Want To Instal Emg Kfk Set On My Ibanez Rg570

[slayerjunkie]

Hi, this is my first guitar project ever. I have an Ibanez RG570 which has 3 pickups, a 5 way pickup selector, 1 volume knob and 1 tone knob.

I bought an EMG KFK pickup set (Kerry King's signature pickup set). It comes with EMG 81 and 85 pickups, 2 volume knobs and 2 tone knobs (1 for each pickup), PA2 gain booster, and a 9 volt battery hookup thingee.

My dilemma is: To properly install the full KFK set properly it needs 5 holes in total (4 for vol/tone knobs, 1 for gain booster) and room in the back for the 9 volt battery but my ibanez only has 2 holes (vol/tone knobs). It appears the guitar will need some major routering and drilling to make it have the 5 holes needed for installation.

My question is: Is it possible to make the back cavity hole bigger or make more holes to add this kit? How hard is it? Can you point me to directions. I've done my searching and reading on these forums but I am too noob'ish to know what to look for and don't understand what I am reading. I am at the point where I think I will have to just to keep the 2 existing holes and not even install the 2nd set of vol/tone knobs or the gain booster. What a dissapointment!! :-( :-( :-(

Thanks and sorry for my noobishness!

Edited December 5, 2006 by slayerjunkie

[westhemann]

the rg has a very large cavity(i have 2 of them...both with the zw set)

just drill the new hole for the booster where you want it in the cavity and hook up the battery and tape it into the cavity as well...trust me it will fit.

i think the booster is a waste of time though...i much prefer the simplicity of the regular old zw set...

if you need a picture of how it is done,p.m. me your email

okay..well i found a fuzzy pic i already have hosted...sohere it is.the battery is what is wrapped in foam

by the way...that is an ibanez sabre...the cavity is much smaller than the rg

pic

[Odin]

Are you going to use the tonepots? Soooo many players dont. Maybe you could drop them.

i have ordered the gain booster myself for my 81-85 set. Hope it sounds good, even tough i cant think of a more shitty sounding player than Kerry King.

[westhemann]

Are you going to use the tonepots? Soooo many players dont. Maybe you could drop them.

i have ordered the gain booster myself for my 81-85 set. Hope it sounds good, even tough i cant think of a more shitty sounding player than Kerry King.

you should not say such opinionated drivel.i can 100% garantee you don't have the talent kk does

how do i know?

answer me this..where is your 23 year recording contract?

by the way...reign in blood is regarded worldwide as the #1 thrash metal album of all time...what have you done lately?

all of that aside...odin makes one valid point...i never use the tone pot...just take it out and replace it with the booster

[slayerjunkie]

I disagree respectfully. My RG570 has very little cavity space and surely not enough space for more holes for the 2nd set of vol/tone knobs and gain booster. But I would appreciate if you could send me pics of what you have done on yours. Thanks.

Looking forward to more feedback as well.

[westhemann]

maybe i was unclear...ijusttold you i have 2 rg guitars...i also have a sabre,a warlock,and i had a les paul..ALL of which i installed the zw set into..

but i think i see your problem...you do not need to install all of those pots...they send two sets...one set short/one set long...to fit different guitars they may be put into...

you do not install all four at once...except in an lp...

in an rg you REPLACE the volume and tone with the volume and tone that is the same neck size....you discard the others you don't use...then all you need is ONE extra hole for the 20 db gain booster...

and if you discard the tone altogether you can put the booster in place

i tried to link again..again it is fuzzy

[Odin]

I dont care if he has a 1000 year contract. I DO NOT respect him as a musician! I think his guitarsound really really sucks.. My opinion.

What do you know about my talent???

Edited December 5, 2006 by Odin

[slayerjunkie]

I see what you mean now westhemann...only 1 extra hole is needed then for the gainbooster. Although, I am still disappointed that it is not possible to router out the rear cavity and install the entire kit like it was meant to be. Oh well.

Thanks for your input man...very much appreciate!

[westhemann]

http://rayzar.freeservers.com/images/kerry_king.jpg

checkout the link and count the pots...i think you still don'u understand me...only 2 pots are meant to be used(aside from the booster...)

[westhemann]

by the way...yes you can rout anything you want on the back of that guitar...but that is not necessary...kerry king ionly uses one volume/one tone plus the booster

[Odin]

...you have a point.

Im going to be more polite in the future:)

[westhemann]

...you have a point.

