £600 and then there was still a few days spent trying to get it to work. Add another £50 for a spare cable, then another £100 for an internal GK-kit (which I wanted to try) and you are starting to get to some serious money.
I can't help feeling that if there was a simpler, less featured and above all cheaper introductory 13pin pedal that could do Modelling, Alt tuning and some PCM tones and that was controlled by perhaps a Squier "Roland ready" model then I believe that the takeup of the technology may be a bit higher. I've nothing against higher end models but there is no entry level products for people to get introduced to the technology.

Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: thebrushwithin on May 25, 2015, 08:22:03 AM
Even if the newest SY300 tech becomes the "demise" of 13 pin tech, it very much reminds me of the synthesis world. The large modular synths finally gave way to the PCM synths, and MIDI, with no more patch cables for routing, etc. However, even though the digital world of synths has swallowed the analog modular world, what is old becomes new again, as analog and modular are en vogue once more! So, I believe the SY300 is a logical step to both compete with the Triple Play( not their own GR series), and incorporating non PCM synthesis. I bet a VG ( or GP ), without 13 pin, is definitely in the works, but the 13 pin gear will become true electronic collector's items eventually, just as the modular synths are back in numbers, because you can do things with complete string separation, that will always be an advantage over pitch recognition tech. Of course Moore's Law will take every existing tech, and eventually, redefine what can be achieved sonically.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Headless68 on May 25, 2015, 11:08:31 AM
The evolution is the fact you will no longer need a hex pickup to do the things you must have one for today :-) so, no need for an easier drop in version
Obviously we are at the start of that journey, not the end
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Frankster on May 25, 2015, 03:18:14 PM
Quote from: JolietJake on May 25, 2015, 07:42:25 AM
Purists
There are certain sections of guitarists that simply cannot see past their purist tone and will always shun digital technology.

Maybe they'd consider modelling systems that had an ash/alder body selection model and an Orange tone cap simulator.

Apparently they can hear these things. I can't.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: stratrat on May 26, 2015, 06:20:24 AM
Quote from: Headless68 on May 25, 2015, 11:08:31 AM
The evolution is the fact you will no longer need a hex pickup to do the things you must have one for today
Hmmm... I'm not at all sure about that. AFAIK, the SY only models, using the guitar's own sound as the tone generator. There are severe limitations to how far you can go with that approach - especially without a hex pickup and especially for natural sounds or close emulations. Basically it's fast, dynamic and doesn't need the special pickup. But the trade-offs are the guitar's native tone becomes a variable and it is limited to an approximation of certain voices.

There are also certain limitations to Roland's pitch to MIDI algorithms (which use the zero crossing method of pitch detection) in the GRs. Doesn't matter how much processing you throw at it, eventually you hit a brick wall where physics limits how fast it can be. That's basically because the string has to sound first and the GR has to wait for the attack to die down and then at least one full wavelength of the sustained portion of the note before it can start its work. The lower the note, the longer the wavelength, the longer the delay... That's why I really hoped Roland would license Andras Szalay's pitch detection method (the one used in the Axon and now the FTP) moving forward.  Instead Fishman took it and half-assed it on the hardware side (IMO).

So there are limitations to both approaches that are going to limit what you can do with either.

Having said all that, the best approach with any tech is to stop worrying about what it can't do (a trait we guitarists are prone to). Instead figure out what it can do or what it does that nothing else can, and use the hell out of that to make music.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: stratrat on May 26, 2015, 06:26:28 AM
Quote from: Frankster on May 25, 2015, 03:18:14 PM
Maybe they'd consider modelling systems that had an ash/alder body selection model and an Orange tone cap simulator.
Apparently they can hear these things. I can't.
With you on the caps, but unless you are distorting the hell out of everything, the wood does make a difference.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: ZenSonic on May 26, 2015, 07:03:05 AM
I too would like to see more dedicated GK synth driver options. I play in alternate tunings exclusively via a GP 10 and never mix magnetic pickups into my sound...they are just dampening the vibration of the strings, adding cost, complexity and messing with an otherwise "zen" aesthetic IMO.

Would love to see more GK drivers made of light weight, super strong materials that are less pervious to changing climatic conditions. Perhaps in a few years we will be on this site swapping axe designs we have creates via apps then rendered on 3 D printers. Once the need for deriving tone from wood is taken out of the equation building materials options open widely.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Tonato on May 26, 2015, 04:44:26 PM
Personally, the only thing that I find annoying when using the GK pickup with the VGs or GRs units, is the non flexibility I have to adjust the sound in real time with my guitar., more specifically, changing pickups. As an example, when I am playing the guitar without the GK, I can adjust the tone with my tone control and I can change pickups with the pickup switcher. I find a big limitation not being able to change pickups with the GK, and not being able to control the tone through the tone. I like to have that control because I feel I can't program absolute everything, I like to have the flexibility to change pickups and tone with my guitar.

