So, I’ve picked up a second-hand Roland GR-50 on eBay which came with a GK-2 divided pickup and 13-PIN lead.
First job; re-locate gear to a larger 5u rack-box (the Peavey 50/50 taking up 2u of course). They don’t make 5u rack boxes – great! 6u and a blanking plate it is then. Cool, a proper mains cable, so no PSU to find a space for. Just another midi cable needed and a couple of patch cables to take output from GR-50 into Peavey power amp (which fortunately has two extra stereo inputs).
Mount GK-2 pickup on trusty Aria Pro II CS-350 gigging guitar. Just enough space between bridge pickup and bridge. Mag pickup lead now goes into GK-2 and then Roland 13-PIN cable takes everything to the GR-50.
Mag pickup signal now emerges from the rear of the GR-50 and then on to the rear input of the GX-700 (I have the JMP-1 in the loop of the GX-700).
First problem – no output from GK-2! Ok…new GK-3 pickup it is. The GK-3 arrives with various self-adhesive shims to achieve the optimum distance from the strings. There’s some adjustment of the pole pieces themselves to compensate for the specific radius setting of the strings.
Happy days, I have guitar synth noises, but no output from mag pickups…
(P. S. These posts describe the morphing over time of the author’s guitar-synth setup – keep reading through to the current evolution)
