Roland GK-3 Divided Pickup Reviews

I bought the GK-2 when it first came out. I liked it. I checked into the GK-3. I like it much more. I plan to install it on my BOSS Eurus.

I am very pleased and excited with the GK-3. I just recently purchased the BOSS Eurus guitar. And I wanted to make it my main "go to guitar." Now I can use my GR-1 and my VG-99. All of this will be coming through my Katana MKll 100/212.
I take my hat off to Zack for an awesome job during every step of the way with this purchase of the pickup.

TJ was a great help in getting my new guitar rig set up! With his help, my changes went off fantastic. I am so happy with my Boss Katana Mk2 100. Thank you again!

Don't know why any musician would want to buy anywhere else, the people at Sweetwater are very nice and helpful with you, to me, that's everything when it comes to buying a product, they care about you and make sure you are happy with your purchase. This country has gotten away from that in past years, not good business, take care of your people and they will take care of you.
Happy Customer!!!
Ron Wilson

It respond with no latency time. Easy to mount on guitars ( both electric and acoustic steel string giutars)
I use this pickup with Roland GR-55 snd they are made for each other.
I would reccommend to all musician who want more sounds than just your guitar"s sound.
And the Roland GR-55 is an excellent pedal.

I have several of these installed (by a professional) on various guitars. Comes with all the parts needed to install. Use them every week. They work great. Of course, you have to mount them on top of the guitar, but they are out of the way and there is no damage to the guitars from the install. Very easy access to the push buttons,and the volume control. I did have one of the input jacks fail, but Sweetwater is taking care of getting that fixed. I have only praise for the pickups.

I had the pickup installed by a professional. It can be installed by a non-technical person, but I chose to not make an attempt at that. It works great with the GR-55. It tracks very well and I use the guitar and synth every week.

I have a total of (3) guitars with the GK-3 pickups installed and all perform fine.

Had GK2s w my older GR30 and finally got the new GR55 (get one!) the mounting on the GK3 is much better. A new bridge bracket for LP install no hassle no screws.The main controller attaches w a new mounting bracket that is padded and screws onto the strap holder. You simply must take the effort to install this puppy correctly and meticulous. position, height and saddle distance is all exact. Contrary to a lot of web stuff the GK3 is lower output than the GK2 probably to reduce string bleed and false triggering. GR55 w GK3 is a marvelous expansive tool for the advanced musician looking for the new galaxy of tones.

Fits like a glove! Great item 5 stars!

I was sceptical about this Idea I had. I work at a local music store in Chico Ca. I purchased the Pedal portion of the Synth system an old used GR30 and the GK3 is what I am reviewing. After finally figuring things out the GK3 operates perfectly and the whole system by Roland is indeed what I remembered for years back. Now if I can just record with it Wunderba...Thanks again it is always a pleasure doing business with you guys.
Sincerely,
Qflat

I got the Roland GR 55 but didn't realize it needed the pick up additionally. I was distressed because I had really wanted to test all the sounds. I hope you are brighter than I. Then when it arrived, the directions were daunting. It turned out not to be as hard as I thought.

Then, "Holy Cow" the sounds that came from my little guitar were stunning. I'll never learn to exhaust the possibilities of this gear. They will make a 100 new versions while I am still plowing through the manuals and tutorials. That's a good thing, because it will retain my interest.

I purchased the GK-3 as a replacement for an older GK-3 which has served me well for years. The new model is better than ever... slimmer, uses a 1/4 inch jack for the guitar input (unlike the old which has an 1/8 inch) and the pickup wire can be adjusted. All that and great tracking for all my midi needs!

i really like the roland gk-3 pick up

If you're running a midi rig along with your guitar amp, this pick up will treat you much better than those in built into your guitars. Tracking, response time and ease of control are all huge benefits this pickup will have over your built in piezo based pickups.

I have two of these; the first one came with my GR-55 and is installed on a Variax. This combination allows me to create just about any tone I want with the GR-55.

The second unit is installed on an acoustic guitar. This is not typical, I guess, but I saw a couple of videos where people had done this, and figured if it didn't work out I'd put it on one of my other guitars. It works perfectly. Surprisingly, it tracks better on the acoustic than on the Variax, but it's pretty good on both of them. I have played out a lot with the Variax, and after a period of learning which patches to use for various tunes, I wanted to have the same flexibility with my acoustic.

I now am planning to get one of the "pro-install" versions that is designed for permanent installation, to build into a strat copy I'm making.

