Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

[TheLivingDead]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

Well damn! That's pretty awesome!

 

[ParameterMan]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

Keep in mind that this won't make your pickups sound like "active pickups". If you hook this up to a JB, it'll sound like a JB with the coils differentially summed and no resonant peak shift/treble loss as it won't be driving the volume pot, cable and amp input, just the input of the active preamp. There will be no treble loss when turning the volume pot down, the tone control will be more linear and it won't interact with other pickups like a passive.

What makes most active pickups sound the way they do is their internal construction: narrower coils loaded with bar magnets or steel blades and wound to fewer turns. If you took a Wylde L-500R and hooked it up to this thing you might get pretty close to the classic EMG sound.

I like the idea and have been thinking about trying something this for a while. It's cool to see Duncan come out with it and I'm interested to see how some of the classic pickups sound hooked up to a summing preamp like this.

 

[ArmyGuitar]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

Now that is just flat out AWESOME!

 

[xntrick]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

While this is really cool and interesting, I can't help but think that it completely misses the point of why people loved active pickups before the Blackouts in the first place.

There is a VERY unique feel and tone to a rail-based, relatively low-output humbucker boosted up to higher output by a preamp. It retains all the clarity and definition of the low-output humbucker, but has a far tighter low end than it normally would, and doesn't get mushy and grating like a passive with the same output would.

My issue with the Blackouts is that they feel like high-output passives boosted with a preamp - they get fairly mushy compared to EMG's, and are way, way too hot. It pops up again with this product, but it seems like Duncan's main goal with active pickups is output. While the high output of an EMG is definitely one of it's advantages over most passives, it's not the biggest selling point by any stretch of the imagination. High-output, high-gain is what I keep hearing out of Blackout advertisements, and I think that's why I don't like the pickups - they're TOO focused on high-output, high-gain, low noise type features.

I can see boosting a Jazz or 59 or something being very cool - I can also see people pairing these with a JB or Custom and having it sound like crap.

my sentiments exactly, i have been comparing the ahb1 to the emg-81x and the blackout has just too much output..the 81x has better dynamics and a surprisingly good clean tone...

 

[Evan Skopp]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

More info and video here.

 

[whatshisname]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

Frank, if you come into this thread- I know you're friends with Ty Tabor, so you're probably aware of how he removed the active electronics/mid-boost from his Strat Elites, and had them placed in an external box.

Would it be possible to do something similar, with this device? Maybe even in a stompbox? Or, does this have to be directly to the pickups to work?

 

[astrozombie]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

While this is mind-blowingly awesome... come on you guys! if my customers find out about this i wont be getting any guitars in for pickup swaps and electronic stuff!!!

on the other hand... maybe this is the "boost" my tele needs ?

 

[richard parker]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

I wonder what SDs sales projections are for this gizmo ? 99.99% of guitar buyers won't buy it. Considering this forum is for guitar geeks I wonder what percentage of SD forum users will go for it ?

 

[whatshisname]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

Astro, that also occurred to me, that you wouldn't even NEED to bother with buying the actual Blackouts.

You could possibly even make a cheap, stock pickup sound great!

 

[King IzzO)))]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

OK, but how much of the original pickup sound is left?

 

[Artie]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

You could possibly even make a cheap, stock pickup sound great!

I don't mean to belabor the point, but my SFX-01 does exactly that. That's why I asked my earlier question. Also, the SD-1 is available as a stand-alone circuit for in-guitar installation. I'm guessing that the Blackout version is voiced differently.

Edit: I accidently put "SD-1" where I meant to say SFX-01. Corrected.

 

[astrozombie]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

Astro, that also occurred to me, that you wouldn't even NEED to bother with buying the actual Blackouts.

You could possibly even make a cheap, stock pickup sound great!

Time will tell. For example, my telecaster has normal single coil pickups. SOMETHING tells me that a boosted single coils is going to be noisy as hell.

 

[whatshisname]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

I don't mean to belabor the point, but my SD-1 does exactly that. That's why I asked my earlier question. Also, the SD-1 is available as a stand-alone circuit for in-guitar installation. I'm guessing that the Blackout version is voiced differently.

Sorry, I missed that. You're referring to the Pickup Booster?

 

[whatshisname]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

Time will tell. For example, my telecaster has normal single coil pickups. SOMETHING tells me that a boosted single coils is going to be noisy as hell.

I should have been more specific. I was thinking of humbuckers.

 

[Artie]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

Sorry, I missed that. You're referring to the Pickup Booster?

Yup.

 

[King IzzO)))]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

I'm just wondering what would happen to an already ridiculous 22K pickup through one of these, I envision a backed off wah through a crappy practice amp sound.

 

[whatshisname]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

Yup.

Okay. I'll have to check one out, then. I always figured they were more like a varitone switch, with a boost function built in. Doesn't it also get noisy with distortion?

 

[metalmachine]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

but can you switch back and forth beween active andpassive yes or no

 

[Artie]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

Doesn't it also get noisy with distortion?

My bad! I meant the SFX-01 Duncan Booster. Not the Boss SD-1. No wonder no one understood what I meant. :banghead:

 

[whatshisname]

Re: Now You Can "Blackout" Any Passive Pickup

My bad! I meant the SFX-01 Duncan Booster. Not the Boss SD-1. No wonder no one understood what I meant. :banghead:

That's why I had to ask you earlier. I wasn't sure if you were talking about a Boss pedal!