EMG active ; How to test ?

[stratele52]

Hello ,

I 'm french speaking from Canada , I try my best in english , I hope you understand .

Dean guitar with EMG active pickups ; EMG 85 at neck is loud with distortion /overdrive but very poor sound most is lack of definition . EMG 81 at bridge have clean and very good sound .

How can I test the EMG85 ? It have a preamp inside the PU  so the DC resistance reading  may not work. I did not open the guitar yet .

 I read AC volts with a Fluke meter at the guitar output jack . Bridge PU average of 200 mV and neck PU read 500 mv when playing guitar .

How can I test if neck PU are good or not ?  What cause this " distortion "?

I wrote a mail to EMG waiting for an answer .

Thank's ,

 

[shortfuse]

My experience with he 81 & 85 are 81 is good in the bridge, I like the 85 in both the bridge and neck my classic rock sounding.  But I will say they do not sound good set at 10 I find they have to be rolled back to 7 or less to sound good to me.  Otherwise they sound like mush especially in the neck.
As far as testing them not 100% sure but I would think thew 81 is higher output than the 85?  I will say and this may sound stupid but are the correct EMG pots installed, were these factory installed with the factory EMG quick disconnects at pots, pickups, toggle to EMG board, ect... ?

[G._Hoffman]

EMGs have a built in preamp, so DC resistance is meaningless - it's just the output resistance from the op-amp and/or its feedback resistors.

If you are sure you are getting power to the pickup (the cardinal rule of trouble shooting is always, "thou shall test your voltages first!), then it is just a matter of does it sound right or not.  If it works, outputting about the same level as the other, then it's good.  If it doesn't, get a new pickup.  There's not really anything you can do to fix them, since they are potted in a very solid block of epoxy.


Gabriel

[stratele52]

Problem fix same day I post .

Pickups too close from the strings .

Even if the customer said that pickups have always been at this height and the sound was good since the firs day .

Obviously he misled me involuntarily.

Thank's for your help.

2 days after I fix pickup , I receive a E mail from EMG saying pickups is too close from the string. They have good customer service and they answer .