i have a nj classic mockingbird and i want to put the 81 85 in them as well and the mockingbird only has 3 switches and i was wondering if it is possible to install only 3 switches with this combo?

Yes it is, my warlock has 2 volumes and a tone and i installed the zw set. Just follow the wiring diagrams

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thanx alot!!!

Anyone ever try out an EMG60A (its got alnico magnets)?

ok cause im noob and i want to know how to replace pickups can some1 give me some links or videos

anybody got sound clips of the 85 clean and dirty in the neck postion?
I checked the EMG site and they only have sound clips of it in the bridge postion.
Thanks.

Here's a non-EMG related question. If I have a floyd guitar, is it necessary for the neck pickup to be F-spaced? Or does only the bridge need to have f-spacing?

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I'm not sure about the neck pickup, but i know for a fact that the bridge pickup needs to be f spaced for a floyd bridge. But i would assume that neck PUs would need to be fspaced too. They only have to be fspaced if there are pole pieces not with bar magnets.

I found out for sure now that both pickups have to be f-spaced with a FR bridge if they have pole pieces.

Great, I bought a F-spaced PAF Pro yesterday cause I wasn't sure, and I heard that one should always get f-spaced if they're not sure on trem guitars.

So now I've got 2 X2N's and 2 PAF Pros laying around, with matching colors for my DXMG and Kelly. Gotta wait for the stacked pots and knobs I bought, and I need to bug my bro for his soldering station from work.

Thorns, I think you asked in this thread(or another thread) if the X2N was good. I haven't tried it myself yet but I have huge expectations of it, can't wait to try it out. I don't like Dimebag's sound and I'm not a HUGE Schuldiner fan, but I think I'll really like the pup. I hear it's very transparent and almost sterile, so it's like the closest you can get to an EMG-81 without going active. Get it, but make sure you have a noisegate too cause it feeds back like a motherfucker. Considering you like Krisiun, you'll definately like it.

I hear it has a lot of highs so watch those highs, and fiddle with your tone knob maybe.

Can't wait to get my DXMG to put the new pups in there too, I know someone who will pay me 100$ for the EMG-HZ's it has. Poor bastard, I almost feel like saying no.

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Cool man. When you install and play them tell me how they are, I'm really curious. As soon as I get some more funds and get better at soldering, I'm gonna try to install the X2N and PAFpro in one of my axes. Thanks for the advice/info BTW.
Dime never used an X2N to my knowledge.He used the BL L500XL flipped in the bridge.


Oh and does anybody know if the X2N sounds better in certain tonal woods. I heard that they sound kind of muddy in an all mahogany guitar?

The dudes at guitar center completely ripped me off. The accesories guy told me that i could buy ab81 for just 80 bucks but then i wwent to the store and the made me pay for 99 bucks. Someone please post a website or something so that i can show it to them and make good on their "lowest price" guarantee. I want my 19 bucks dammit.

Theres a 2nd hand EMG 81 on my countries auction site, I'll buy it depending how high the bidding gets.

What i want to know is will it fit alright into the bridge pos of my RG570? They seem to be quite chunky pickups so will I have to mess around with like routing or anything?

EDIT: Ok so i found that usually theres not too much of a problem.

But wiring the EMG in and leaving the neck pickup stock can be a cunt. Anybody tried it?
If i buy a 81/85 set, ill be paying what i paid for my guitar, and fuck that. So hopefully its not going to be too impossible

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passive and active pickups in the same guitar can be a bitch. to my knowledge, you won't be able to use them both at the same time even if they can be wired in to function properly on a separate basis.

i'd say go for the 81/85 set, but something like that would only cost a Redneck like me about $200.00 USD plus routing/installation costs. i also have no idea how much you paid for your guitar.

Well new, the pickups are $250 (New Zealand dollars) each. I paid $500 for my axe. So it doesnt really seem worth it to me. I might just flag it, at least until i have a guitar i really want to mod

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holy fuck. yeah, $500.00 is a bit steep for pickups. we should take up a collection for ya or somethin.

thats new zealand dollars. 250 nz dollars is around 150 usd which is reasonable

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that's a little better, but he'd still probably wind up in the $350.00 - $400.00 USD range since he'll need routing work. wouldn't be worth it to me, especially if there's easier and cheaper ways available.

OpethFan, I would reccomen ebay. I bought my 81 and 85 off ebay. Surprising, I bought the 85 off ihave27frets (damn Absence guy), so it's a small world.

Anyway, each pickup cost me about $110 US New. So I'd reccomend it.

