Active and passive ?

[john]

Any one know if it would be possible/practical to have a mix of active and passive pickups in one guitar?

i was thinking of an active humbucker in the bridge of my strat but dont want to have to upgrade the two singles.

i realise that they would require different value pots... any way around it?

thanks.

[bluespresence]

I'm thinking of doing the same thing on a J bass. Active bridge pup and passive neck pup. I'm curious too...........

[Drak]

Here......is a mouthful!

These are a few posts I've made on another forum addressing the issue you're trying to address. Just read between the lines when you need to, I just cut-n-pasted my replies to several different conversations about this and did a little editing rather than go thru the whole thing again...

Basically, what I would recommend is using a normal HB along with your other regular SC's, and installing an Afterburner and any other EMG controls you want in there.

Can you tell I like Afterburners?

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So: Mahogony body, hardtail strat bridge, or even Telecaster bridge w/ 2 SC's (the 'Strat-o-Tele thing) using a nice, hum-free, quiet set of Bardens or EMG's (EMG's can usually be had for a better price than Bardens, very affordable on e-Bay sometimes)

The EMG 'Luke' setup I have are alnico powered pkps, and they really sound great.

On top of that, you could install an EMG ' Afterburner' pre-amp($40.00) in it too, and have a completely versatile guitar that would give drop-dead crystal clear shimmering tones as well as all-out, fire-breathing Satch overdrive, all at the roll of a single pot. Once you get the Afterburner in there, then you can add in any other EMG tone pot, like the SPC, EXG, whatever. True versatility.

Maybe this would take too long for your needs, don't know, but I think it would be a nice option to pursue. You could buy the EMG's on e-Bay, Afterburner too (that's where I found my first one) maybe buy your own Mahogony strat body and neck from Warmoth or USA Guitars, etc.....

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Lets see...

Electronic additions are an EMG Afterburner pre-amp, added on to the volume, tone, and EMG EXG control.

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Bill Lawrence 280 neck and middle pkps, and (for now) a Barden Tele bridge..

EMG Afterburner pre-amp and EMG EXG control

Fully shielded (even under the pickups) and deathly quiet operation.

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Some more comments. I don't like 'hot-rodded hi-gain' pkps in a Tele at all, I want to hear clean, sweet, bell-like tones from a Tele, but I *DO* like great clean powerful and quiet pkps in a Tele WITH A PRE-AMP that will make them burn hotter than any 'hi-gain' middy-sounding pkp.

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I have a 'Lukather' setup (SV/SV/85) in one of my custom built axes, Floyd-equipped, I really like them a lot. That guitar is extremely versatile, and sounds great. It will get drop-dead perfect Ronnie Earl 'Blues and Ballads' tone, as well as many others. Not the only pickups I use, I like lots of different pickups, but they're staying in there, very smooth and very warm.

I am also a big fan of EMG's Afterburner pre-amp.

Put one of those in your guitar and you won't need any overdrive 'boxes' in your chain to artificially alter the tone, but your pickups better be quiet to begin with, not good for vintage SC's.

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Using the Afterburner pre-amp allows you to use a completely normal pickup/harness, but as I said, your pickups had better be quiet. As long as they are (Kinmans, Lawrences, Bardens, etc..) the overdrive/gain available with the A-burner is waaaay over the top, from dead-stock normal all the way up to as-much-overdrive-as-you'd-ever-want, and sustains forever. Neat stuff.

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You can't just slap that into a regular setup, it won't work that way. Look at the EMG site for further information, I usually use an EMG Afterburner pre-amp to convert the whole thing over to EMG, then you can add the presence control, and any other EMG control if you want.

I think they have another way also to do the conversion that doesn't require the Afterburner pre-amp, but you need more than just that control.