I was looking to install active emgs 81/85 on my guitar (though m still out of funds), i called up tulsi guitars, chennai, to ask abt cost, installation charges n all.. N he told me abt something that was new to me. He said, the EMGs are going to give some good gain n loudness, y dont u get this thing which he has recently acquired, some active preamp, which he can install in my guitar, that'll increase the gain n volume plus give give me an overdriven tone too. he will be mailing a few sample clips in a few days. And it costs around 3k. Anybody got an idea abt it? any enthusiastic chennai guy who can go over to his place n try it out n post some feedback here? for those who understand the electronics well, pls give useful inputs...
Both of these are going to give you only marginal(if any) improvements in tone..refer to my signature..
^i dint get u fully, pls elaborate. and the pickups on my guitar are the korean ones (which sound decent to me), so how much will be the difference in the output, a high gain active pickup v/s average pickup with active preamp. And i am not a tone purist, wt all i expect is a decent signal frm the guitar which can be processed.
... so you come up with a simple boost circuit, stick it in a guitar with some stock pickups (no offense, i'm just assuming you have a medium price range guitar, apologies if you have duncans in them or something. most stock pickups on budget guitars, in my experience, suck ass), snap up 3k from an unwary customer and say it'll equate to duncans.... going to print out this thread so i know who not to deal with in the future. did he at least mention a brand name for the preamp? give any technical details on semiconductors/components used? 3k for a no-name buffer/boost circuit is a ****load of cash. aguilar bass preamps, excellent that they are, start at around $100. i'm assuming tulsi is hocking mass-produced generic chinese pres, which i've grown sick of seeing every year at musikmesse. i had one in my bass and it sounded like shit. ripped it out and built myself a music man stingray replica preamp. somewhat better, but the weak pups are still apparent. at least it isn't giving me that farty distortion anymore. do yourself a favour - save your cash and pick up a DS-1 or a BD-2 or an SD-1 or something. or save up and pick up the EMGs, cause that's a worthwhile investment with a resale value. dropping 3k on a generic POS preamp is a bad idea any way i look at it. i'm interested in quality - not particularly a tone purist, but i want my VFM and am not in the habit of believing whatever some douche tells me before investigating it technically to a T. in your position, i would definitely buy the EMGs. if you still want a preamp, scour the ebays and you should find one for half the price. if you can solder, you could probably build a GOOD one in a couple of hours (or less) for peanuts. they aren't going to come close to a good set of active pups though. good luck.
Thanx a lot fr the help man... I came to a similar conclusion aftr searching around a bit... I'll wait fr a few more months n save up fr the EMGs... Thanx a ton flood!!
Tulsi has some new active guitars, a couple of electrics and a bass. Not sure how good those would be. I would refer purchasing some of his other models and replacing the pickups. Distortion, check Seymour Duncan Invader and DiMazio X2N. They also seem to be pretty good ones, although passive.
^If u r based in chennai, y dont take some time out, check his stuff n write a review here. Btw, m already having a guitar n was luking to upgrade pickups, probably EMG 81/85. Sumbdy got any idea abt the Seymour Duncan blackouts?
thats all bull shit, preamps are elloborated as pre amplifiers, that is actually present in ur processor not ur buitar u nut head, if u still trust that dealer then u've got r foot into a 6 feet shit hole.
try youtube search over the guitar and the amp u have, because at the end of the day none of us will play ur guitar, try getting a good feel of music that u are into.
You so sure man? Then I must've been feeding shit loads of 9V batteries into plain copper wires for nothing... And EMG sure has fooled a hell lotta metal guitarists over the last 30 years... Whatever all the low impedance crap is, I can tell you the EMG on my guitar are dead quiet on stage compared to most passive pickups and that too when I have a quite a bit of gain going on, without a gate. In any case, EMG's are not high output anymore. They probably were in the 80s and 90s. Nowadays, there are even passive pickups with much higher output. A lot of output is not a very good thing... it just kills your dynamics. You can increase your input to the amp by using an overdrive pedal instead if the drive is not good enough from the amp. Check up if you are infact looking for a hotter/brighter pickup for more harmonics or something warmer or something with more cut in the mix... basically something with a different tone. Medium output pick-ups give you more clarity if you are playing fast riffs on hi-gain.