Look at my post, i want my money!!!

It IS possible to use them simoultaneously without sounding like ass. You need a small device in your guitar's wiring. Read up about it on the EMG site. I must've said this about 5 times in this thread.

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you probably won't ever get it. $100 each is standard for EMG-81s. hell, i bought a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails from Guitar Center at that price, and that model pickup is nowhere near as nice as most of EMG's products. besides, you're only "out" 19 bucks per pup. $100 apiece is a small price to pay for good tone. good luck finding 'em for less, and be glad that you don't live in New Zealand.

and Soeru, I apologize for not seeing the other 5 times you addressed the active + passive subject. I usually try to read every post in a thread before contributing anything; but this thread is more than 30 pages long, and I have my limits. I've read EMG's site at www.emginc.com (expect the PDF links, b/c I don't have Acrobat) pretty thoroughly even prior to my finding this forum, but I don't recall seeing the "small device" you mentioned. i'll check the previous posts here, though.

Thanx for ignkowledging my post. BTW couldn't you buy an EMG for 100$ from a US site like guitarcenter. Imean even with the shipping costs it would probably still be cheaper

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$100.00 USD + 8% sales tax is what I paid for each of my 81s, plus about $20.00 USD to have the both of them installed (body routing was required). i don't recall whether or not shipping costs entered into it, but I imagine they would have been included in the $100.00 ticket price had they mattered. and that was at a place near New Orleans called C&M Music -- not Guitar Center.

i'm confused... are you getting your info from Guitar Center and shopping somewhere outside the US?

can you put an emg 81 with an x2n

wouldnt that just be crap but?? x2n and the 81 are both hot pups and arent they both only good in the bridge

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you can mix active and passive PU but that would require a lot more work than if you would stick either with all actives or all passives

Why should it be a lot more work? dont you just replace the volume pots if you have one for each pickup?

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Well on the EMG site i remembered seeing these complicated wiring diagrams to mix passives and active PUs. But keep in mind that i dont have any experience with this so it might actually be simple. Check around and see what you can find.

i thought the 81 goes in the neck. is it the 85?

Don't sweat it man, it's an assload of posts to look through, I won't bitch at someone cause they can't find a question previously answered.

I have an EMG-81-85 set with full wiring(2 vol pots and 1 tone, but no jack) that I might be pulling from my BC Rich to sell(haven't used them much yet, but I think I'm not liking the EMG tone). The pickups are perfect and have little/no wear. I'll sell it to anyone for 170$.

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81's work great in the neck.

I wonder what an X2n would sound like in the neck. Massively brutal I presume. Perfect for playing something like Wormed. For anything else you would probably have to slit the coil. Even splitting the coil gives you 250 mv, that's as much as any normal SD pickup! Way more than regular singles.

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OK i installed my new 85 in the bridge and 81 in the neck after a full day of trying to find a 3 way switch in melbourne =/. Anyway apart from the new output jack not fitting throught the metal plate hole, everything seems to be techinically ok.
I could only find an old 9v battery lying around the house, and dunno how much juice its got left in it, if any. First off, my guitars giving off alot of static when not playing, i left the ground wire unnattached as it said too. I have to say when i play clean, the tone is really muddy, and yuck sound, even my old rusty pickups sounded better clean.
Distorted, it sounds alot better, although as youll hear in the mp3 ive linked, it sounds like theres almost some sort of effect when i play the open Low e string....
could u guys please listen to http://deathgore.dmusic.com/
and help me determine whats if anything sounds wrong?
im hoping im just in need of a new battery.
thanks.
ps excuse the playing, im new and crap

I think you do need to go out and buy a new battery

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Yeah,too much output for my likeing,though.I LOVE single coils in the neck,im considering working out a wiring diagram for 2 single coils,wired individually in there.It shoud take the same space in there,and look decent aesthetically,though I might need to route inside for more room.Should work out cool,though.

true the battery has fixed the sound greatly, now my problem is it seems my neck pickup (the 81) isnt working, ive rechecked all the wiring and soldering, but cant see anything wrong, my guitar cuts of when i have the switch in any pos but downwards

is there any difference in tone with having the 81 in the neck and 85 in the bridge instead of the otherway around?

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Hell yes,pickup position makes a large difference in tone.

so which position is propbably the best?

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I have the 81-85 set. i have the 81 in the bridge and the 85 in the bridge. when i changed them around to experiment, i found out that the setup sucks! the 81 was too hot for the neck position and the 85 just didnt cut it for the bridge.

