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Pickup configuration.


Snork

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by your description i really don't know what you are going for exactly...you insist that the 85 is what you want for the bridge though...

there IS no perfect combination of pickups for everything...just make a decision and if you don't like it,change them outlater.

by the way..emgs wire to a harness so you can change between different emgs by simply unpluging one and plugging in another.

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My answer to that is the way I'm building most of my guitars these days, because I want those same things in my guitars, from crystal clean to snarlin' mean. That's what I shoot for most of the time, as much on-board diversity as I can get, because I listen to and play a very wide diversity of music, my guitars have to be very versatile to satisfy me.

This is the way I do it on the leanest budget possible (I'm money concious too)

Pkps: Bill Lawrence for your SC. They're noiseless, and they're the best deal (pricewise) out there for noiseless pkps. I think Bill offers 3 spices, you want the middle one. Another alternative are the Lace Sensors, but I have not experimented with them yet (I've got 'em here, just not installed in anything yet) I've heard tremendous reviews of their newer products, the Hot Golds, the Holy Grails, but they're not 100% noiseless, so I cannot speak to them yet, but their prices are great, and I hear they are very close to noiseless. Your call there.

For the HB's, you want something not as clean as a Duncan Jazz, but not HOT either, you pick what you want, but keep it middle-of-the-road, like a '59 and a JB maybe. Your call again.

Now you get the EMG Afterburner (Hell, you knew that was coming, right? :D )

The story so far $$$ =

Figure around $50.00/ea. for the HB's

Around $35.00 for the SC

About $40.00 for the A-burner.

If you want to try any of the other EMG tone-shapers, like the EXG or SPC (you won't need the SPC w/ 2 HB's BTW) they are also about $40.00 ea. If you want crystal clear Bells of St. Mary tone, then you will want the EXG.

Pots, you use regular pots, 500K's should work right.

Whatever switching options you want is up to you whether you use a 5-way, mini-toggles, whatever...

You'll need some shielding paint or tape. Pre-amps pick up and boost everything, so you gotta do a great shielding job.

Output jack comes with the A-burner.

This is what you'll wind up with:

A-burner NOT engaged, you get all kinds of nice tones from jazzy neck HB to your SC, all that stuff. Kick in the EXG and you're off into the 'Bells of Lal' tone (hehehe)

Tons of very cool tones all over the place.

Now, roll off the EXG, pull up and rotate that lil' doggie Afterburner up, you're into searing violin-type sustain and gut-bucket Kap'n Krunch crunch.

I've not found anything that will beat this kind of setup yet. Me sooooo happy with this :D . I've got at least 5 guitars all running this basic type of setup, each different in it's own way, and I absolutely love the tones out of every last one of them, and I'll continue to use this setup unless I'm building some sort of vintage box that wouldn't call for anything that 'hi-tech'.

Do NOT buy HOT pkps with this, it ruins the stew completely. The pre-amp boosts the signal up hotter than almost any other pickup out there anyway.

Can ya handle it Snorkie? :DB)

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you can not use those pots with actives...you must use the ones that come with the pickups

and listen to pink floyd's later albums...they will show you how bluesy sa's can get

actually you can use 1Meg pots with actives it makes a nice tone in deed. something i did on my old 81/X2N IBANEZ. they don't recomend it. but it realy makes the pickups sing imho

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They might make it 'sing' for extremely heavy tones, but I would think that's about it, not much diversity there.

Trying to play something sweet and jazzy on that would probably sound terribly harsh and brittle, not what Snorkie asked for methinks...

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actualy the way that hetfield of metallica gets his in according to emg they say its a jazz players dream

but then again i guess its all how you use it. personaly my ibanez would do spankin clean country, or screaming metal. deep blues. (thanks to the capacitor/gain knob trick i learned) and pretty much anything in between.

but i guess it all depends on the set up too.

i was using an old ampeg for a my power amp to push my cabs. i burned the body cuase the wood was still "wet" replaced the bridge with an original floyd rose solid brass deal.. the one without fine tuners.. and used 14's on it. with an undwound G string. semi scalloped fretboard.

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(thanks to the capacitor/gain knob trick i learned)

Well you're not gonna keep it a SECRET are you?

Do share, do share! :D

sorry i forgot to clarify, you basicaly have to expirament with different capacitors. but i got good combos of using the 1Meg pot and a huge radioshack 1mfd cap.. the big blue ones.. i couldn' get the same results from any other cap. but i used it to cut the highs. wich on an active can be high. and basically it turns down any high gain metal hard rock sound into a dusty blues sound. i then use a high bleed cap on top of it to retain a little clarity.. i will try to see if i have a scheme drawn up for it. it was one of those off the wall lets try this, back before i knew the freq formula for calcluating roll off freq. bascially at 100 ohms resistance it drops your highs to 1.5924khz at 1k resistance it is down to 159.24hz so i never really took it lower than a little over half. after 2.2k of resistance it acts like a gain control cause it is already a lowpass filter lower than the guitars freq rangewhich there for it acts like a gain knob

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You shouldn't need a bleed cap with active pick ups - or 1M pots either, since the lo impedance output keeps the highs from being lost. EMG recommends a .1uf pot for their 25K tone control, but caps are cheap, so play with it until you find a range you like. I suspect that you'd be happier with the stock setup, Sam, knowing how you feel about metal guitar tones, and you should be able to get some warm jazz sounds fairly easily. And for blues, that neck pickup rolled back with the tone just about at 0 really sound sweet through a slightly gained up tube amp. Oh, and if you want to sound (a little) like Vai, just dime everything. :D

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HERE is the link I just found from DaveG's post (thanks Dave) for EMG goods.

Strat Presence control...you mean the SPC? No, you won't need it running 2 HB's with it. Totally and completely unnecessary. If you want really crystal cleans, get the EXG tho. You could live w/o the EXG also and still have a great sounding setup, I know you're watching the $$$'s, but the EXG will add serious bell-tone clarity enhancement to your clean sound.

That's my recipe for my 'clean to mean', by turning the EXG up, A-burner off when clean, then Afterburner kicked in and turned up, EXG turned down for the 'mean'.

If you lean much more to the heavy end of things, you might try going without the EXG, it's really for folks who want Ronnie Earl-like bell-clarity. It's not a necessity, but I do play clean like that often enough to warrant using it regularly.

Up to you, but it would save you another $40.00 if you went without it. :D You can always add it in later as long as you have room to mount another pot down the road.

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