emg 81's

[blackout]

I have a 1982 gibson explorer with emg 81's, they sound good but I have receanly been playing my don R miller & co (a lp style gutair that is build better then most new gibsons I have played) , a lot more then the gibson with 81's. I hate haveing to reset all my amp and stomp box setings to use the 81 pickups, and my wah sounds like crap with them too.

what does ever one else feel about emg 81's.

I have been toying with the idea of tradeing in the exporer for a sg with stock/normal pickups. maybe one of the faded sg's and a hard shell.

what do you guys think ?

[sumgai]

blackout,

I have been toying with the idea of tradeing in the exporer for a sg with stock/normal pickups. maybe one of the faded sg's and a hard shell.

Ummm, trade-in bad juju, much bad.

That Explorer, if it's even remotely original (minus the pickups being EMG), is worth a helluva lot more than the SG will ever be worth. Hang onto it, or better yet, swap the EMG's back out, and play like there's no tomorrow!

If you can't stand to play the thing (uncomfortable or ??), then sit it in your closet and forget about it until you're old and gray. Then pull it out and impress everybody with your ability to save for the future - it'll be worth what a small house goes for today!


sumgai

[dunkelfalke]

if you don't like aktive pus, sell them to me for a good price, i prefer actives ;D

[Ripper]

I used EMG's on my Jackson. I liked them alot when the battery was fresh, but I could hear a significant difference when the battery started to weaken. They were powerful pups I must say. I now follow the rule that batterys are for flashlights not for guitars.

[dunkelfalke]

that's what accus are for

i always change accus when i change the strings.

[UnklMickey]

dunkelfalke said:

that's what accus are for

i always change accus when i change the strings.

hi Falke,

what is (are) accus? from the context, i would guess NiCad, NiMH, or other rechargable battery? is that a brand name?

[dunkelfalke]

hm, that was a false friend
i knew that a rechargeable battery is called accumulator in english (in german akkumulator)
germans almost always shorten that word to "akku", so i thought that would also work in english

yeah, just rechargeable. i use 9v 150 mAh and 250 mAh NiMH rechargeables, bought about 10 of them cheap so that i can always have a couple of them ready to use, for a stompbox, for the dibox, for the guitars or for the multimeter

and as i change the strings every 4-6 weeks this keeps batteries fresh enough

and 6 1.5 volt 2400 mAh rechargeables wired in series should last almost forever, what do you think, unkl?

[sumgai]

dunklefalk,

..... and 6 1.5 volt 2400 mAh rechargeables wired in series should last almost forever, what do you think, unkl?

An AA cell is roughly 50 mm x 12 mm. I think that if you can find about 40 cc to hog out of your body's wood, then you've got a good thing going there. But eventually they'll go dead, or near dead.... they won't be usable for your purposes. Do you anticipate using a battery holder (or a couple of them) to make replacement easy?


sumgai

[mlrpa]

I LOVE my EMG's! Some of the greatest pickups ever made! BUT......

There's a certain "growl" that doesn't happen with EMG's. Certain guitars need that growl, even playing jazz or blues, and especially the Explorer, needs it. EMG's are such a clean sounding p/u, that they can sound great with certain guitars, and sound perfect with an effects pedal. But in some guitars, they can sound washed out or too clean.

I experimented with my Aria and changed the pickups. (Made of Alder, it came with 2 EMG SA's and an 89 in the bridge.) After 7 different pickups in an uncountable amount of combos, including Bill Lawence, DiMarzio, Duncan, Lace, and some no-names, and I went back to the EMG's. They're perfect for that guitar, but sucked big time in my Ibanez Pro540R.

For your guitar, go back to passives.

[RandomHero]

Listen to the others on the forum. You do NOT want a modern Gibson for you '82, assuming it's in good condition. That '82 will probably play better after 18 years of life than a new Gibson right off the shelf will. Trust me, I know; I work in a guitar store. The Gibsons we have been getting in lately are just downright depressing.

[UnklMickey]

Falke,

i don't know what you were referring to when you talked about the 6 AA cells lasting "forever". one could take that to mean the service life of one charge. yeah, you might reason that to be 10 times as long as the 9v. or the life of the cells through all charge cycles.

personally, i like the idea you started with. changing 9v rechargable batteries on each string change, seems like a managable idea. if you get enough time before the battery gets weak enough to hear the difference, keep it simple.

given a choice, i'll take NiMH batteries over NiCad. NiCads have peculiarities especially when repeatedly being used for light discharge cycles and being charged by a "dumb" charger.