I believe that if it would be possible to change pickup modelling  with the pickup switches of the guitar, and adjusting the overall tone of the patch with the tone pot of the guitar, the GK would be much better, and more appealing to more guitarists. I understand that the tone might be able to control with an exp pedal, but well, I 'd like to have the control through my guitar in real time.

I am still learning from this amazing technology, and I don't know if its possible to change pickups through midi CC in the VG99, but if its possible and if its possible to attach any kind of midi triggerings to the pickup selector of the guitar to change pickups of the VG, that would be much better.

Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: supernicd on May 26, 2015, 06:10:44 PM
No argument there, Tonato.  Here are a couple of tips I've picked up from reading this forum that helped me.  Sharing here in case you haven't stumbled on them.

It's possible to use your regular magnetic pickups with the GP/GR/VG units, and play them through the unit's amps and effects.  Many here do that whenever possible, and only use the COSM guitar models when they need the sound of some specific guitar, alt tuning, or some other thing that isn't possible with their mag P/Us.  Myself, I used the COSM guitar models exclusively for quite a while after discovering the VGuitar stuff, but later discovered that I might have been over-using them.  Now I use the COSM models situationally as needed, and my guitar's mag p/us (which give me all that tonal control) when I don't need the COSM for something.  Best of both worlds.  You can also mix the sound of your mag p/us and the COSM guitar.  Try a 60/40 blend of mags to COSM, and then use your guitar tone, volume, PU selector to vary the tone, for example.

The COSM P/U selector can be controlled with the S1/S2 buttons on the GK.  Some models (VG-99, GP-10 for example) actually have increment/decrement functionality so that they move back and forth between up to 5 P/U positions.  The GR-55 is missing the inc/dec functionality, but you could still assign S1 and S2 to choose 2 of the possible pickups for that guitar model. 

You could always map the GK-VOL knob to the COSM guitar TONE knob if that's the main control you want at your fingertips.  Of course then it doesn't control guitar volume anymore.  The EXP pedal could be used for that.  It's whatever makes the most sense for you.  Might be worth creating a patch that puts the tone knob on your GK-VOL to see if that works for you.

Oh, and on the VG-99 specifically, those 6 knobs can be assigned to control whatever you want while you're on the patch home screen.  I like to have them consistent and simple.  Guitar tone, and the amp's tone stack controls (drive, bass, mid, treb, etc.).  If the 99 is close to you, actually easier than going back and adjusting an amp. ;)
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Tonato on May 27, 2015, 01:48:34 AM
Many Thanks SuperNICd! REALLY GOOD advice and info!

Im doing a rehearsal today and I will take the VG88 to use as a multifx processor, connected only with the jack cable! Will see how it goes!

It is a also a very good alternative to use the S1, S2 switches for pickup changes! I will definitely do that with my VG99. Very interesting to know I can adjust amp and tone settings with the VG99 knobs. I will try that today!

When I discovered the V world I aimed to use it as my main sound, but now I am thinking to mix it with my normal guitar, using it for 12 strings, alt tunings, cosm, etc. As you said I think this way its about getting what's the best of both worlds!

I still have a way to make the most of this technology! I hope to have more time off work soon and be able to get locked in my house for days with them ha!! :) Once more, thanks for the info!
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: supernicd on May 27, 2015, 04:49:35 AM
You're very welcome.  All things I've learned from others here -just reposting them at an opportune moment. ;)  Rediscovering my mag p/u's and how I can add them into the VGuitar equation has really helped me get the most from it.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Tony Raven on May 31, 2015, 07:54:12 PM
I really like the idea of applying King Gillette's rule to the GK-3: give the razors away, sell the blades. If they were sold at cost, there'd be an incentive to at least TRY dipping a toe into the 13-pin world. (If sold at a unit loss, the difference ought to be deductible as marketing.)

