Blackouts and Jackson guitar's built in boost

[GaryCancer]

The other guitarist in my band is psyched about upgrading the pickups in his Jackson to Blackouts.
His Jackson comes stock with EMG HZ and has a built in boost, where if you pull out the knob you can crank the output way up. He's looking forward to combining that with the Blackouts.

Is that possible or will they not be compatible?

 

[Fikealox]

Re: Blackouts and Jackson guitar's built in boost

I expect the passive boost wont work with active pickups, but you could use the push/pull knob to control the built in boost for a set of BO metals

 

[frankfalbo]

Re: Blackouts and Jackson guitar's built in boost

They're totally compatible.

The Alexi Laiho ESP's have a boost circuit with the EMGHZ's. About a year ago, ESP had just released the signature "Alexi" preamp, which was basically a copy of the same circuit as the Firestorm, and the Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster, and others. They sent us a guitar (used in our Twin Tube Mayhem demo video) to test the compatibility when Alexi switched to Blackouts. They wanted to make sure they could still sell the preamp AND the guitar with Blackouts.

All those preamps work fine with Blackouts, but that particular preamp has some switches that alter the resonance by loadind the passive pickup's coils. When you use it with an active pickup, the switches are basically inaudible and it's a straight boost. The same thing happens with the Resonance switch on the Pickup Booster if you use it with active pickups, or after a buffered pedal. So the long story short is that if the preamp in your friend's Jackson has a couple dip switches, they will no longer change the tone of the boost, but the boost will definitely still work.