Active pickups - how high can the voltage go..?

Re: Active pickups - how high can the voltage go..?

I like to phantom-power mine from the plate voltages in my tube amps. 350-500Vdc warms them up real nice.
 
Re: Active pickups - how high can the voltage go..?

I think that the effect you're looking for would be better accomplished through pedals than pickups:

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Re: Active pickups - how high can the voltage go..?

GuitarStv said:
I think that the effect you're looking for would be better accomplished through pedals than pickups:

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Click to expand...

I have tried that - it got me the distortion level I wanted but, too much noise so, I switched 9 pedals for an old RP-10 which, sorted the problem.

Now, I use the SFX-04 Twin Tube Mayhem - SO MUCH WIN!!!
 
Re: Active pickups - how high can the voltage go..?

DeathMetalRob said:
I have tried that - it got me the distortion level I wanted but, too much noise so, I switched 9 pedals for an old RP-10 which, sorted the problem.

Now, I use the SFX-04 Twin Tube Mayhem - SO MUCH WIN!!!
Click to expand...

The other thing is now with this guitar, all of your distortion should be coming from the guitar. Anymore and you'll distort in a bad way, which won't sound good. Like someone said, get an old set of the Livewire metals. They'll do what you need.
 
Re: Active pickups - how high can the voltage go..?

Johnny the Kid said:
The other thing is now with this guitar, all of your distortion should be coming from the guitar. Anymore and you'll distort in a bad way, which won't sound good. Like someone said, get an old set of the Livewire metals. They'll do what you need.
Click to expand...

Well, I'll certainly give it a go.

It'll be a great custom to have in any case.
 
Re: Active pickups - how high can the voltage go..?

(This might be a good time to put my old 18-volt Livewire Metal in the Trading Post.) :D
 
Re: Active pickups - how high can the voltage go..?

GuitarStv said:
I think that the effect you're looking for would be better accomplished through pedals than pickups:

attachment.php
Click to expand...


Actually...all joking aside with this idea...If you get a distortion pedal and put a ZVEX machine in front of it, you will distort the distortion in a relatively usable and musical way.

Distortion distorts the peaks and valleys of the wave and The Machine Distorts the slopes so your entire wave never gets a break.

Oh..and...the ISP Technologies Decimator is your friend.

Enjoy.
 
Re: Active pickups - how high can the voltage go..?

In my experiences with both EMG's and Blackouts, here is what I've found...

*EMG's do have a notice-able difference between 9 and 18V. And it is also true that 27V really don't do anything. The ONLY time a 27V mod would be ideal/practical would be for certain EMG accessories, and even at that pretty much ALL of them benefit from an 18V mod. Like the pickups themselves, 27V mod on accessories usually warrants no notice-able differences.

*Blackouts do not benefit on anything other that a standard 9V system, as per how the preamp was designed. Unless you have a specialty Custom Shop active (the very limited "sevenstring.org" batch...) like someone I know, then trying any kind of voltage mod is a waste of time. Now I CAN tell you that having played the "Sevenstring.org" Custom Shop actives, those particular pickups CAN and DO benefit from an 18V mod, as well as running a preamp boost with it. The member who has these pickups has them installed in his guitar with a 9-18V switch, and an EMG PA-2. The PA-2 adds the extra 6dB of boost that was tweaked from the preamp initially - making it equivalent to an EMG X-series pickup. The 9-18V switch does exactly that, and runs the entire system at either 9 or 18V. So in this case not only do the pickups get an increase in headroom and dynamics, but also the PA-2 gets an extra "umph" to it, which in turn pushes the pickups a little harder. The owner loves them better than any other pickups he's owned or played, and he finds them to be "the perfect pickups" for playing stuff from Deftones "Around The Fur" album.

And yes while Duncan will make you anything you want as far as a pickup goes, are you prepared for the price tag that will come with it? For example: I had Derek give me a quote on having a coil split-able Blackout made - basically an EMG 707TW, but in a Blackout. He told me it could be done, but I was looking at $450 per pickup... Now while I would love to get, have and try something like this, I can not justify spending $900 for a set of pickups, regardless of how good they might be. Now if SD comes out with this in a new production model for the same price as an EMG 707TW, I'd be the first one to order them.

In terms of wanting the hottest set of pickups out there, I'd say either something like the LiveWires Metal or Blackouts Metal for active, or consider something like the Black Winters, X2N, Invader, Distortion, Dimebucker, BKP Aftermaths or anything along this line. I honestly don't see the need or point in trying to run actives at anything more than 18V for being useful and still getting a good tone from them, not to mention taking more wood out of the body and reducing tone that way to compensate for trying to run the extra voltage that won't give you any results anyhow. Crazy tome can be achieved and obtained via the amp, EQ's and specialty wirings on pickups depending on what your after. If your looking for over-the top, this thing goes WAY past 11 distortion and gain, I'd say you should consider looking at the amp, pedals and everything else other than pickups.
 
Re: Active pickups - how high can the voltage go..?

Despised said:
In my experiences with both EMG's and Blackouts, here is what I've found...