This popped up last month on Reverb.com, & I think at the very least it's an ingenious marketing tool --
(https://reverb-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/a_exif,c_limit,f_auto,fl_progressive,h_620,q_75,w_620/v1428604113/gbydscyyczsqdfsqhx6d.jpg)
Nothing but a stoptail on a wood slab. It was apparently built by ESP (made in China); the 12th-fret inlay is an italic "GK" in pearloid block. There's no distractions of fancy woodwork or pickups. Meant as a store demonstrator, but (IMNSHO) should've been retailed at cost. Makes me wonder how cheaply something similar with a Kit could be put out.

I'm a guitar addict -- there's a restive herd of 'em in the next room -- in part because I've often found that some passage that just refuses to work will suddenly become simple by changing instruments. Not even a matter of quality: last week, one of my best (Washburn X-33) let me down, yet it flowed on a cheap Johnson with sharp fret edges & in need of a trussrod tweak.

No way could I have enough hex pickups available to make such a rapid swap to any given guitar. But -- considering that most of my guitars cost me under $150 -- cutting the price would at least let me have a couple on hand.

If I had to come up with ONE combination of mag pickups, tailpiece, neck dimensions, scale length, etc. that I'd go out of my way to put a Kit in... well, there's where I feel too clueless to even make a first guess.
________________

Sorry; sudden change of direction. The Chapman Stick site shows a GK-3 mounted to the edge of the minimal body.
(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chapmanstick.com%2Finstruments%2Fmidi%2Fgk3%2Fimages%2Fdarkbam10_bridgethumb.jpg&hash=51483f634d423cfe4310edddc80fb65152c338a1)
The darned thing looks like it BELONGS there -- something that's rarely been said. Placement of controls almost makes sense, even.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: aliensporebomb on June 01, 2015, 09:54:34 AM
The music store near me has a GK3 only guitar similar to that one.  I've pondered what's going to happen to it since it sits on a rack behind the big GR55/GK guitar display they have there mostly unused.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on June 01, 2015, 10:12:20 AM
QuoteThey were more than happy to sell me the display unit GR55 with the guitar.
(https://reverb-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/a_exif,c_limit,f_auto,fl_progressive,h_620,q_75,w_620/v1428604113/gbydscyyczsqdfsqhx6d.jpg)
This information indicates either of three things :

1) The dealer needs cash flow and is willing to sell his GK-13 demonstrator guitar

2) The dealer is willing to sell his GK-13 demonstrator guitar, because he has inside news the Boss GP-10 will be the last GK-13 "V-Guitar" product, thus no future need for keeping an in house GK-13 demonstrator guitar.

3 ) Both #1 and #2 are true.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Orren Merton on June 01, 2015, 10:19:35 AM
Quote from: Elantric on June 01, 2015, 10:12:20 AM
This information indicates either of three things :
1) The dealer needs cash flow and is willing to sell his GK-13 demonstrator guitar
2) The dealer is willing to sell his GK-13 demonstrator guitar, because he has inside news the Boss GP-10 will be the last GK-13 "V-Guitar" product, thus no future need for keeping an in house GK-13 demonstrator guitar.
3 ) Both #1 and #2 are true.

Or #4:

The dealer is doing fine, has no inside information about GK products, but simply hasn't sold any GK related stuff in so long, he feels it's pointless to keep any in stock, and wants to clear out what he has to make room for stuff that might actually turn a profit.

Orren
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on June 01, 2015, 10:28:04 AM
Good point.

QuoteOr #4:

The dealer is doing fine, has no inside information about GK products, but simply hasn't sold any GK related stuff in so long, he feels it's pointless to keep any in stock, and wants to clear out what he has to make room for stuff that might actually turn a profit.

While I see adverts  in Premier Guitar for Boss GP-10, so far in 2014 -2015 1st year sales, the Boss GP-10 is not the big sales success that the GR-55 was back in 2011-2012. And the lower MSRP  = Lower profit margin.

I have yet to see a Boss GP-10 in stock or on Display at any USA Music store. And when i ask the Salesmen:

Quote"Do you have the Boss GP-10?

Not one of the sales floor staff know what a GP-10 is - so its tough for jaded  / non trained sales staff to know why the old GR-55 GK 13 pin In store display rack and demo guitar needs to be maintained for selling Roland's current and future GK-13 pin products.

