have any of you put active pickups onto an ibanez ?

[K of London]

ive ordered some EMG 81 and 85 pickups to replace the 2 humbuckers on my RG570ex. anyway, this guitar has a single coil as well and a 5 wat selector.
I have 2 worries ;

the first being that there wont be space inside the guitar for the battery. so have any of you done this ? and will i have to modify the inside of the body ?

and the second that i cant wire the 2 active pickups to the normal single coil in the middle. I have no real reason to believe this, but since i have no idea how all these things work, i think it could be a possible problem

Also do you reccomend i have a pro instal these for me ? the package says itcomes with step by step instructions for installation, but im still not sur ehow much o f ajob i might be taking on.

thanks !

 

[Sunbane]

the first being that there wont be space inside the guitar for the battery. so have any of you done this ? and will i have to modify the inside of the body ?

This I cannot answer, because I've never owned an Ibanez ever.

and the second that i cant wire the 2 active pickups to the normal single coil in the middle. I have no real reason to believe this, but since i have no idea how all these things work, i think it could be a possible problem

Yes, this will mean problems. While it is possible to wire them together, the EMGs will probably be much louder than the singlecoil, so that the singlecoil won't make much of a difference anymore. I'm guessing the potentiometers in the guitar are rated at 500k? This is what's commonly used for passive pickups, but 500k pots will not work well with the EMGs (they become more like on/off switches). The EMG pickups come with 25k pots, but those will not work with the singlecoil (you won't get much volume out of it). As a compromise, you could use 250k pots for them all, but I'm not sure if it would sound good.

The way I see it, you have two options that will ensure a good sound:
1. Get an EMG-SA or EMG-S singlecoil pickup in addition to the humbuckers and wire it in with them.
2. Leave the current singlecoil pickup in, but disconnect it from the controls. In case you go with this option, you may also want to get a 3-position blade switch to replace the 5-way switch.

Also do you reccomend i have a pro instal these for me ? the package says itcomes with step by step instructions for installation, but im still not sur ehow much o f ajob i might be taking on.

If you have no prior experience with soldering, I recommend you take it to a pro. As a beginner it's easy to make bad solder joints which may result in crappy sound or malfunctioning controls.

'bane

 

[K of London]

alright thanks, im going to try to get another emg single coil then, althought i dont use it much. I would use it live possibly, when i turn the volume down to get a clean sound quickly if i cant change channel on my JMP1.

so can i power a single coil, and 2 humbuckers with 1 battery ?

the EMG SA doesnt come with potometers, just the pickups. However the zakk wylde humbucker kit comes with 4 long shafted pots, 4 regular pots, battery clip, wires, 1/4" jack and mounts

so on yop of a single coil pickup, is there anything else i'd have to buy ?

thanks a lot !

 

[Sunbane]

alright thanks, im going to try to get another emg single coil then, althought i dont use it much. I would use it live possibly, when i turn the volume down to get a clean sound quickly if i cant change channel on my JMP1.

Yeah, that's a good idea. One other nice thing with EMGs, is that they clean up nicely when you roll off a bit of volume.

so can i power a single coil, and 2 humbuckers with 1 battery ?

Yup, no problem. However, I would recommend using two batteries wired in series (in line) if you have the space for it in the guitar. Your sound will get a little bit more headroom and energy that way.

the EMG SA doesnt come with potometers, just the pickups. However the zakk wylde humbucker kit comes with 4 long shafted pots, 4 regular pots, battery clip, wires, 1/4" jack and mounts

so on yop of a single coil pickup, is there anything else i'd have to buy ?

Nothing comes to mind, except that if you decide to go for two batteries, you'll need another battery clip.

Oh, and don't cut the pickup cables if at all possible. If it turns out that you don't like the pickups (or you swap them out for any other reason), you'll have an easier time returning them or selling them on. EMG wires are also a bit nasty to handle if they're cut, with the ground shielding being braided around the hot wire and all.

If you only knew how many times I've been swearing over cut EMG cables.

If you need additional wiring diagrams, they're downloadable off EMG's website. http://www.emginc.com/noacc.html
I think the "3EMG 1v 1t 5wblade" one would be interesting, or something similar that fits your setup as closely as possible.

'bane