Thanks Kimyo,
My GK separate strings work is mainly about passing on knowledge, and less about selling gear.
Good to hear your GKP-1 is working well. A breakout box is the next step up from a breakout cable, and think of GKP-1 as a separate strings hub, with Strings I/O, String Inserts, And a quiet Normal-Guitar buffer I/O.
Bill
Here is my current temporary setup that I built from stuff I had laying around in about 2 hours.
Nothing to brag about but I was thinking for those who are intimidated by soldering a 13 pin connector you can avoid this with this build.
Just buy a 13 pin cable (I used a cheap one), get 3 guitar cables and cut them in half, cut off one end of the 13 pin cable, go into some kind of shielded box (metal) and make the connections inside the box between all the cables. Yes you will still need some knowledge and basic soldering skill but you won’t have to work in the micro space of a 13 pin plug.
Like the look of the cable ElectroFuzz, and appreciate the warning with soldering a 13-pin socket!
Tip:
Here’s my £90 jacks breakout cable from Wednesday. P7 normal-guitar output jack included.
Hi, Bill, @Dutti67, @ElectroFuzz.
Did I understood you and Marcus correctly that in principle you can get hex audio signals to audio interface from GK-3 in passive mode with no power supply?
It looks like subsix hex PU works like that. They use 2 trrs-to-3-ts cables for individual string audio instead of 13pin-breakout.
Can one make GK3 sensor work in passive mode with two such cables and two trrs female sockets instead of 13pin socket?
You can make the GK-3 work in passive mode but your signal to noise ratio will be pretty bad.
Bypassing the 13 pin connector on the GK-3 is possible too but it will involve opening the GK-3 and soldering the cables directly to a micro board… I would call it almost impossible without things breaking down the line, personally I would never attempt something like this.
You must not necessarily solder connections onto the GK-3 PU board. Buy a GK-KIT-GT3 (cheaper as the GK-3 unit) which comes with a 8-pin connector cable at the pickup, that usually connects to the pre-amp board. Either use that connector or cut it off and solder cables on it if you don’t want to use the 13-pin DIN cable.
yes. I was too thinking about GK-3 internal kit.
But can those wires be soldered directly to two female trrs sockets as in subsix PU?
And whether you will get adequate SNR out of this?
The wires can be soldered directly to longer cables with TRS or XLR connectors (shielding must be split). If the signal-to-noise ratio isn’t sufficient (I don’t have any problems with that), you can use the complete GK-KIT-GR3 with the circuit board and power it. The wiring harness for the 13-pin connector could be used to solder other cables.
My main concern is what happens when somebody yanks on the cable? You have to somehow make the whole setup rugged enough to withstand incidents that will arise eventually.
By the way for some reason the internal GK kit is double the price of GK-3 in the US.
I completely agree and wonder why you don’t want to use the 13-pin connector and just make or buy a breakout cable.
@ElectroFuzz You have valid concerns about ruggedness. But if ts jack is rugged enough for mono guitar audio, maybe two trrs jacks will work fine for hex?
I plan to use it in home studio, not on stage.
I’m new to this hex PU stuff and have nothing against 13pin. Just figuring out what are the options and their costs)
Somehow subsix caught my eye first. It does not have 13pin-connector and comes with “sort-of-breakout” cable.
GK-X, subsix and cycfi’s Nu seem to be the main choices for magnetic hex PUs. And I see that 13pin is much more widespread in hex PU world.
I was going to ask the same question about hex piezo PU.
Graphtech sells ghost modular piezo pickup system: individual saddles, preamp, hexpander, 13pin socket, etc. And you can buy just the saddles for 100$.
The only comment to this saddle lot is:
“More Power than expected. I use them without any preamp.”
So I was thinking, whether you can use those individual wires without preamp, soldering them directly like GK-3 wires to get hex piezo source?
If that works I was thinking about getting Graphtech saddles + Subsix PU (with breakout cables) + UMC1820 for ultimate piezo+magnetic hex setup (passive pickups, trrs-to-ts breakout).
Another variant is (active PUs, 13pin-to-ts breakout):
i think 2 trs jacks won’t be enough. you will need 7 wires (1 per string plus ground) and 2 trs’s will only give you 4 (2 conductors and 1 ground per cable).
the subsix uses two four-connector jacks on the pickup side.
additionally on the subsix: as it is mounted directly to the body it picks up all body noise. i had some loose springs at the bridge which were introducing a rattling noise. not a big deal generally, but a noisy pot or anything loose might need attention.
using the gk saddles without their preamp’s and its eq is possible but i think you may not be happy with the quality of the sound.
yeah, 2 trs won’t do. I wrote 2 trrs like in subsix or 3 trs for that matter.
In fact I was thinking about reusing splitters from subsix for hex output from piezo.
Interesting info about subsix noise from first hand user.
You can easily hack GK3 sensor into a submarine pickup type operation. I used to get GK3 sensors from Roland spares for about £14.00GBP a piece. GK3 sensor individual strings output are around -25dB or about 100mV+/-. A DAW interface like the cheap Behringer UMC1820 should get you near 0dB using a line-input. The bonus with using a GK3 sensor over a Submarine pickup is placement near the bridge, and a much improved string crosstalk separation.
Thanks for the numbers, Bill.
Maybe you know such info about piezo saddles like the ones from graphtech ghost? Will they produce enough signal to be used without additional preamp directly into UMC1820 line input?
I don’t know the output level of a piezo saddle and wouldn’t consider making an ‘all in one’ pickup/cable with piezos. A lot of guitar players have an almost discarded Roland hex sensor, and I think that’s a good place to start. It’s also important to consider adding a simple passive Hi-Pass filter to each sensor output, rolling off frequencies below 70Hz. A 1nF capacitor to ground is a good starting value, and you can experiment with a low value series resistor to adjust Hi-Pass low frequency rejection. A spectrum analyser is an invaluable tool for audio filter design.