I also asked when they were expecting to get the new Boss SY-300 - just a blank stare yet again.  Not one salesman at Guitar Center Oxnard, or Sherman Oaks, California had heard of the SY-300 - but they were happy to sell me a Washburn Nuno Bettencourt Guitar  for $99
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Washburn-Nuno-Bettencourt-Signature-Electric-Guitar-110448792-i3838294.gc (http://www.guitarcenter.com/Washburn-Nuno-Bettencourt-Signature-Electric-Guitar-110448792-i3838294.gc)
   

The local Boss dealer in USA probably makes more profit stocking and selling Boss  TU-3 tuners vs Boss GP-10
(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.roland.com%2Fassets%2Fimages%2Fproducts%2Fmain%2Ftu-3_top_tn.jpg&hash=db82bdf090d4da5d4ce2a52c40d9d8c03462f8d6)

Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Orren Merton on June 01, 2015, 10:47:27 AM
Quote from: Elantric on June 01, 2015, 10:28:04 AM
The local Boss dealer in USA probably makes more profit stocking and selling Boss  TU-3 tuners vs Boss GP-10
(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.roland.com%2Fassets%2Fimages%2Fproducts%2Fmain%2Ftu-3_top_tn.jpg&hash=db82bdf090d4da5d4ce2a52c40d9d8c03462f8d6)

And while I may prefer the TC Polytune, the fact is, that's a beloved and very good tuner! :)

Orren
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: mbenigni on June 01, 2015, 10:58:23 AM
Quote...but they were happy to sell me a Washburn Nuno Bettencourt Guitar  for $99
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Washburn-Nuno-Bettencourt-Signature-Electric-Guitar-110448792-i3838294.gc (http://www.guitarcenter.com/Washburn-Nuno-Bettencourt-Signature-Electric-Guitar-110448792-i3838294.gc)

Well, that got a rise out of me... for a few seconds, anyway.  I had no idea they ever did a cheap version of this guitar.  A Nuno signature model without a Floyd??  Pfft.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: aliensporebomb on June 01, 2015, 04:16:56 PM
Anyone ever see one of these?

The aforementioned LTD with single GK pickup and nothing else is BEHIND this massive display (across the aisle from the back of this sitting at a right angle to an amp on an amp mounted guitar hangar). 

You have to know it's there to even go "oh, what's this?"  Heh. 

That display is huge, well lit and the VGuitar screen on the left was in the middle of reboot when I took the shot.  I think they should have had a second cube if they wanted to run stereo.

That store is Groth Music in Minneapolis.  They are known for tending to have high prices but it's about the same through Musician's Friend, Sweetwater or the like. 

But, I kind of wonder how well this is selling that gear!  The area on the upper right where it says "The Story" and "G-5" you can see a spot where the G5 they had was, but it sold.  Yes, that's the one with the hex pickup and built in sounds.  I think they had two of the GC-1 guitars (that can drive GR-55 etc - one was sunburst) and only one is left (black).

Behind this there are 5 rows of conventional electrics and amps as well as that long double row on the right of just about every Fender you can imagine as well as some Yamaha, etc.

I have to admit the sound thru that little cube could be better but this gigantic display has kind of has a "do not touch" vibe about it, that display is ten feet tall, easily.  Maybe even higher. 

I can't imagine how they got it into the store.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Tony Raven on June 03, 2015, 11:25:11 PM
Wow; that's just bad in so many ways. I haven't done marketing in many years, but first thoughts:

The display is off-putting rather than inviting. For starters, the demo guitar should be up, like fret 12 about 5 feet off the floor. It should have a strap, & a pick stuck through the strings. Below that would be the info screen (left) & GR-55 (right). Everything would be powered up during store hours, with the amp volume just above a whisper. (Ideally, that screen would be showing a rotating cycle of brief video demos alternating with cues saying how easy it is to begin; when the guitar's lifted from its cradle, this would change to "push THAT button, make THIS sound" tips.)

And, yeah, there SHOULD be at least a 2-12" there. With one little cone -- at ankle level, yet!! -- it seems INTENDED to make the GR sound tinny & weedy. The demo stand I tried in 1999 at least had the sense to run it to headphones, & (yes) left the synth & amp powered up all day.

As is, it looks like someone simply parked a random guitar in a defunct display unit that's halfway to the Dumpster. At best, it's selling the guitar, NOT the Roland gear.

Roland should NEVER let tech geeks write user manuals. Much less should they be allowed to "create an in-store experience."
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Tony Raven on June 14, 2015, 12:14:26 PM
I'm surprised at the popularity of the 13-pin DIN, despite its flaws. Godin, RMC, Graph Tech, Fender, Brian Moore, Carvin -- any of these would be fully justified in going 100% to a more robust/repairable/available cabling format, at the cost of a small adapter/breakout box.
________________

But I may have identified another problem with the supply chain.