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i have a x2n bridge pickup those are pretty sweet and yes i do realize that those are di marzio but thery are great pickups but i also have some alright stock emh-hz pickups there not too bad.

I think the 81 is great for the neck and the 85 is good if you want a beefier crunchier sound in the bridge position.

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im sure this is gonna make me look dumb, but are actives ALWAYS better than passives?
or have i been misguided?

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Well in EMG's case, yea.

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okay...
are emg hz(actives) better than
bartolini mk-5(passives)

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Ok good GOD!. Lets straighten this out. EMG HZ's are passive. But they really poor quality passives, they lack dynamics and really any good qualitys. Bottom line, avoid EMG HZ's if you can. Bartolini MK-1's are Korean knock-offs. They are alright, but cant hold a candle to real Barts. Bear in mind that this whole thread is about GUITAR pickups, not bass pickups. Bass pickups are a whole different world.

To address your previous question, Active pickups are good for metal and thats about it. I know a lot of you will say that you can get some good clean tones as well, but EMG's will never be able to touch a high quality passive pickup when it comes to clean tones. Active pickups tend to be very flat and lack a lot of character which means two things. One, the hold up well under extreme amounts of distortion. And two, they dont really have any character of their own. Like has been said previously, active pickups rely very little on the natural tone that comes from the wood of the guitar like passive pickups do. Look at all the really great, original distortion tones like old Dream Theater, Opeth, Pain of Salvation etc. They all use either Dimarzio or Seymour Duncan pickups. EMG's tend to lend them selves to a generic modern metalcore type of tone. Now this is not to say that EMG's arent good pickups. If you want an OBSCENE amount of distortion, EMG"S are probably the way to go.

I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with most of this. Yeah. In fact, most of this sounds like regurgitated pickup cliche talk that can be found on any common online forum or syndicated website.

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Well ive done countless hours of both research and playing with various different kinds of pickups over the years. I also worked with a luthier reparing and maintaining guitars for quite some time, so I beg your pardon but I know what im talking about. Like I said, im not saying that EMG's are bad pickups at all, im just stating the characteristics of active pickups. I know you are a fan of EMG's and have used them for a long time, that dosent mean you have to jump down my throat if I say something about them that you dont like.

But I do appreciate all the help you've given to people asking questions in this thread, I read through all 33 pages before I posted anything.

... Well, you have done your leg work here at least. I'm sorry for flaming you like that.

I still don't completely agree with your statement, "Active pickups tend to be very flat and lack a lot of character which means two things. One, they hold up well under extreme amounts of distortion. And two, they dont really have any character of their own. Like has been said previously, active pickups rely very little on the natural tone that comes from the wood of the guitar like passive pickups do."

It just seems like such an absolute statement in a subjective issue.

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Hey no hard feelings man. And you are right, that statement is a bit absolute for something as subjective as "tone". Although I will stand behind the part regarding their interaction with wood. Im just not a fan of EMG's and you are, im sure there are many great tones to be had with active pickups, I just prefer passives. Do you have any soundclips of your EMG's equipped guitars?

Not any soundclips that do justice. I'm buying a new PC that can interface with recording gear at the end of this year. I'll have clips to help others after that. I know it will help others thinking about EMGs greatly to hear different settings.

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Yea definitely. If you have a good passive guitar as well you could record samples of that and let people decide for themselves which one they like better. That would definitely be a huge help.

My 7 string has blaze7's so I will have something to compare. I also have different guitars with 81/85 EMGs to compare the wood tone influences. Believe it or not, there are tone differences with EMGs and different woods, builds, and bridges.

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I look forward to hearing.

WHERE CAN U GET THEM FOR THAT PRICE ID REALLY LIKE TO KNOW I NEED TO STOCK UP

Everyone needs a stockpile of active pickups,ofcourse.

STOP YELLING AT ME!!

CHECK EBA........I mean, check ebay.

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do emg-hz pickups have a stereo jack or mono jackinput??

were trying to change the hz's for 81-85 combo, but the jackinput we got with the 81-85 doesnt fit in the jackson soloist mg jack cavity (whatever its called).

sop cn i use the jack that was stock in the soloist with emg-hz or do i need to buy a different jackinput???

EDIT:::!!!

how can i tell wether a jackinput is stereo or mono??

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The jack should fit. Its a standard 1/4" input jack but with an extra connector that uses the shield of the cable jack to complete the power circuit between the 9V battery and the EMGs.

Mono- 2 wires
Stereo- 3 wires but with the EMGs you are still using the jack as a mono. The stereo fuction is used as a switch to power the pickups/circuits when you plug the cable into the guitar.

You could just keep the mono jack in your guitar and bypass the jack by hard wiring the battery to a kill switch instead.

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ok, euhm.. the jack input that wa sin the guitar has 3 places to be conected, but it was connected in only 2 places for the emg-hz's, so this jack is stereo??

i just wana make sure before we install everything

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Sounds like a stereo jack to me. Give it a shot. Remember, bigger the blob isn't better the job when soldering. Use just as little solder and as little heat as needed to make the joint. To much heat will kill a pot and a jack. Good luck dude.

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PROBLEM

ive soldered and connecterd everything EXACTLY as in the diagram, though, the tone pot doesnt work, the volume pot doesnt work, and the pickupswitch doesnt work.

it does give sound though, nomatter what i turn or switch, i am getting sound, so anyone got any idea on what i could have done wrong?

its a bad sound though, on a distortion channel it almost sounded clean HELP

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Ok well obviously you missed something or else everything would be working fine. There really isnt much we can do to help unless you took like, really detailed pictures of the cavity. Just follow the chain from where the pickups connect all the way to the ouput jack and double check.

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I need pics of your wiring and I can help.

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Ey, uhm well Kiem helped me with the guitar and we checked it like 200 times!
But i guess there's no sound when the volume/tone pots are broken?
It's really weird that is doesn't work, we checked it so much and it seems all fine by us. But my dad gonna help me, so i let you guys know(if he can fix it) what the problem was!

yup, we haved checked the wiring a million times, and its exaxctly as it should be wired, his dad even confirmed that the wiring was done right (he has like 30 years experience with building in pu's)

so only thing we can think of it maybe that the jack wasnt stereo afterall.
also, IF we killed the pots with overheating, i guess we have wouldnt sound at all right??

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I'm assuming you are using the right 25k pots? Do you have a multimeter?

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when installing we used everythign that came with the emg's, exept for the jackinput.

1 thing i overloked, i cut the groundign wire from the strings, and now i figured out i shouldnt have done that WOOPS, but according to the manual thingy, not grounding the strings would result in lots of extra noice and buzz, but would that als make the pots and pu switch not work??.


hes taking it to a store tomorrow to see if they can fix it.. so far for my first attempt to install pickups

EDIT: he and his dad also used a meter to check every piece of wire, every pot and pickupswitch, they all worked fine, so i guess its either the jack or the string grounding

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Did you try bypassing the jack to see if that was the problem? Wait, the pots and switch sould still have worked without power This is weird.

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wel my mate is gonan take it to a store tomorrow, see what they say.

i feel bad, cuz i screw up

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Lol, don't feel bad. I fried a pot once.

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hey this is kiem from my friends computer.

we changed the inputjack for the one that came with the emg's, shit is working now.
so the jack we used turned out to be mono instead of stereo WOOPS

but now the 3way blade switch is fucked, i get only the bridge pickup, or only the nck pickup, but i cant get the switch to switch from neck to bridge and ive tryd all combinations possible i think lol

NVM IT WORKS YEEY

kiem is happy

Enjoy! Sorry about telling you that jack was stereo. It was kinda hard to tell over the internet without pics.

Hint: With the 85/81 combo, when you have both pickups on at once, turn the volume on the 85 (neck) down so that it compliments the 81 (bridge). If the 85 is turned to high it will sound muddy.

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the jack turned out to be stereo anyway, but the inside or core or sumtin like that of the jack wasnt stereo.. wich is what caused the problem... atleast thats what the guy at a store told me

anyway thnx for the help man
and my mates guitar only has 1 volume knob so the hint wont be useful thnx anyway

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At least you can add a tone knob later if you like. I'm glad to hear everything is working correctly now. How do you like the EMGs?

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i dno yet lol, i build them in for a friend, well we did it together, but its his guitar.

ive owned a 81-85 combo before in my old jackson and i liked the 81 alot, im just not realy crazy about the 85, not thats its bad, but i play solos mostly, and i prefer the tone of singlecoils for solos over humbuckers so to each his own

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I just realised how much of a beginner I was at guitaring...

Alright, can somebody explain to me the difference between an Active pickup and a Passive pickup?

Also, are EMGs the best pickups out there? Do you prefer them over Seymour Duncans?

An active pickup has a preamp inside it which makes any guitar with any wood sound good. this is because it doesnt rely on the wood for tone but the preamp. The preamp is driven by a 9V battery

A passive pickup does not have a preamp inside it and therefore does not need a 9V battery. It relys on the guitar's wood for tone, therefore it makes guitars sound different from each other.