I took off one half star because of a minor beef: When you put this on an acoustic, with my hardshell case you can't close the case because of the thickness of the controller. It's a home-built D-28 knockoff in a Martin case, so the dimensions are pretty typical. So I'm using Velcro to attach the controller, leaving the pickup attached. When not in use, I can detach the controller and it tucks nicely between the case and waist of the guitar if I flip the converter so the bracket lays on top of the guitar.
I know it's not designed to be used with an acoustic, really, but it works great except for this issue.

I got stellar service from Sweetwater - my rep, Robert Koch, has been great with follow-up.

I haven't mounted it yet but give a good rating anticipating that I'll like it.

However, the GK-3 does not fit out of the box under the strings on my 2012 American Strat. A solution I'm looking at is to use a 1-ply pick guard instead of the stock 3-ply, which I learned from a forum somewhere. I'll update my review when the new pick guard arrives in a couple of days.

For anyone venturing out to experiment with Synthesizers for the first time, the initial setup exercise is quite complex but rewarding if you get it right. I had played with a friend of mine’s synthesizer a number of times and wanted one for myself as I already use a number of pedals and other sound devices in my collection.
My experience: I purchased a second hand Roland GR-20 with the cables and the GK-3 pickup that came with it. The GR-20 was pretty well used, but it seemed to be a good deal at the time. After I assembled the pickup I experienced that some strings worked and others did not. I assumed the pickup was faulty and purchased a new GK-3 pickup from Sweetwater. After it arrived I assembled the new pickup on my Gibson SG and was a little disappointed now because none of the pickups on the strings worked. I contacted Sweetwater and spoke to a rep who suggested I purchase a new cable because the old cable may be faulty. So after I purchased a new cable and plugged that in after it arrived, I found that I now had 5 of 6 strings working on the new GK-3 and cable. The problem I now have is with the GR-20.
Recommendation. The GK-3 and Cable purchased from Sweetwater were great, good follow-up and good support, however, it’s the risk one takes purchasing second hand used electronics that is the issue.

Always good fast service and handled well by sales staff.

As far as the divided pick up I have two others , a gk2 and the new gk3.
They work very well and easy install.

What a step forward with all hardware and extras. To be able to tweek
the center pickup poles was great! My install looks and sounds great.


Thanks go to David Hess

works great

The Roland guitar synth is an amazing piece of technology. However, no one's talking about the installation difficulties. The description says it can be installed on Les Paul's. Unfortunately, I discovered that with both my Les Paul's and SG's, either Gibson or Epiphone, the bridge pickup is too close to the bridge to install the Roland pickup. Roland's suggestion is to move the guitar's bridge pickup. So much for no drilling. Luckily I also had a Strat, and you can attach the pickup to the pickguard with supplied double-sided tape. But if you have a fitted Fender case, your guitar will no longer go in the case, because the pickup controller causes the strap button to stick out farther, and it has a second bolt that sticks out just as far. I'm going to have to try and alter my case to get the guitar in it again.

Well, first off, kudos to Roland for making all of those great guitar synths in the first place! The GK-3 works just fine outside of a few problems:

1) Many newer guitars have a flatter radius than the GK-3 can adjust to. If your guitar fretboard has a radius of more than 14" it is impossible to get it setup to the recommended spec. But, it will still work... The teeny tiny radius adjustment screw is not great either...

2) The little screw that attaches the pickup housing works it's way permanently loose over time. I don't know of any decent electric guitarists that don't rely on palm muting to control their sound and that creates a lot of stress on anything here next to the bridge. Roland needs to develop a rock solid pickup to cable connection.

3) While there are several optional ways to mount the pickup, none of them are as super reliable as I'd like. I have four of these pickups mounted and except for on one of my most expensive guitars, I just end up mounting the pickups directly onto the bodies with wood screws to keep it more solid and use metal washers to adjust the height.

Yes, the GK-3 is a more than usable solution. It tracks great for the most part as long as you don't play your instrument too sloppy. And it's the only way to get those incredible Roland Guitar Synth sounds out of a standard non-synth guitar, I'm just ready for a GK-4, please...

I was advised that the GK-3 would work really great on a Strat. However, my 1960 Custom Shop strat doesn't have enough clearance for the GK-3 to fit beneath the strings. It's not even close. Having snooped around on the web I found lots of people reporting the same issue. Several YouTube videos show people removing the pickguard and using a dremel tool to cut a section out of the pickguard in order to accommodate the GK-3. I'm not going to go those lengths with my Strat. Before you buy this pickup you may want to make sure it will fit with your guitar or be prepared to buy a new guitar that won't require major surgery for the GK-3.