Im going to be more polite in the future:)

thank you..i edited that last post...no matter.and i know nothing of your talent...but that is my point...you feel i know nothing of your talent and i feel you know nothing of kerry king...

the man inspires me to be a better guitarist on a daily basis...he and the rest of slayer did something so original that they are still considered extreme even now...20 years later...that deserves respect,don't you think?

i am not an iron maiden fan..but downgrading their influence would just be rude on my part...agree?

this is the way i set up my 81/85 set....it is MUCH hotter sounding without the tone pot...my guitars are hotter than hell because of me wiring them this way

oops..forgot the best part..the back..notice the 2 9 volt battery compartments?i can put both in or just one...for a different sound...with emg you can do that if you are slightly saavvy in electronics

http://westhemann.com.istemp.com/my%20musi...tures%20082.jpg

[slayerjunkie]

I see now that he doesn't even have 2 sets of vol/tone pots (correct term?). But if that's the case then why would the EMG KFK set include all of that extra hardware? It confuses me.

So now I have a decision to make. Either do what you did on your Warlock (but with only 1 battery), or keep the tone pot and install the gain booster (probably drill a hole in the input jack cavity). Hmmm, decisions, decisions. Btw, you the man! Thanks again! I'll let you know what I did and post the results with pics.

Damn!..that is a sweet looking axe you have there!

[westhemann]

please reread my postscarefully...i explain the four pots.

to be possibly clearer

the four pots are included so that you have the right parts for ANY AND ALL guitars...some guitars...like the les paul...need all four pots for original wiring...some guitars,like the rg,onlu use 2'

emg fully expects you to only use what you need and nothing else...if you look at the wiring diagrams they send with it,i bet you will see about 6 different possibleways to wire it.

pick the one that most closely resembles your guitar and follow it religeously.they are great sounding pickups

incedentally...the 20 gain boost he uses to juice up the gain on his amp...he plays through a jcm 800 and on those amps...they don't have enough inamp gain really unless you boost the signal to load the tubes more fully.\

on a modern high gain amp you don't even need that...as a matter of fact it will feed back too much on a high gain amp...which is why i never use the boost...

[slayerjunkie]

LOL @ my noobishness!

But NOW I understand what you are telling me.

[westhemann]

glad i could help...us slayer fans need to stick together...and weed out the WEAK!!!

just kidding...

or am i?

[crafty]

The other option you have is using a 25k dual-ganged pot, which are also available from EMG, so you have the volume and tone pots mounted in the same hole.

Personally, I think that tone pots are pretty substandard for an EMG set. They have so many cool gadgets like the RPC, EXG, and SPC that can really set it off that using a tone pot seems kinda silly.

[westhemann]

Personally, I think that tone pots are pretty substandard for an EMG set. They have so many cool gadgets like the RPC, EXG, and SPC that can really set it off that using a tone pot seems kinda silly.

i agree...in my extensive use of those pickups the tone pots really are damn near useless.it's not that they don't work properly(they do)..it's that the 81/85 set is used primarily by metal guitarists...and i have never found a use in metal for rolling off the tone pot..even "metal clean" is supposed to be bright.

not saying it can't be used..just that i personally can't see a use for it.the slight bit of loss of signal from wiring in tone pot more than offsets any slight use i might get out of it

i save tone pots for single coils...i have a sabre with emg in an h/s/s configuration,and i use the tone pot on it for rolling off when i hook up the the blues amp

[thrasher!]

I've got the KFK set sitting in a box , but I don't intend to fit all four pots to my guitar (whenever I get round to making it). They include 2xvolume & 2xtone controls, but it doesn't mean you have to fit them.

A single volume & tone control is all you need. There are a load of wiring diagrams on the EMG site that show how to set up different configurations for their whole pickup range.

Odin - a drummer/percussionist I used to know at school hated heavy metal, but was totally blown away by Dave Lombardo of Slayer when I let him hear South Of Heaven (this is back in '89). That was when we were only 15, and even then he could appreciate the talent. Saying a musician e.g. Kerry King is crap just because you don't like them, their sound, or the genre of music is silly. I don't like opera but I wouldn't ever claim Pavarotti was crap at singing

[Robert_the_damned]

this is the way i set up my 81/85 set....it is MUCH hotter sounding without the tone pot...my guitars are hotter than hell because of me wiring them this way

would you say to ditch the tone pot intirely then? I'm gonna be EMGing one of my guitars with an 81 and I certainly wont be using the tone pot!

