Casio MG-510 Modified with Roland Ready Guitar GK-3 Electronics

Casio MG-510 Modified Roland Ready Guitar:

I wish I could take credit for this awesome modification, but I picked this guitar up used a few years on Reverb with the internal Casio Guitar-to-MIDI electronics replaced by a modern Roland GK-3 electronics card.

I made a few more tweaks to the guitar, resoldering the connections using shrink wrap for stability and adding a direct guitar output jack.

Guitar Build:

When I played the guitar I immediately loved the sound of the original Casio pickups. They really reminded me of my Schecter Scorcher strat from 1985. The pickups are versatile, clean and powerful. The super strat configuration offers a humbucker in the bridge. You can combine the neck and bridge pickup and have the option to split the humbucker to get the classic strat out-of-phase chime or an enhanced humbucker tone. The coil spitter switch is between the Volume and Tone knobs.

The tremolo works great as well, I would feel completely comfortable bringing this to a gig without the additional GK Roland synth gear.

From what I could find online this guitar was made by FGN, Fujigen Gakki, the same company that built the classic Roland guitar synthesizer controllers like the GS-500, G-303 and G-808.

The neck has a more modern profile. I am not an expert on neck profiles, but I have found this neck described as a 12" - 14" radius neck. I know it is flatter than my very similar Fender GC-1 Roland Ready strat. The action is also low. I think this guitar will appeal to players who are looking for something between a classic Fender Roland-Ready Strat and a more modern Ibanez guitar.

GK-3 Electronics:

The Casio hexaphonic pickup has been wired to a multipin connector that connects to the GK-3 circuit board. All the standard GK controls are availble, including Synth volume and GK S1/S2 switching.

The Casio Hexaphonic pickup is much more like the second generation vintage Roland synth pickups. The elements are slightly hotter than the slimmed down GK-3 or GK-2A pickups. The advantage is that less makeup gain is required to get a solid signal for tracking and modeling. When I set this guitar up with my SY-1000 the gain settings for each string were close to '0', far from the default value of '65'.

• 'MIDI Volume' is now GK Synth Volume.

• The 'Guitar/Guitar+MIDI/MIDI' three position switch has been repurposed as 'Guitar/Guitar+Synth/Synth'.

• The 'Octave Down/Normal/Up' switch has been repurposed as the GK S1/S2 switch, using the spring-loaded return to center GK switch.

• The 'Normal/Chromatic' switch has been replaced by an LED that shows power to the GK3 Electronics.

• If you have ever played an GK Roland Ready guitars you will feel right at home.

If you have ever played an GK Roland Ready guitars you will feel right at home.

• Casio MG-510 Owner's Manual
• Casio MG-510 Service Notes
• Casio MG-510 MIDI Guitar - Muzine

Photos:

Guitar Synth Pickup Rewiring:

The table below matches the colored wires from the Casion Hexaphonic pickup to the Roland GK-3 synth pickup multipin connector.

Videos:

Casio Advertising from Sound On Sound, Jul '89, Music Technology, Sep '89