Can (active) pickups wear out?

carlos

Have a well used guitar that has EMG's from the early 90s. Lately their sound has come out scratchy and with a poor frequency response, i.e. the neck pickup sounds too bassy with the high E string barely registering and the bridge pickup is very shrill. They are both EMG 85s and I'm sure that's not how they are supposed to sound. I've changed battery and no change.

Do active pickups wear out and need replacing? Am I just imagining things? What's the best way to fix? New pickups? Replace the switch and volume/tone?

Maynehead

Not that I'm aware of... Check for loose connections and plug straight into the amp to eliminate external factors? Also was the replacement battery new out of a pack?

carlos

@Maynehead ;
The tone has come loose so it's just volume now.

Maynehead

You mean the wire is loose inside the cavity? Could it be grounding out on the conductive paint inside?

guitarfishbay

Contact EMG directly - their tech Rick is very helpful. I wonder if this is an issue with pots or the switch?

http://www.emgpickups.com/contacts

Running without tone pots makes them louder and brighter but an 85 should still sound meaty in the bridge. I think something may be up 

carlos

Yes it's loose.

Maynehead

See if it still does it when the loose wire is made to be not loose (i.e. wrapped up). Also check the other solder connections by giving them a gentle tug.

ICBM

It sounds unlikely, especially given that both appear to be sounding wrong - it's unlikely that both would fail at the same time, even if in different ways.

If they're the later ones with the push-connectors on the bottoms of the pickups (I can't remember when they started using those) check that they haven't got corroded, as well as anything else that could be wrong with the wiring.

carlos

ICBM said:

If they're the later ones with the push-connectors on the bottoms of the pickups (I can't remember when they started using those) check that they haven't got corroded, as well as anything else that could be wrong with the wiring.

It's the regular ones with cables. I'll give all the wiring a good look and a tug.

Since I have your attention, is it normal that it's almost impossible to balance the output in an HSH guitar with EMG's? Can balance the two humbuckers (they're not really humbuckers I know), but the S by itself is a much lower output. I've put it as close to the strings as possible and lowered the other 2 quite a bit, but still a big difference in output.

ICBM

carlos said:

Since I have your attention, is it normal that it's almost impossible to balance the output in an HSH guitar with EMG's? Can balance the two humbuckers (they're not really humbuckers I know), but the S by itself is a much lower output. I've put it as close to the strings as possible and lowered the other 2 quite a bit, but still a big difference in output.

Actually it's the exact opposite - they're *all* humbuckers .

Yes, the difference in output is quite extreme and I wouldn't be surprised if you can't balance them. If anything EMGs are less affected by distance from the strings than passive pickups so you probably won't be able to make a lot of difference like that.

guitarfishbay

EMG singles are lower output. If you want a better balance then the EMG 89 is lower output and slightly less thick than the 85. It also has a single coil mode which sounds the same as the EMG SA. The 89 splits towards the bridge and the 89R splits towards the neck. You can of course just flip them around but the logos face the wrong way so it depends if you're OCD.

The 81TW is also lower output, splits towards the bridge, and the single coil sounds like an S. The humbucker is a less aggressive sounding 81 with slightly more bass if you account for the level difference. The 81TW is noticeably deeper than other EMG humbuckers so check the depth on the site. 

The 85 is very loud and fat, I personally wouldn't be happy with an S with it as they're low output and bright sounding. If you want to use S my recommendation is use 89 or 81TW. Or an 81 if you like them and don't mind a little output difference (the 85 is much louder than the 81, but the 81 is marmite in the bridge). If you want to change the single then the SLV is hottest that I'm aware of. SA can also work as its fatter and a bit higher output than the S.

With EMGs as you run them further away from the strings they can get a bit dull - so if you've got a bigger mismatch like an 85 and an S, by the time you've got the 85 very low it might sound a bit dull and lacking attack. 

IMO the 89 is a fantastic pickup, very versatile. I think @ToneControl likes them also

carlos

Thanks for all the comments, this is what makes thefretboard such a great community. The good people at EMG advised me to replace the wiring harness and pots altogether which is probably what I'll do.

@guitarfishbay
I said I had an S in the middle, but I don't really know! This guitar is so well used that the plastic casing of the pickups has corroded in parts (!!) and only one of the bottom stickers survived for the 85s. Since these pickups are about 25 years old maybe that's a clue to what the single is.

guitarfishbay

If they're 25 years old then they're likely S or SA.  If all the markings have worn off I'm not sure it is possible to tell.  The colour of the logo will tell you what magnet is in the pickup.

From the FAQ http://www.emgpickups.com/faq

"You can tell the specific model of your pickup by the color of the EMG logo. A gold logo means the pickup uses Alnico magnets, silver means ceramic magnets, grey for ceramic and steel, and copper means it's a dual mode pickup. For example, if you have a humbucker sized pickup with a silver logo, it is an EMG 81; with a gold logo, it’s an EMG 85. The identifying logo color for most of our pickups are listed on the spec sheets available on their product pages online under 'info'."

SA is alnico and S is ceramic.  The only other covered strat pickup is the SLV, but I don't think it was released until the Musicman Luke 2 was released, which I think was mid-late 90s, and even then it was unlikely many people put them in other guitars.  In fact even now they're hard to find.  All the other EMG strat sized singles are open pole.

carlos

So I removed the cover and the tone wire was coming from the switch and wrapped around the battery cables, not a good look. I pulled it out, tugged the other wires to make sure they were fine, and the guitar is sounding as it should.