BTW, accumulator may (or may not) be English for battery, but i speak "American". maybe Jimplaysguitar or JohnH could tell us if they use that term in England or Australia.


Blackout,

i personally have never had much interest in the Gibson "art" guitars (explorer, firebird, v). but i have to respect their monetary value. if it were mine, i might consider trading it for and SG. but that would have to be the SG that came from Terry Kath's estate! yeah i'd take that trade in a heartbeat.

there are a few things you might consider. if you like the look and feel of the explorer, but don't like the emg's, test-drive some other guitars with different pickups and find some pickups you like. drop a set of those into the explorer.

if you don't like the explorer in general, decide whether it's worth keeping as an investment, or stockify it and sell it out-right to a collector now. by all means, weigh all the options and think it out carefully.

whatever you do, if you haven't already added any holes or otherwise changed the appearance, don't do that. the value drops heavily if it can't be put back to stock.


unk

[dunkelfalke]

yep, last time i used nicd was about 5 years ago
and with forever i meant that on a 9v 150 mAh the sound starts to degrade after about 6 months. with a 2400 mAh charge i should theoretically have 8 years of time (but of course i know about charge loss)

[blackout]

LOL this is great, so you guys said everything I heard from every one of my freinds that play. I decided to keep the exploer. I love the body and find if very easy to play. the guy that was talking about the "GROWL" that is defnitly what I miss when I play it. and I do like the pickups but when distorted, I can onlly seem to beable to get the (good metalica..ish) sound.

dont know if I will leave the emgs in or not. I belive there stock, the gutair is black witha black pickgaurd, with gold hardwhare and the emg's . but nothing looks like it was work done after the frist sale. if you guys saw how the batt was installed you would undersand. it was made to have this set up. it was either a gibson custom. or someone realy went OTT makeing it look that way.

looks like this.....



if I do do pickups what would you guys put in for the late 60's early 70's rock/metal sound .

[blackout]

OK so I think I might try a emg 85 in the bridge and a emg 90 in the neck, along mybe witha a after burner pot. witch I would put in place of the bridge vol pot that I never use so i wouldnt need to add any holes (evil) . infact I souldint even need to use a sodering iron (until I do the afterburner pot). . I think I will order a emg85 and see if I like the sound better and go from there. its "warmer and fater" my 81 sounds kinda trebbley I allways run it with the tone cranked up. so this might be the ticket. as for the neck, I was looking at the active P-90 so I could get a real fat sound if I wanted it. and the after burner pot would alow me to overdrive the pU right on the gutair, my hope is that this could break up the digitalness of the pickups enough to get the sound im looking for.
anyway thanks guys for helping me think about this a bit more. and not just trade it for a lesser quality sg.

I will keep you guys in touch when I get the cash to try it. the emg stuff is not cheep 125ish per pU and 85 for the afterburner.

[mlrpa]

FORGET the EMG's! You want power and Growl? Go with Bill Lawrence XL 500 ($60 each), Kramer Quads, (About $100 for the pair) or Mighty Mite Motherbuckers. ($50 for the pair on eBay.) Give the guitar back it's gonads, and go with a passive system!

[blackout]

www.q-tuner.com/Shop/GL%206.jpg

look at this thing

www.q-tuner.com/order.shtml

[mlrpa]

Just an acrylic or epoxy covered pickup. (Bill Lawrence did it in the 70's for the Gibson Maurader.) And they copied Carvin's use of 11 pole pieces per coil, and added a set. Ungly, and not impressive.

[dunkelfalke]

blackout said:

I will keep you guys in touch when I get the cash to try it. the emg stuff is not cheep 125ish per pU and 85 for the afterburner.

before you spend much money on emgs try this:

www.guitarheads.net/product%20pages/EXP.htm

i have some active single coils in my guitar and ordered this circuit. it rocks, is much cheaper than emg and my single coils sound as beefy as a humbucker, or very treibly like piezos if i want.

[blackout]

thanks for the link.

[dunkelfalke]

you're welcome
active pickups aren't bad, you just have to know how to use them properly. they give you all the sound - at once. passive pickups give you just a part of the sound and if you want to have the same part with active pickups you have to use eq circuits

[blackout]

update....... I found a happy sound, I droped the pickup hight way down... it used to be about 1milmerter from the strings.... I now have it alot further then that lol . and I leave the the knob around about 5. sound great.

thanks again, I do plan o picking up one of those modulation toys tho, at some point. I figure I will make a inline box insted of mouting in the gutair.