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A stupid question about pickups


hildog

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Okay, I know only a little about pickups...I'm about to have the pickups on my Steinberger Spirit replaced (H-S-H configuration) and I have a few picked out that I like and may want to use...

 

But my question is, is it stupid/inadvisable/a bad idea to mix active and passive pickups on the same guitar ? If so, why ?

 

I love the sound of the EMG 85 (active) in the bridge, but I also love the sound of a couple of Seymour Duncans (passive) for the mid & neck. What are the implications of mixing the 2 types on the same guitar ? I imagine that there will be a big difference in output between the two types, but other than that ? Is there any kind of electronics or wiring reason (or any other reason) not to do it ?

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Last year, I bought a Schecter tele copy real cheap from a guy who'd hacked up the electronics and didn't know how to recover. He'd put an EMG in the bridge position and a Duncan in the neck position but he couldn't get it working. So, I poked around in there and realized he had it wired up ALL wrong. I didn't have much time to fool around with it but I did manage to get it going at least. The results were just as you expected. The EMG is much louder than the Duncan due to its low impedance. It really isn't a very useable guitar this way...if you set the amp up for the neck p/u, then the bridge it too strong and vice-versa. And both pickups at the same time, one of my favorite tele sounds, just sounds plain weird. I guess you could build a little preamp for the hi-impedance pickups in your system and have it run off the EMG's 9V battery. I installed a preamp in one of my old guitars and it's my best-sounding instrument now. My plan is to build a second tele copy...then I could have all EMGs in one and all hi-impedance pickups in the other.
None more black.
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The good news is that it's possible.

 

The bad news is that it's very hard.

 

If you just wire in the pickups, the EMGs will be WAY louder than the Duncans. The only way around this is to put a small onboard preamp (such as an EMG PA-2) between the passive Duncans and the wiring harness and play with it until the outputs match. You might find that the Duncans become very noisy in this situation though. They will also sound different into the amp which may defeat the purpose of using them in the first place.

 

FYI, an active pickup like an EMG is basically a plain magnetic pickup with fewer windings and a weak magnet. It has an internal preamp that boosts the signal quite a bit and lowers the impedance.

 

Best idea is to stick with all-active or all-passive pickups.

"You never can vouch for your own consciousness." - Norman Mailer
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This is not necessarily the wisest choice, but you could "cheat" your way out of having to install a preamp. Seymour Duncan has a pickup booster (I don't remember the specific name), but it is a pedal designed to work like an active pre-amp to increase the output of your pickups. You could, in theory, use this on the passive pickups and turn it off when you use the active pickups. This could be a recipe for disaster if you accidentally run the active pickup through this, because I believe it increases the output exponentially, which could be potentially damaging to your amp.

 

Dan

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Okay, well then that pretty much answers my question...it sounds like way too much of a pain in the ass...guess I'll be going with the SD JB in the bridge instead. Thanks.
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