Re: Livewire METAL pickup question...
dc_mally said:
EMGs in most cases dont need modification to a guitar, it only depends if their is enough space in the cavity to put a 9v "square" battery. well with 6 strings, i dont see where 7 string models would be different.
The 7-string EMG pickups don't come in a standard pickup housing - they come in the housing for their extended 35 series bass pickups.
The upshot is is that you do have to route your guitar to fit them. I did this recently to one of my seven string guitars.
JB_From_Hell said:
It seems like somebody got a quote on a LW-Hmet 7 string a while back, and it was way more than $150. EMG's 7 string pickups are quite cool (they make a 7 string 81 now
)
Beware, as they require permanent modification of the guitar's body to install.
I got a quote a while back. I'll have a dig through my emails to see if I can find it. If I remember correctly, I found the long lead time more prohibitive than the price (the custom shop was quite busy at the time). You would need to get in touch with the custom shop to see what their lead times are like now.
EDIT: OK, I found out the emails. The quote I got was a little more than $150 - think double that and you're in the right area. Lead time was 3-4 weeks, which in hindsight wasn't that bad :smack:
I was also told that the low-end would be 'tightened-up' to compensate for the seventh string. The pickup would not be under a closed cover, just the standard bobbins with the pre-amp mounted to the bass plate.
The next concern I had was what pickup to match it up with in the neck position? I thought a HW-MET would probably be too muddy, don't like the sound of the Livewire classic, and other active pickups seem to be fairly incompatible due to impedence mis-match. To get a Livewire to work with an EMG (say), you would need to get the phase of the Livewire switched (or use an EMG phase inverter with the EMG), and then match the impedences up in one of two ways:
1) Use an impedence matching circuit (I was looking at a D-TAR Eclipse)
2) Get a LiveWire metal that uses an op-amp rather than a FETS system.
Then you just have the separate problem of the EMG 707 (or 81-7) being a different size. I'm sure someone here posted about how it's possible to remove the cover from an EMG, but it's tricky. Maybe if you could get the cover off a 707, you could replace it with a standard size 7-string cover, which I know Kent Armstrong have a mould for.
I tried asking the guys at EMG if they could supply a standard size 707, but they said that paying $14k - $15k for a new mould for a one-off run was a bit cost prohibitive :laugh2: . They also refused to supply any EMG pickup without the epoxy sealed cover (I did ask why they couldn't just put it on a normal bobbin).
Another alternative is mastertone pickups. The SPA looks cool, and they come in a 'standard' size. I found them a bit hard to get in touch with though, and eventually gave up on them after several emails and phone calls that weren't responded to.
Basically, life is tough if you're a seven string guitarist who wants to use active pickups. If you really want to use a livewire metal, go for it, but it probably won't be cheap, and you may need to get some totally custom job done for a matching neck pickup if like me you don't like the livewire classic.
If you want to go the route of EMG 707s go for it, I really like them, but you
will need to permanently modify you're guitar:
If you want some sound clips of the 707, check out some of Rusty Cooley's stuff:
http://www.rustycooley.com/