As for which pickups are better than others its up to your opinion.

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Active pickups need batteries, huh? How long does it take before they need to be replaced?

For a guitar with an alder body, are passive pickups a good choice?

when u notice a big change in tone. and alder would be fine for passives, it just depends what kind of pick ups u want

I was thinking about Seymour Duncan Invader...

What woods would be good for a passive pickup??

Are there any good passive EMG pickups?

yes those are good. adler mohogony are my top choises for passives

Generally, stay away from passive EMG's. I think we need to know your style of music if we are going to make any recommendations.

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Hard Rock, Heavy metal...

Ranging from Zeppelin and Deep Purple to Pantera or Metallica

hey i need some opinions i have this guitar http://www.musiciansfriend.com/prod...itar?sku=516643

and i think it would sound a whole lot better with new pickups.

suggestions?

should i just emg it cuz the wood isnt that great?



i play stuff like necrophagist/Between the buried and me/opeth/behemoth

Wunderboy, you want passives. Seymour Duncan JB/Jazz is probably exactly what you're looking for.

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I agree, they are very versatile pickups btw, will do anything from Death and Thrash metal to Classic Rock, they have a real warm and crunchy tone

Well you're gonna want something a little hotter for death metal, you can't get much heavier than Megadeth unless you're using a super high gain amp and even then you'll find yourself pushing the gain knob. But with OD or an EQ boost or with a SD pickup booster you can fix that without altering the tone of the pickups.

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How does an 81/81 set compare to an 81/85 (85 in neck, 81 in bridge)?

IMO the 81/85 is better. more tonal options than dual 81s

Hi,

I have an old-type EMG-81 pickup (without an easy connector socket). I only have 2 wires coming out from the pickup : a wider white one with braid and a thinner red one (which I assume goes to the battery).

My main problem is I want to pass the tone pot and connect the pickup to one 25KOhm pot only; I don't want to use a tone pot. I have tried every combination possible incuding the pdf manuals for EMG81, none of them worked.

Could you tell me : is it possible to use an EMG81 with a single volume pot only? Sorry if this is a stupid question, I am a beginner.

Thanks for your time

-SF-

Yes of course you can. Here you go:
http://guitarelectronics.com/product/WDUH0101

There are more diagrams at that site.

Of course that's for passive, but put it next to the wirings at the EMG site and you'll figure out how it should go. I'm surprised EMG don't have a basic wiring for "1 pickup, 1 volume, no tone/switch", as that's probably their most popular use for their pickups.

The 85 is absolutely useless in the neck fellas. I really never get satisfactory sounds out of it, either alone or blending it at 80% with the 81 engaged. Might sound good alone in the bridge, but it's otherwise horribly muddy in the neck.

The 81/60 combo is most likely a lot better, given that the 60 is a lot more like a hot single coil and is far more articulate, clear and responsive than the EMG-85 as far as lead playing goes. And they have even better cleans too.

81/81 is a bit of overkill and offers little versatility.

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If my guitar was factory-made for 2 EMGs, and I wanted to switch to 2 passive DiMarzio humbuckers, would I have to get my guitar re-drilled or anything? I know I'd have to change the pots. And how hard would it be to repot and install the pickups myself (I don't have any experience with soldering, but I have installed an electrical socket before)?

You wouldnt need to make any modifications to the guitar body if thats what you are wondering. As far as wiring goes, its a little trickier than it seems and I would probably recommend having a tech do it, but if you are good with diagrams and can learn how to solder you might be able to do it yourself.

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Cheers!
I own a Jackson Randy Rhoads with two Jackson-Humbuckers (performer series) and it sounds like shit.. simple and stupid question: is it possible and advisable to install the EMG 81/85-set in that guitar? I don't know anything about guitar technique. Hope somebody can help me out...

You'll need to have a hole drilled in the back of your guitar to hold the 9v battery that the emgs use. Best to take it to a guitar technician or a professional luthier.

Thanx!! Any idea what it will cost?

Just finished installing and securing my 81/85 combo in my Ibanez RGT42. They go so well with the black powder paint job. I'll post some sound clips of them once everything is setup. My buddy that helped me is pretty electronics savvy. He said we could get a custom 1/8" power supply jack and run it out besides the input jack and ultimately have it connected to the battery and have the other end fused with an a/c adapter. That way I could have a steady full supply of power consistently. That would be sweet, and just intertwine the power cable with the length of the instrument cable. I'm also gonna keep the battery power option open for when I finally get wireless.

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