Early 2014, I bought a Switch Music "Innovo-III MIDI" guitar for a few bucks under $350, shipped -- a bit more than I would've set value at, but it's one of the last ones I've seen on the market, so I'm satisfied. As with my previous Switch guitars, the attention to detail shown is to a very high standard. It needed the basics (trussrod tweak, minor intonation, height), plays sweet, & shows minimal fretwear, like a few hundred hours from a light-handed player.

Now that I've finally got a VG-8, it seemed like time to set it all up. Before I even plugged in, I glanced at the inbuilt GK-2A... then went & checked the manual. And string clearance is 2 mm (low E) to 2.9 mm (high E).

Something so simple, from a detail-aware company. This does lead me to wonder whether other resellers of the GK-KIT are ensuring that the system is installed properly, works before it leaves the bench, & gets a final checkout with the usual adjustments at the retail end (if any). However, my experience of recent years with Fender guitars being displayed directly from the box (cursory visual inspection & tune) is not heartening. I'd certainly expect better from (say) Godin, but my rare fits of optimism often go unrewarded.

There's little upside & lots of downside that inure to Roland. If it all works great, the owners will RAVE about the guitar... but if they encounter problems, they'll squeal incessantly about how "ROLAND SUX!!" While I'm sure RKK simply wants to sell a few metric tons of GKs & the associated modules, the hard fact is that they should consider how their reputation (& thus market value) is affected by the imperfect work of these "value added" brands.

What are the experiences of others? If you own a "Roland ready" guitar, was the circuit ideal from the start, or not?
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: admin on June 14, 2015, 01:12:43 PM
Never had a problem I could not fix

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=73.0 (https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=73.0)
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: thebrushwithin on June 14, 2015, 01:27:19 PM
QuoteWhat would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?

Nothing! It is a specialty market that few guitarists, outside this community, understand, or care to. The sonic explorers are pretty much not guitarists anymore, but rather are into electronica. It's all good!!!
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: supernicd on June 14, 2015, 03:21:11 PM
QuoteWhat are the experiences of others? If you own a "Roland ready" guitar, was the circuit ideal from the start, or not?

Bought a Godin LGXT back around Christmas time last year.  It's a thing of beauty.  Have not had to do or have anything done to it.  Works great with my GR-55, GP-10, and VG-99.  Also sounds great when not connected to a 13-pin system.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: matigrob on August 22, 2015, 05:56:10 AM
did this Display Port idea go anywhere?
looks interesting. I do not worry that the cable would be able to handle analog signal.
here is quite some info about the cable:
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/peripherals/f/3529/t/19339056?pi23185=13 (http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/peripherals/f/3529/t/19339056?pi23185=13)

looks like there are 5 drilled (shielded?) pairs, so probably about 6 of the pins must be ground.
so each pair of strings might suffer some crosstalk, but since pickups do not separate well either, I do not think it would be a problem
one pair could be a digital control line and we should maintain Rolands 3 control lines to be able to make compatible cables (adapters).

mechanically, it may be similar to FireWire: the cable connector looks quite resistant but how about the socket?
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/PlayStation-4-HDMI-Display-Port-Socket-Jack-Connector-PS4-Console-/171804311283 (http://www.ebay.ie/itm/PlayStation-4-HDMI-Display-Port-Socket-Jack-Connector-PS4-Console-/171804311283)
amazing how many are not stocked or end of life, is it a dead end?
http://www2.mouser.com/Connectors/Audio-Video-Connectors/HDMI-Displayport-DVI-Connectors/_/N-778d3?P=1ytkn39Z1z0yy6b&Keyword=display+port&FS=True (http://www2.mouser.com/Connectors/Audio-Video-Connectors/HDMI-Displayport-DVI-Connectors/_/N-778d3?P=1ytkn39Z1z0yy6b&Keyword=display+port&FS=True)
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: GuitarBuilder on November 01, 2017, 12:54:09 PM
Sorry about the necropost, but this solution has merit:

http://www.cycfi.com/2016/11/announcing-the-nexus/ (http://www.cycfi.com/2016/11/announcing-the-nexus/)

Scroll down to the section on the multi-channel cable with Lemo-compatible connector.  I have used this for over 6 months now without any issues and can attest to the fact that it is more robust and easier to use than the 13-pin plugs.
Title: Re: What would make 13-pin guitars more appealing, more successful?
Post by: Elantric on October 13, 2018, 02:36:53 PM
make divided pickup adapter for guitars using A2B technology

https://youtu.be/_p4uPR8PzPI