My 1st active PickUps but... P R O B L E M S!!

M

merseymale

New member
Hiya! My 1st post & I FEEL like a newbie too! Can anyone tell if my Active PUPs are even workin'?

What should i expect from actives? Is there a volume boost?
there might be a problem... Not sure if it's with the PickUps or me, though!!

I got the chance to swap some old passive pickups (NOT Duncans!) for a set of active Pickups, recently. I always have a pair of Guitars I like to tinker with & I've never seemed inspired by guitarists who use Actives so never felt the urge to explore em till now.

I got three little used active strat styles-epoxied with the regular braided earth wrapped round a red (in the case of 2of the PUPs & white in the 3rd) 'hot' wire plus an extra single red wire(9volt+?)

There was no wiring diagram so to test em I placed them on an old watch; connected the braided wire to the earth of an amp & it's associated red wire to the 'hot' of the amps input too.

STRAIGHT AWAY I could hear the ticking coming through the amp's speaker- just as if it was a regular passive SingleCoil!

Once I connected the remaining red wire to the positive(+) terminal of a 9volt battery & then connected the negative(-) to the braided wire from the pickup nothing much happened... Just the same ticking as before with no increase in volume :-/

Any thoughts...?
 
Re: My 1st active PickUps but... P R O B L E M S!!

WOW! thanks for the swift reply :-)
Basically I dont know! "GENERIC/OEM" types I guess..?
I flatter myself I'm quite experienced doin all kinds of circuits with PASSIVES but when it comes to ACTIVES I'm completely in the dark... :-/
 
Re: My 1st active PickUps but... P R O B L E M S!!

Hrmmm... this makes it tougher to say then as not all actives are the same. Do you happen to have pics or can give me an example of the brand of guitar they came in?
 
Re: My 1st active PickUps but... P R O B L E M S!!

I just gotta make sure, did you replace the passive pots with 25k pots and install a stereo jack?
 
Re: My 1st active PickUps but... P R O B L E M S!!

Nope not even that far along yet ;-)
Basically I did the watch thing to test 'em thou they seemed real new but the barely moved the meter on my voltohmeter & was surprised in 2 ways:
1) there was a ticking sound despite NO power
&
2) there was no increase in volume when I added power

The braid IS supposed to be connected to 9volt earth, right?
 
Re: My 1st active PickUps but... P R O B L E M S!!

I've had guitars come through my shop with active pickups and yes even without power you can still hear signal from them. It confused me when I first noticed it too.

here I found this video

as for the braid question umm in the guitar mounted the braid would be on the back of a pot going to ground and the black wire coming from 9volt battery connector would also go to ground but in a convoluted way that completes the circuit when a cable is inserted. So to me it sounds like your battery is generating power with no ground at the moment. Ether confirm or deny that for me.
 
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Re: My 1st active PickUps but... P R O B L E M S!!

Well I say I'm new to ACTIVES but (smug me!) not PASSIVES so I may be very wrong but I believe the battery IS giving power cos both terminals are connected to something...right? Sorry if I'm being dumb, here ;-p
 
Re: My 1st active PickUps but... P R O B L E M S!!

BTW the video you posted was a BIG relief as now I don't think these PUPs are broken but I still wondering what theming of batteries with strat style 'ACTIVES' if the output would be the same...
I guess this is a whole new BallGame for me cuz I tryin new twchnology(to me!!) and not obtaining a PickUp with a desired sound in mind BEFORE I obtained it!

I guess I don't know why these PUPs are active at all...?
 
Re: My 1st active PickUps but... P R O B L E M S!!

You need to finish the install and make sure it's done right, with 25K pots and stereo output jack. That will answer your questions. Any "problems" you cite before you attempt to use them in a proper configuration is pure speculation.

Where did you get the pickups, by the way? Most of the unbranded/generic actives are very hit-and-miss from a quality standpoint.
 
Re: My 1st active PickUps but... P R O B L E M S!!

Everyone else has covered the "you need to double-check everything is installed correctly" point, but I'd like to add that with active single coil units, do not expect much of a jump in output compared to passive single coils. The vast majority of active single coils are set to have their output barely any higher than a vintage single coil. In fact I've got a set of active Telecaster pickups which have less output than Fender's own Vintage Noiseless Telecaster pickups. So if you're looking at low output as if that's a problem, it may simply be the nature of those pickups.
 
Re: My 1st active PickUps but... P R O B L E M S!!

I personally haven't installed active pickups, only passive, but have had a guitar with them for a long time. That being a Fender Elite Stratocaster.
In all the advice offered I don't see any reference to a critical part of the system -the PREAMP.

Do you have the preamp? If not, to make these pickups active you will need one. You could probably find one on Ebay.

As I understand it, the system goes like this:
The pickup's signal goes to the preamp, the 9 volt battery POWERS the preamp, not the pickups directly. Then the preamp in the end connects to the output.
I would think there should not be any direct connection of the battery to the pickups. As far as I know, you may damage them by doing this.
A major difference in passive vs active is that in the passive system tone is changed by reducing treble. You may notice that some of Eddie Van Halen's custom guitars (if not all) only have one control knob. He isn't concerned with onboard tone control, and controls it somewhere else along the signal path, using pedals, amp controls, whatever.
Active pickups, however, are supposed to add or reduce tone depending on the knob settings. On the Elite Stratocaster the flat setting on the mid tone control ('TBX') is a detent position that turned clockwise creates more 'presence and brightness'; turned counterclockwise acts like a normal tone control. The other bottom control ('MDX') 'gives a boost of 6db in a specially selected frequency range.' Supposedly it will accurately simulate humbuckers. Simulate is a good way to put it.
The effect, overall, is very subtle. So subtle, in fact, I wrote to the Seymour Duncan company by snail mail (before email, to show how long ago this was) and asked if it would be possible to remagnetize the pickups, since I thought they had gone weak.
In return I received a reply from a very helpful gentleman (he even went so far as to contact Fender for me) telling me that the pickups were standard Strat pickups. They don't look like it because they are encased in epoxy in an enlarged cover to dampen noise.
So, the main difference is the preamp. Your pickups will probably work as passive without it, as you found out.
If you don't have the whole system, it won't work as active.
You may just want to use them passively, as it may not be worth the hassle to pursue if you don't have all the parts. That, and the whole stereo jack as a battery on/off power switch thing, sourcing and buying a compatible preamp circuit, just complicates it even more.
An EQ pedal (I have a 'Boss') or a buffered device of some kind to improve output may sound similar.
Hope this helps. Good luck, I hope it works out.
 
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Re: My 1st active PickUps but... P R O B L E M S!!

Gibfendude said:
Do you have the preamp? If not, to make these pickups active you will need one. You could probably find one on Ebay.
Click to expand...

Many and i'm thinking MOST actives have the preamp INSIDE The pickups already. All EMG's have the preamp inside, though they do sell external devices for various types of tone shaping.

But to the OP without having them in a guitar or even knowing the brand I cant say 100% for certain if you have a problem or not. You dont have to have the 25k pots for the tone controls yet you can install them and check them out.
 
Re: My 1st active PickUps but... P R O B L E M S!!

Thanks for the replies you guys!
Aceflibble makes me hunk there is nothing wrong with my pickups so that's a relief-THANKS! But if there isn't. Volume boost then what IS the point of actives? I'm not down on them or anything I just speculating that if they no louder then what's the point?
Masta C, I'm sorry but I don't know who makes em- by "hit or miss" are Ou referring to sound quality/tone or defects?
 
Re: My 1st active PickUps but... P R O B L E M S!!

Not all actives are louder... infact some are pretty quiet. The preamp allows for a much lower noise floor though and require less magnetism so there is less string pull. On top of that you can use the preamp for tone shaping. There is a lot you can do with an active that has nothing to do with being louder
 
Re: My 1st active PickUps but... P R O B L E M S!!

merseymale said:
The braid IS supposed to be connected to 9volt earth, right?
Click to expand...

Wrong.

The braided screen is conventionally grounded via the chassis of a volume or tone pot. The 9v negative terminal is grounded via a wire directly to the tip/ring/sleeve type jack socket.

Official wiring schematics for hard-wired EMG pickups are still freely available from their website.
 
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