Help Mixing Active Pickup With 2 Single Passives

[werkinclashero]

Whats the best way to wire an Emg-81 active pickup in the bridge with 2 Dimarzio , class of 55's in the neck

and Mid positions. The emg is already wired in and is currently the only pickup usable right now. I read

something on the emg site about using an Emg Pa-2 but I dont understand the concept of it .

PLEASE HELP!!

[crafty]

You should either replace the EMG with a passive pickup, or the two Dimarzios with EMG singles. Blending the two systems is a pain and it's not worth the trouble, in my opinion.

The PA-2 simply takes the output of the passive pickups and converts it to a low-impedance signal that is compatible with the active pickup and blends it all together. It's just another board in your guitar, but what I really don't like about it is that passive pickups make lousy active pickups. Whatever noise is picked up by the passives will simply be amplified by the PA-2 and mixed with the otherwise clean actives.

[lovekraft]

A simple impedance buffer for each passive pickup will let you use them with the EMG - but like crafty said, is it really worth the trouble? I haven't had his experiences with good passive pickups sounding lousy when buffered, but it's a lot of work just to kludge together items that weren't made to work together. If you decide it's worth the aggro, I've got an excellent, cheap low-noise buffer schematic and a vero layout I'll be happy to post for you, but particularly if this is your first homebrew electronic build, it's probably going to be a lot of hassle.

[crafty]

Yeah, I used to use an EMG Afterburner when I had my Strat loaded with an assortment of Duncans. Very similar to the PA-2. It sounded okay with the Classic Stack, but the Alnico II Pro humbucker and JB Jr. just sounded terrible with it. I actually wound up installing an EMG-SA set and even without the 'burner, it's the best sounding Strat I've ever played.

[werkinclashero]

A simple impedance buffer for each passive pickup will let you use them with the EMG - but like crafty said, is it really worth the trouble? I haven't had his experiences with good passive pickups sounding lousy when buffered, but it's a lot of work just to kludge together items that weren't made to work together. If you decide it's worth the aggro, I've got an excellent, cheap low-noise buffer schematic and a vero layout I'll be happy to post for you, but particularly if this is your first homebrew electronic build, it's probably going to be a lot of hassle.

Please post how to do it or send it to my e-mail address, thank you for all you guys help. Very freindly forum. murhic1@frontiernet.net

[werkinclashero]

A simple impedance buffer for each passive pickup will let you use them with the EMG - but like crafty said, is it really worth the trouble? I haven't had his experiences with good passive pickups sounding lousy when buffered, but it's a lot of work just to kludge together items that weren't made to work together. If you decide it's worth the aggro, I've got an excellent, cheap low-noise buffer schematic and a vero layout I'll be happy to post for you, but particularly if this is your first homebrew electronic build, it's probably going to be a lot of hassle.

Please post how to do it or send it to my e-mail address, thank you for all you guys help. Very freindly forum. murhic1@frontiernet.net

BUMP

[lovekraft]

Try this:

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...ndpost&p=257121

I figured I'd post it in a tutorial thread, so maybe the search engine could find it.