Emg Pickups In A Ibanez

[Kipperfetish]

Ive got an ibanez rg2550e end i was wonderring about putting emgs in it. Do they sound good in ibanezes or not. Also, is it possible to have an 81 in bridge and an 85 in neck and wire them with separate volumes and no tone.

[buddroyce]

To answer your questions.

Emg's may or may not sound good in an Ibanez or any other guitar if you don't like the tone. It's really just a matter of preference. I've had to install an 81/85 set for a guy once in a cheap plywood semi-hollow guitar and it still didn't sound much different than in any other guitar.

You can easily have two seperate volumes for the bridge/neck pickups and not have a tone pot. Just wire the pickups into your volumes, then from your volumes to your switch and finally coming out of your switch to the output jack. Look up the wiring diagram for the zakk wylde set but replace the Les Paul toggle switch with your switch. (oh yeah, and disregard the tone pots in the diagram)

[kp69]

I have EMGs in my RG 3120 and it sounds fantastic, but for metal, I'm a big fan of EMG pickups. Definately an improvement over the Tone Zone.

[Ironjose]

ok, do you have the active ones or the pasive???

[beyblade]

I'd definately recommend EMG's in a basswood Ibanez guitar. I've got an 81 and a 60 in the neck and it's my favorite pick up combination. All sounds whether crunch, high gain lead or crystal clean are just perfect. The depth of tone available from just 3 pickup combinations is amazing. It's interesting to note, I have EVO's in my 7vwh and PAF's/TZ/AN in my RG3120's and each of the passives (I screw them down low) are hotter than the EMG's. I no longer go for sheer gain in pups, it's more about articulation and there's no beating the EMG's because that seems to be the game that they are in.

[macsen]

beyblade - "It's interesting to note, I have EVO's in my 7vwh and PAF's/TZ/AN in my RG3120's and each of the passives (I screw them down low) are hotter than the EMG's."

How do you have the EMGs set up? An EMG 81 has an RMS output of 1250mV when set up according to the instructions, whereas an Evolution has 404mV. I've used both EMGs and DiMarzio's for years, and the EMGs are significantly hotter.

One of the things that a lot of people don't realize is that the EMGs have a much weaker magnetic field than passive pickups, and need to be set pretty close to the strings. The instructions say to set them as close as possible without actually hitting the string, though I like the tone better if you back them off a little bit.