Homepage Forums Guitar Discussion Guitar Someone just GAVE me a Set of EMG pickups!!!

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  • #22044
    Ibanthrasher
    Participant

    one EMG 85 Humbucker ( I like the sound better than the 81’s) and 2 “singles” he said they were from an old BC Rich that he “threw away.” They are white though 🙁 Painting them wont screw up the sound will it? I also need some good links to Wire them up. He only had the pickups so I have to get the POTS? The Sterio Jack (i think) of Course a 9v clip, and??? I still want to be able to use my Newly Purchased Screamon Deamon pickup in the neck possition so I need a “phase inverter” and something else but I foget?? Switch the Polarity? Flip a magnet maybe? Any help would be appreciated 🙂
    Thanks Mates

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    • #70369
      1bassleft
      Participant

      ‘thrasher, that does sound like a good idea. Last time I looked, guitarelectronics encouraged people to post in a challenging wire-up. Give them a go (but I’ll have a thunk over my lengthy hols).

      1BL

    • #70337
      Ibanthrasher
      Participant

      Well my bed time is actually about 2 hours after I SHOULD be in bed. I got my CTS mini pots of of guitarelectronics.com They were cheap as heck. It’s the waiting that gets ya. I’m thinking about wiring up a seperate knob just for my seymor duncan screamin deamin, so its running 500Kohm and not 25kohm. I just cant find any good diagrams for that, and I don’t like soldering, and then un soldering then resoldering…

    • #70333
      1bassleft
      Participant

      ‘Thrasher, sounds good. Except you feel the need to sleep. C’mon -where’s the rock’n’roll ❓ 😆

      Joking aside, the correct pots do help. Wrong values = no response. For others looking in, it is a bit tedious to check up, but well worth it. Suddenly, the unresponsive guitar can sing (at a cost of just a few bills).

    • #70393
      Ibanthrasher
      Participant

      Vrewooowwww! Welp I got the new Pots installed an all hooked up. Man what a difference GOOD pots with the correct resistance make. The Tone knob actually works now too. ALthough when I’ve got my amp on distortion you can’t tell the differance at all. But set to clean and you can definitely hear the tone differences. Oh well… it’s about and hour past my bedtime so…
      L8er all 😆

    • #70335
      Ibanthrasher
      Participant

      Aside from sounding a little more “fat” when compaired to the EMG 85 the S.D. Screamin Deamon sounds fine… I mean it doesn’t have anywhere near the output of a 85 running 18volts, but for a passive pup I don’t have any problem with it. I ordered 25k CTS mini pots (what the emg website calls for) today. As soon as they arrive and I install them I’ll let you all know if the tone control works now…

    • #70388
      1bassleft
      Participant

      S’funny, i would’ve thought 25k and 50k were way easier to get than 10k pots. I have some dunkmore semen active pups that supposedly require 100k, and I was wondering whether to go 50k or 250k as I’ve never seen 100k.

      If there is one pot that won’t like an “it’ll do”, it’s the tone pot. The capacitor across it affects the frequency of the cut, and the value of the pot affects the range. It might be that 10k is so tight it just has no effect. It is also very difficult to balance up the requirements of the EMGs with the Screamin’, which (I presume) would normally have a 500k. My first thought would be to compromise with a 250k, but the EMG site mentioned something about this IIRC. Anyone found a working link yet?

    • #70343
      Ibanthrasher
      Participant

      I got them working. Well Kind of. The pickups work, I have the 85 and the single up and running, along with my Passive Screamin Deamon HB in the Neck possition now. I am running 18v in the guitar and it works just fine. I couldn’t find 25k Ohm pots, so I used 10k ohm pots they work, But I should probably switch out to 25’s eventually, The only problem I’m having is my tone pot does nothing, It’s hooked up and everythng but it doesn’t change to tone at all 🙁

    • #70355
      lee_UK
      Participant

      [quote=”1bassleft”]AFAIK, 18v increases the headroom but I’m thinking more of active eq rather than pickups. Should be good for both. I wanted to check this out but EMG’s site seems to be down.[/quote]

      Site down?? at 3am in the morning im not suprised!!

    • #70394
      1bassleft
      Participant

      AFAIK, 18v increases the headroom but I’m thinking more of active eq rather than pickups. Should be good for both. I wanted to check this out but EMG’s site seems to be down.

    • #70361
      Ibanthrasher
      Participant

      The 85 has a fatter tone. The Low end has a lot more depth and the high end doesn’t sond so damn tinny. Don’t get me wrong the 81’s sound good too, but when you do a back to back sound-off the 85 winds hands down IMHO My wife thinks so too 🙂 The SE’s he gave me sound pretty good too.
      You can run 9v EMG Actves on 18v? I know Seymour Duncan has 18v Active pickups. Oh I don’t need a phase inverter to use passive Seymour Duncan pickups, just the active ones. It’s just a littl emore tricky to wire Active and Passive pickups in the same guitar…

    • #70341
      Megadeth45
      Participant

      you said u liked the soudn of teh 85 better than the 81…how come? I want to buy either of those along with an emg 60 and i cant decide haha.

    • #70373
      1bassleft
      Participant

      ps, the purpose of the stereo jack is so that, once you pull out the mono lead, the circuit is killed and the battery in the guitar isn’t draining away unnecessarily.

    • #70347
      1bassleft
      Participant

      http://www.EMGinc.com was always my first port of call (some months ago now). I believe Thrasher’s right – these are sealed epoxy jobbies all over. Painting the covers causes no harm to anything other than the eyeballs, AFAIK.

      Active EMGs use 50k pots to best effect. Standard 250/500k pots are not what they’re designed for. The later EMGs are harnessed up, which simplifies things. If yours are just “red wire, white wire” pups, it’s still not too difficult. A heap of active EMGs might benefit from 18V, two batteries hookup. If the above site (or http://guitarelectronics.zoovy.com/category/wiringresources/) is no help, then post again. EMG eq knobules are very handy, also – they have such small PCBs that they tend to fit in their replacement slot with no bother.

    • #70353
      Ibanthrasher
      Participant

      I don’t think so, they all look to be One piece all sealed together. I know when you order them, you order the color you want, I don’t think that they can be changed without the chance of screwing them up… maybe if there was just a thin COVER available…

    • #70391
      lee_UK
      Participant

      Cant you replace the covers on the EMG’s? have you looked at allparts.com?

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