*EMG's do have a notice-able difference between 9 and 18V. And it is also true that 27V really don't do anything. The ONLY time a 27V mod would be ideal/practical would be for certain EMG accessories, and even at that pretty much ALL of them benefit from an 18V mod. Like the pickups themselves, 27V mod on accessories usually warrants no notice-able differences.

*Blackouts do not benefit on anything other that a standard 9V system, as per how the preamp was designed. Unless you have a specialty Custom Shop active (the very limited "sevenstring.org" batch...) like someone I know, then trying any kind of voltage mod is a waste of time. Now I CAN tell you that having played the "Sevenstring.org" Custom Shop actives, those particular pickups CAN and DO benefit from an 18V mod, as well as running a preamp boost with it. The member who has these pickups has them installed in his guitar with a 9-18V switch, and an EMG PA-2. The PA-2 adds the extra 6dB of boost that was tweaked from the preamp initially - making it equivalent to an EMG X-series pickup. The 9-18V switch does exactly that, and runs the entire system at either 9 or 18V. So in this case not only do the pickups get an increase in headroom and dynamics, but also the PA-2 gets an extra "umph" to it, which in turn pushes the pickups a little harder. The owner loves them better than any other pickups he's owned or played, and he finds them to be "the perfect pickups" for playing stuff from Deftones "Around The Fur" album.

And yes while Duncan will make you anything you want as far as a pickup goes, are you prepared for the price tag that will come with it? For example: I had Derek give me a quote on having a coil split-able Blackout made - basically an EMG 707TW, but in a Blackout. He told me it could be done, but I was looking at $450 per pickup... Now while I would love to get, have and try something like this, I can not justify spending $900 for a set of pickups, regardless of how good they might be. Now if SD comes out with this in a new production model for the same price as an EMG 707TW, I'd be the first one to order them.

In terms of wanting the hottest set of pickups out there, I'd say either something like the LiveWires Metal or Blackouts Metal for active, or consider something like the Black Winters, X2N, Invader, Distortion, Dimebucker, BKP Aftermaths or anything along this line. I honestly don't see the need or point in trying to run actives at anything more than 18V for being useful and still getting a good tone from them, not to mention taking more wood out of the body and reducing tone that way to compensate for trying to run the extra voltage that won't give you any results anyhow. Crazy tone can be achieved and obtained via the amp, EQ's and specialty wirings on pickups depending on what your after. If your looking for over-the top, this thing goes WAY past 11 distortion and gain, I'd say you should consider looking at the amp, pedals and everything else other than pickups.
Click to expand...

I'm looking into the Custom Shop special and I was quoted $700 for one. Obviously, for that I'm getting my facts as straight as I can for SD to make it. It will cost more than the guitar it's going in at the moment but, if it works I'll have Ran make me a proper Invader V to put it in. See Ran Guitars.com for the Invader.

It's not the only pickup I'm after having made but, it's the highest priority at this point in time.
 
Re: Active pickups - how high can the voltage go..?

A note on the "I want more output" - thing:

There is a schematic of the EMG 81 that you can find on the web. Believe it or not, the output of the Opamp is reduced by 1.8 before it gets to the output jack via a voltage divider [ (internal resistor) / (volume + tone pots in parallel) = 10k / 12.5k ].

EMG specifies the output voltage is 1.25V RMS, with a 10k output impedance. They also tell you to wire the 2 pots there. But they don't tell you this actually reduces the output. ;-)

In the end, EMG doesn't want such a high output PU. Actually nobody does ;-) , it would sound like a big fart. We all just like the IDEA of high output ;-)
 
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Re: Active pickups - how high can the voltage go..?

tonelabequa said:
A note on the "I want more output" - thing:

There is a schematic of the EMG 81 that you can find on the web. Believe it or not, the output of the Opamp is reduced by 1.8 before it gets to the output jack via a voltage divider [ (internal resistor) / (volume + tone pots in parallel) = 10k / 12.5k ].

EMG specifies the output voltage is 1.25V RMS, with a 10k output impedance. They also tell you to wire the 2 pots there. But they don't tell you this actually reduces the output. ;-)

In the end, EMG doesn't want such a high output PU. Actually nobody does ;-) , it would sound like a big fart. We all just like the IDEA of high output ;-)
Click to expand...

The Blackouts Metal I have, has the jumper in place and just sounds too restrained, too civilized for me. The GuitarHeads active humbuckers were coming from the right angle but, didn't have a high enough output clarity, their response was faster than lightning on cocaine but, they were too bass heavy for me. Even with the EQ bass off, it still sounded like I was playing a bass through distortion. EMG, I haven't modded up yet but, they just seem too weak - the 707 I have doesn't sound sterile but, the others do seem to according to recordings. I can't say as I'm a Metallica fan but, on listening to their tracks, I really IMO wouldn't say that Hetfield's EMG 's give you anything that a 4/2 set from SD couldn't - though, I will say his new set look cool. Messing around with EQ's takes away from the voice of the pickup too so, I'm not wanting to go down that road yet.

Just totally vicious tone and volume. I really do dig the AHB-2 but, it just doesn't have enough of 'it' if you know what I mean.

It leaves me wanting...
 
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