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Pickup mounting issue - EMG H sized mounting rings non standard?

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  • Pickup mounting issue - EMG H sized mounting rings non standard?

    Hello beautiful people.

    I began my project to swap out a Black Winter and Sentient that were installed into an LTD EC1008 Evertune that I bought second hand awhile ago. Looking to put in a set of Fishman KM8s. This guitar comes from the factory with EMG H sized pickups installed.

    The pickups were clearly mounted weirdly and never did respond properly to adjustments. Turns out the mounting ring does not line up with the pickup tabs and they were just sort of forced in diagonally.

    This is an issue for the new Fishmans as well (the mounting rings are about 2mm too wide).

    Naturally I assume the Duncans originally came with proper mounting rings but the past owner opted not to use them for some reason. The Fishmans don't come with mounting rings of their own.

    Could it be that EMGs mounting rings are not standard size? That seems crazy to me as it would prevent EMG H sized pickups from being interchangeable with the rest of the standard sized pickup world, negating the very point of them.

    It would seem to me that if I were to purchase "standard" mounting rings that the four perimeter screws may not line up. Unless these current mounting rings are standard but just the pickup height screw holes are a little further out.

    Going a little insane on this one because of how stupidly simple this seems.

    Thanks for your time everyone.
    Attached Files
    Last edited by MusicFungi; 07-10-2020, 09:51 PM.

  • #2
    Re: Pickup mounting issue - EMG H sized mounting rings non standard?

    It looks like that Fishman tab was intended for direct mounting, my guess would be that that is the source of the discrepancy.

    Edit: just saw that the SD had the same issue. Please ignore my comment on the tab.

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    • #3
      Re: Pickup mounting issue - EMG H sized mounting rings non standard?

      Originally posted by nexion218 View Post
      It looks like that Fishman tab was intended for direct mounting, my guess would be that that is the source of the discrepancy.

      Edit: just saw that the SD had the same issue. Please ignore my comment on the tab.
      That was my initial thought too but it's my understanding that direct mounting is still way less common than mounting rings so that would be silly.

      It seems crazy to me that Fishman doesn't include mounting rings. The 8 string market is so tiny there aren't many options for parts either. From my searching only EMG (which going by this experience won't even work) and some chinese seller even sell aftermarket 8 string pickup rings.

      I'm not sure if I should be mad at EMG for possibly using non standard pickup rings or Fishman for not including any at all.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Pickup mounting issue - EMG H sized mounting rings non standard?

        To follow up and probably wrap up the thread, I spoke with Fishman this morning.

        Apparently all of their open coil pickups are intended for direct mounting but "should" line up with pickup rings. They could only recommend that I dremel/file out the pickup rings and had no explanation as to why they weren't lining up. My only good faith explanations are that these are EMG pickup rings and they are non-standard or these Fishmans were built wrong (which would be funny since consistency is their biggest marketing point). The fact that 8 strings are still so niche and hardware is sparse may also be a factor. Waiting on an e-mail or callback from SD to compare to the EMG H pickup ring specs.

        If these don't line up with any other 8 string mounting rings then Fishman seems to have made a pretty bad mistake in engineering. 8 string guitars are already predominately soapbars and I don't think I've ever seen one with direct mounted pickups that aren't soaps. That said, Fishman would have made pickups that are installable on basically nothing without mods.

        It is perhaps notable that the only guitars I'm aware of coming stock with Fishman open coils are the Jackson Modern Ash series which do in fact have them direct mounted.

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