So I picked up this used Jackson SLSMG Soloist as a "project" guitar- I love that thin, compound-radius neck, but the hardware and wiring all needed replacement. It came with EMG 81/81, but so far I've tried several variations of Duncan Distortion and Custom in the bridge, paired up with a Jazz neck. I was curious about the EMGs though, and ultimately put a 60 in the neck and 81 back in the bridge.
It didn't take long to decide that I like the Custom 8 in the bridge way better, but that EMG 60 in the neck just sounded great. I wanted to go back to passive Duncans but hated to give up that 60.
I searched for info on any passive "EMG 60 equivalent", and came up with very little info, but did find a few references to the Jazz, and ceramic magnets. So I decided to find out for myself...
I threw in a Ceramic 8 from Addiction-FX. It works! One thing about the EMG 60 though, is that it has a very balanced output. Whether playing higher on the neck, and/or wound strings vs the plain, it's very "even", never boomy (I think that's how you describe it?) like the Jazz gets when playing the wound strings (E/A/D) on the dirty channel. So I ended up putting in hex poles for the three wound strings, raising them a bit, then lowering the pickup body on that bass side. Now, the Ceramic Jazz sounds very, very close to the EMG 60, and can pretty well nail the Master of Puppets tone when played on the dirty channel. With the hex poles, and lowered bass side, the output is also very even on all strings, with very little boominess. I'm really happy with the way this experiment turned out, and I should be able to ditch the EMGs for good.
I will qualify this by saying that this little test was conducted on the Jazz neck in my LTD, since the EMGs were still in the Jackson and I wasn't quite ready to gamble with taking them out, until I knew this might work. (Eh, I'm just lazy and tired of rewiring pickups lately!) But I've had Jazz pups in the neck of both guitars, and they've sounded pretty consistent. I will say that on the clean channel, the Jazz Ceramic is extremely bright, but a little twist of the tone knob solves that. The Jackson is all mahogany so if anything it should sound even better in there, since the LTD is lighter and brighter in general.
So maybe this has been done before, but since I hadn't found much info on it, I decided it wouldn't hurt to experiment. Plus it might benefit someone down the road, and/or add to available reference material on pickups and mag swaps. Ultimately I'll probably switch the Jazz in my LTD back to the stock mag, but since the Jackson will be more metal-focused, the Jazz Ceramic should be just the ticket!
It didn't take long to decide that I like the Custom 8 in the bridge way better, but that EMG 60 in the neck just sounded great. I wanted to go back to passive Duncans but hated to give up that 60.
I searched for info on any passive "EMG 60 equivalent", and came up with very little info, but did find a few references to the Jazz, and ceramic magnets. So I decided to find out for myself...
I threw in a Ceramic 8 from Addiction-FX. It works! One thing about the EMG 60 though, is that it has a very balanced output. Whether playing higher on the neck, and/or wound strings vs the plain, it's very "even", never boomy (I think that's how you describe it?) like the Jazz gets when playing the wound strings (E/A/D) on the dirty channel. So I ended up putting in hex poles for the three wound strings, raising them a bit, then lowering the pickup body on that bass side. Now, the Ceramic Jazz sounds very, very close to the EMG 60, and can pretty well nail the Master of Puppets tone when played on the dirty channel. With the hex poles, and lowered bass side, the output is also very even on all strings, with very little boominess. I'm really happy with the way this experiment turned out, and I should be able to ditch the EMGs for good.
I will qualify this by saying that this little test was conducted on the Jazz neck in my LTD, since the EMGs were still in the Jackson and I wasn't quite ready to gamble with taking them out, until I knew this might work. (Eh, I'm just lazy and tired of rewiring pickups lately!) But I've had Jazz pups in the neck of both guitars, and they've sounded pretty consistent. I will say that on the clean channel, the Jazz Ceramic is extremely bright, but a little twist of the tone knob solves that. The Jackson is all mahogany so if anything it should sound even better in there, since the LTD is lighter and brighter in general.
So maybe this has been done before, but since I hadn't found much info on it, I decided it wouldn't hurt to experiment. Plus it might benefit someone down the road, and/or add to available reference material on pickups and mag swaps. Ultimately I'll probably switch the Jazz in my LTD back to the stock mag, but since the Jackson will be more metal-focused, the Jazz Ceramic should be just the ticket!
), "I hear the JB and DD winds are very similar"!!! :doh: