Need help with a dead piece of wood. Will Blackouts AP1 help???

big kurka

big kurka

New member
So long story short bought a Schecter solo 6 floyd rose hellraiser like 13 years ago that had emg p/u's in that i took out the first week I had it (didn't want active p/u's). Anyways I've tried multiple passive p/u's and the damn thing and it always sounded lifeless. I've even put in a large brass block in for the floyd rose hope it would help, but it didn't. The guitar strums loud and it resonates very well, which for the life of me don't understand why it sounds so lifeless. So anyways the guitar has been sitting in its case for the past 11 years. Fast forward I decided to take another chance with this guitar and through in a set of distortions in it. It does sound better than I remember but it still sounds a lifeless. I remember years ago reading about how Metallica used emg p/u and how they sounded the same no matter what guitar they were in. Personally I'm not a fan of active p/u's especially emg's. The emg's have a sterile sound to them. Which brings to my question. Do you guys think the Blackout AP1 p/u's would help with this guitar and give it some life being that they're active???. I basically just want to use this guitar for classic rock metal like black sabbath and motley crue type stuff.
It's a beautiful guitar but this is the last time I'm going to try and save this guitar. PLEASE HELP ME!!!
Also feel free to give me other suggestions to. I'm very interested in what you guy think.
Thank in advance
 
Nah.

Maybe try something lower gain. Pearly Gates comes to mind for sparkle and it is good with tremolos.
 
To me it doesn't seem as if the wood is truly dead.
When you have dead wood it's pretty obvious; such a guitar simply won't t come alive at volume.
Seems like probably the guitar's character just isn't matching up well with the rest of your rig.

Not a big fan of actives myself.

I think uOpt's recommendation to try some lower output pickups is great advice.
For heavier stuff the PG Plus might be firmer in the lows than the regular PG bridge.
Both are great pickups and the PG neck is a gem.

Question: What are you comparing it to, tonewise - what's your main guitar, the one your rig is dialed in for?

EDIT: What does this particular guitar sound like - bright, dark, thin, deep, middy, scooped?
Knowing something about its individual character would help for recommendations.
 
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Interesting about the lower gain p/u. I've never tried a low output p/u in this guitar yet. I had a PG bridge in a les paul and I didn't care for it. I found it lacking in out. What I have tried is SD custom with different magnets A5, A8 and ceramic. I've tried JB with different magnet and even a jb/custom hybrid with different mags and of coarse now the distortion set. It like what ever I put in there it's just MEH sounding. It's almost like having old dead strings on it.

Maybe it's me. This is my only guitar with a floyd rose trem and maybe that's how they just sound. It's weird the guitar just doesn't have that sparkle or life to it like all my other guitars. I've had a fender strat before and I have a prs tremonti se with a floating bridge and they sound great
 
@ chadd I couldn’t tell you exactly but they are at least 490k. When I buy pots I’ll buy several at a time and I always use the higher ones for the vol controls. The guitar is wired vol vol tone
 
big kurka said:
@ chadd I couldn’t tell you exactly but they are at least 490k. When I buy pots I’ll buy several at a time and I always use the higher ones for the vol controls. The guitar is wired vol vol tone
Click to expand...

Honestly, I'd just part ways with it. I had a really nice guitar that played great, felt comfortable and was everything I wanted but it was just a dead piece of wood. After trying everything to wake it up, I eventually parted ways with it. There's nothing you can do if it's really dead.
 
Either a Jazz set or Full Shred set would bring back sparkle. If you think the guitar has too many mids, try a Custom 5 in the bridge. The C5 brought my Music Man back to life- it was really mid-heavy and lifeless. The Custom 5 scooped those mids right out.
 
If you end up looking for actives, give the EMG 57/66 set a look and listen. Way more "polite" than the 81 or Blackout stuff.

Regardless, try to define what you need more of, what is it that makes it lifeless.for you. For example I have a guitar which had a slowish and pretty round/weak attack, which I didn't like. The Pegasus worked wonders for it.
 
I don't think it's your guitar (wood) at all. And in fact you said "it strums loud and it resonates very well", I assume you meant when it's unplugged.

I would have also suggested the C5 like Mincer did, but you say you've already tried that.

My first thought when reading your post was that it must be your amp, but you say your other guitar sounds great.
So you're playing the PRS SE as your main guitar now? Does it have the stock pickups in it or something else? What amp are you playing through? I still think it must be your amp and/or settings.
 
GuitarDoc - Good morning, yes when strumming unplugged the guitar to me it sounds loud. My main guitar that I mainly used was a Edwards Les Paul that had a set of hybrids I made, pgb/jazz neck and pgb/custom bridge and to me they sounded fantastic. As for this schecter guitar its been about 10-11 years since first gave up on it. Thinking back now I don't think I tried the SD custom series p/u in this guitar, I'm pretty sure it was a different schecter I have. Fast forward a couple of weeks ago I put a set of Duncan Distortions in it and let my buddy try it out. (I trust his input and review) He took to his band practice and used it for the practice session. He described it as feeling 2 dimensional, lacking resonance and warmth. Or like comparing amp sims to a real tube amp going through a real cabinet. Or like a small tight snare drum that's lacking resonance vs a big ass snare drum that cracks and has a roundness and resonance underneath it. I hoping this will be the last time i have to swap out the pickups on this guitar. I'm willing to try active p/u's or even the black out preamp module

Demanic - yes I keep reading alot of great things about the BW p/u's
 
I am not a fan of active pickups. I had gotten a cheap Fender 50th anniversary white strat and I couldn't make this guitar sound good enough for my ears no matter what I tried. Changed pickups, bridge saddles, whole bridge assembly and to no avail. I had a set of cream colored (special order) EMG 89/81 set that I had laying around. I bought a Warmoth black pearloid pickguard and routed the guitar to use a pair of humbucker sized pickups. I installed the EMG loaded pickguard and wired it up and that saved that guitar. At this point I liked the guitar and had no intention of selling it. I showed it to a friend of mine and he liked it so much he wanted to buy it. I feel bad because I sorta jacked the price of the guitar pretty high to avoid him buying the guitar. He still wanted it so I felt I had to sell it to him. He still has it today and loves it. The price he paid for it more than compensated because I was able to build the tele partscaster of my dreams.
 
Jeffblue - Gotta say thank you because you got me thinking and so I and had to go digging through some old boxes. I gotta say it's amazing what you find in your stash of old guitar parts that you haven't seen in over 10 ten years. I found a set of Duncan EMTY blackouts that I bought like 12 years ago. Although the one thing I remember about the emty pickups is that they were to way way wayyy to tight in the low end for my liking, so to took them out of whatever guitar I had them in, I like a nice thick bottom end. It looks like next week I'm going to be be doing some soldering work. If these p/u's bring this guitar to life I think I might dive into the active p/u world and find a set to suit my wants.

Thanks everyone. After I get these blackouts installed I'll let you know the out come. Fingers crossed
 
Demanic - If the p/u's sound good to me I'll definitely be leaving them in but like I said in my last post the thing about the emty p/u's that I remember is they're way to tight in the lows. If memory serves me correctly it was like having a EQ just cut the lows out. I personally like a thick low end. Then again I tried these p/u's in a guitar that I was tuning to C standard I believe. This guitar they're going in I want to tune to Eb so hopefully it'll sound great and wont cut to much of the lows out. Fingers crossed because I really don't want to spend any money especially right now.
 
IMO the Blackouts might not be the best choice for a guitar where the Floyd is already cutting some bass and low mids.
Worth trying since you have them already, of course.
But they're pretty stiff as well as being tight in the lows like you remember - that's what they were designed for.

Have you ever considered the PATBs? These marvels are far out of the mainstream so they're often overlooked.
I have the PATB-1n / PA-STK / PATB-3 set in a Floydcaster and they're wonderful for that guitar.

I also like The Breed set from DiMarzio for a thin-sounding guitar. Extra fat, and they still have a nice alnico bounce in the feel.
These are discontinued but last time I checked there were still some new ones listed on eBay.
If you can't find them, the AT-1 has similar big lows.
 
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