what to swap in instead of emgs?

J

jayylmao

New member
recently got a prs torero that comes stock with emg 81/85. i dont particularly care for them, got a set up dimarzios in the deal before realizing that i'd have to drill a hole to run a ground wire.
so, what active pickups should i get. id like something i can play stuff other than high gain. problem ive found with emgs is that the push my amp much harder than my guitars with passive pickups and i'd like things to be more consistent.

also im probably going to sell the emgs with all the wiring and such. what kind of value can i get?

edit: forgot to add i am currently looking at the duality set
 
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Re: what to swap in instead of emgs?

Well you could certainly dumb down the output of the emg's with a simple resistor between the volume pot and switch. I'm also curious as to why you feel you would have to drill a hole to run a ground to use passive in place of the emg's? Where are you trying to run this separate ground to?
 
Re: what to swap in instead of emgs?

Probably the bridge.
Oh, and Blackouts.

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Re: what to swap in instead of emgs?

Joey Voltage said:
Well you could certainly dumb down the output of the emg's with a simple resistor between the volume pot and switch. I'm also curious as to why you feel you would have to drill a hole to run a ground to use passive in place of the emg's? Where are you trying to run this separate ground to?
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EMG's don't need to be grounded on the bridge, the manufacturer of the guitar probably just left it out
 
Re: what to swap in instead of emgs?

Try different EMGs. The retroactive super 77 are ridiculously good. And they aren't that high output.


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Re: what to swap in instead of emgs?

Why in the world do you want to sell all the wiring? You can simply plug about any active right into your current system.
Leave everything in place and simply get one of the newer more all-purpose actives from SD or EMG.


Value of the used 81/85 set (pickups only) would be around $100 IMO.
 
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Re: what to swap in instead of emgs?

Demanic said:
Probably the bridge.
Oh, and Blackouts.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk
Click to expand...


Zarg said:
EMG's don't need to be grounded on the bridge, the manufacturer of the guitar probably just left it out
Click to expand...

Ah got it. They left it out because of the common mode operation of the actives. That's kind of lazy, since the common mode rejection of the 81 isn't even all that great.
 
Re: what to swap in instead of emgs?

If you haven't already tried swapping positions of the 81 and 85 with each other, do that first. Particularly since you are saying you are looking for a less-hot/gainy sound.

I recently was recently comparing EMG 81, 85, 81X, 85X, Het Set, Glen Tipton Vengeance Set, and the Seymour Duncan Blackouts (AHB-1s). the following "takeaways" I came up with may help you:
1) In all cases, I preferred the reverse positioning in each pair (I.e. 85/85X/Blackout neck pup in bridge position slot, and 81/81X/Blackout Bridge pup in Neck position slot.
2) the 81 and 85 clippes often. The 81X and 85X clipped much less, but still some (particularly the 81X in the neck). The Seymour Duncan Blackouts only rarely clip - and that is more due to the specific guitar they are installed in - which I spotted as having a boomy neck tone problem in its stock set up.
3) the 81/85 were murky in tone and character compared to the 81X/85X, and the Blackouts were a huge leap beyond the X series in turn - with no murkiness at all. YMMV as I believe I may be more inclined to brighter tones than the average guitarist.
4) I've tried two different guitars at Guitar Center with EMG 57/66 setup (an LTD and a Schecter) and both had too much mids for my tastes. I had the same conclusion with the Het Set and Glenn Tipton set - both of which I installed in my own guitars. Again, YMMV as I think I am less tolerant of mids compared to the average guitarist.

So for me, my final decision was to stick with the Seymour Duncan Blackouts. I am very happy with them.
 
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Re: what to swap in instead of emgs?

Between Dualities and Blackouts I would recommend the Duality for the tone and response you are after. The Blackout in my experience has much more gain and output than an 85 or 81, you don't get the notorious clipping of the internal preamp that lower headroom actives are plagued by but you will definitely be hitting the front end of your amp harder with the Blackouts. The duality is still a fairly high output pickup, but is again very high headroom and the gain occurs in a very natural and organic way. Thankfully with our 21 day exchange program you can feel a little bit more confident in branching out for different tones, because we offer a a full exchange within 21 days of purchase from any Authorized SD dealer. If you don't totally love the Duality you can swap it for any other production level Duncan pickup, blackouts included just by giving us a call
 
Re: what to swap in instead of emgs?

kingswebe said:
There's some confirmation of what I reported in my earlier reply.
Click to expand...

Absolutely, with all of our designs where there is a potential for internal clipping of the preamp our engineers are always cognizant of and sensitive to the importance of making an effective design that has high enough headroom to withstand fairly absurd levels of input without clipping. I would definitely say that's one of the most attractive features of not only our active humbuckers, but also across a more diverse range of our products like our active bass pickups and preamps, and IMO especially our Wavelength UST, which solves the problem of the dreaded piezo 'quack' that's pretty common to under saddle transducers
 
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