oops..forgot the best part..the back..notice the 2 9 volt battery compartments?i can put both in or just one...for a different sound...with emg you can do that if you are slightly saavvy in electronics

http://westhemann.com.istemp.com/my%20musi...tures%20082.jpg

does runn 18V really make a huge sound differance? if so what sort of differance does it make? I was going to run to 9V batteries in parrallel to get double the battery life so I have to change them half as often (because I'm lazy like that lol!). But if the 18V sounds better then I might go for that. How exactly have you got it wired? PM me if you don't want the world to know

glad i could help...us slayer fans need to stick together...and weed out the WEAK!!!

just kidding...

or am i?

yay a mod who I can agree with

I'm sure you would have been on the Slayer side of the "Slayer v Dragonforce: who can play faster" argument discussion.

[westhemann]

ditch the tone pot if you don't use it...the cleanr the signal is the better imo

18 volt is only a small difference.don't bother.and since battery life is usually about a year(be sure you always unplug it at the guitar jack when you are not playing it...that's what turns it "off")i would not put two in parrelell either

...but i hasve both boxes wired in series...through the same wires in other words..so i casn use either box or both depending on what i feel like

and i am no longer a mod...just a vip...i was a mod for a couple of years or so until i pitched an internet hissy fit and shut off my net for 14 months.too many reasons to go into...but one of them is that i have a "buy everything guitar related in the goddam world over the internet as fast as i can until i go broke and die by suffocation under the weight of all my guitars"problem

i just hope i can keep that in check...

one or two guitars a year for me is normal...23 guitars and 4amps plus hardware and wood is not

[Robert_the_damned]

ditch the tone pot if you don't use it...the cleanr the signal is the better imo

I'll do that then

18 volt is only a small difference.don't bother.and since battery life is usually about a year(be sure you always unplug it at the guitar jack when you are not playing it...that's what turns it "off")i would not put two in parrelell either

...but i hasve both boxes wired in series...through the same wires in other words..so i casn use either box or both depending on what i feel like

I *think* I get how you've wired it. I did work out that I'd get 6300 playing hours (ish) with both battery boxes, possibly slight overkill as that is 262 and a half days continous 24hour playing lords I'd be tired after that!

one or two guitars a year for me is normal...23 guitars and 4amps plus hardware and wood is not

ah yeah that is rather a lot of gear and I thought my buying of hardware for two guitars and the few stomp boxes I've bought was to much!

hope you'll be arround for a while though if you ever want someone to put you off buying something I'm always a nit picker with gear so I'd be happy to point out lots of reasons not to buy things for you!

[brewu22]

Are you going to use the tonepots? Soooo many players dont. Maybe you could drop them.

i have ordered the gain booster myself for my 81-85 set. Hope it sounds good, even tough i cant think of a more shitty sounding player than Kerry King.

you should not say such opinionated drivel.i can 100% garantee you don't have the talent kk does

how do i know?

answer me this..where is your 23 year recording contract?

by the way...reign in blood is regarded worldwide as the #1 thrash metal album of all time...what have you done lately?

all of that aside...odin makes one valid point...i never use the tone pot...just take it out and replace it with the booster

Cheers Wes

[brewu22]

I dont care if he has a 1000 year contract. I DO NOT respect him as a musician! I think his guitarsound really really sucks.. My opinion.

What do you know about my talent???

Not tryin to start an argument or anything, but, Think a lot of guitar players guitar sound suck. But hey, to each their own. KK sounds a little different on every album. The guy has a special EMG set for gods sakes. Give the guy a little credit.

[westhemann]

keep in mind too mr. thedamned...that if your batterries stay in the guitar for the 2 or 3 years it takes to drain them,they will likely corrode and ruin your electronics or the finish if the corrosion leaks out.

fresh batteries once a year,whether you need them or not

but i love those active emg's...no ground wire and that clean black look...

brewu...that sound kk has is the basic souped up jcm800 thrash metal sound...it IS a little dated...but i love that sound.very crystal clear.

i think the best sound slayer ever had was on reign in blood...but "god hates us all" had a good metal tone as well.

modern metal tone is bassier with less mids for the most part...so i think alot of the younger generation than mine just doesn't really understand it...especially since alot of the modern metal is recorded through line 6 equipment on a computer

imo the best thrash metal sound lately was on exodus's "tempo of the damned"...check it out if you have not heard it...