About making actives....

[Bill_Nephew]

From what I understand, the goal of making an active is to wind a pickup so it has a higher resonance frequency than the range of the notes on the guitar, i.e. 7khz, producing a flat signal response. I am in the process of making my own active single coil that will have a ceramic core (yeah i know, it's emg copycat shit) but will not have the 5500 turns of 42 per bobbin. Instead, I am aiming for about 1500 turns for the primary coil. I have heard that in order to make it as noiseless as possible, to make a very low winding "dummy coil" that will be right underneath the primary single coil. As for the preamp, I am thinking of using a discrete j-fet transistor preamp. Now here's my question: for the preamp, would I need to have a seperate preamp for each coil in it like emg does, or could I get away with wiring the coils in series, and THEN to the preamp?

[Mike Sulzer]

From what I understand, the goal of making an active is to wind a pickup so it has a higher resonance frequency than the range of the notes on the guitar, i.e. 7khz, producing a flat signal response. I am in the process of making my own active single coil that will have a ceramic core (yeah i know, it's emg copycat shit) but will not have the 5500 turns of 42 per bobbin. Instead, I am aiming for about 1500 turns for the primary coil. I have heard that in order to make it as noiseless as possible, to make a very low winding "dummy coil" that will be right underneath the primary single coil. As for the preamp, I am thinking of using a discrete j-fet transistor preamp. Now here's my question: for the preamp, would I need to have a seperate preamp for each coil in it like emg does, or could I get away with wiring the coils in series, and THEN to the preamp?

Putting the two coils in series will not interfere with your goal of keeping the resonance high since the input capacitance of the FET is much lower than a cable. (The gain of this stage will be low enough so that there will not be very much amplification of this capacitance by the Miller effect.) EMG's use of a differential amp might be directed at canceling electrical as well as magnetic hum. I have never been sure what they are up to with that. This is not necessary with good shielding.

I do not see how you can make a dummy coil with fewer turns than the main coil that will go under it and still cancel hum since it needs to be about the same size.

[David Schwab]

From what I understand, the goal of making an active is to wind a pickup so it has a higher resonance frequency than the range of the notes on the guitar, i.e. 7khz, producing a flat signal response. I am in the process of making my own active single coil that will have a ceramic core (yeah i know, it's emg copycat shit) but will not have the 5500 turns of 42 per bobbin. Instead, I am aiming for about 1500 turns for the primary coil. I have heard that in order to make it as noiseless as possible, to make a very low winding "dummy coil" that will be right underneath the primary single coil. As for the preamp, I am thinking of using a discrete j-fet transistor preamp. Now here's my question: for the preamp, would I need to have a seperate preamp for each coil in it like emg does, or could I get away with wiring the coils in series, and THEN to the preamp?

What you are describing is a low impedance pickup. Most active pickups on the market are pretty much regular passive pickups with preamps. In the case of EMG, the coils are wound much the same as a passive pickup, and then are wired to a differential amp.

EMG's "single coil" models use two same size coils stacked on top of each other.

You can wire the two coils in series, or parallel, and then to the preamp. I was making low impedance pickups like that. You can also do something similar to the Alembic Series I and have the dummy coil separate from the string sensing coils, and then the two signals mixed together at the preamp.

Mike, I think their idea for doing that was noise reduction. EMGs are probably the quietist pickups I have ever used. They don't even hum much around lamp dimmers and such.

[Rick Turner]

Hmmm, sounds familiar!

BTW, there is a difference between an active pickup where you have the buffer/preamp stage literally built into the pickup, and an active guitar or bass where you have a pickup of some impedance driving a separate buffer/preamp circuit. I've found that I prefer the latter as it's more versatile and easier to repair if need be. The cable length from pickup to buffer/pre need not have any serious effect on frequency response.

[David Schwab]

I've found that I prefer the latter as it's more versatile and easier to repair if need be.

I agree. When I was making low Z pickups, the preamp/buffer was external. That also allowed the pickup to be wired in series or parallel, etc.

[Mike Sulzer]

I agree. When I was making low Z pickups, the preamp/buffer was external. That also allowed the pickup to be wired in series or parallel, etc.

Yep. You know you are going to make the battery external; so why not make the preamp external as well? The preamp can be smaller than the battery. The wiring might be a bit more complicated, but not much.

[Steve Conner]

Me too

There's nothing worse than an epoxy-potted brick with circuitry inside that you can't modify.

[mondo]

I've had a few guitars with active humbuckers in them and I have never cared much for their sound. I'm pretty sure they were all EMGs of different models but they all suck IMO. I should have kept the guitars and swapped out the pups to make the comparison. I have an LTD SG copy that I got for 200 bucks that I plan on routing out to make a test rig. It has these EMG 81 actives that are great for playing thrash metal and Hardcore but I have never heard a worse sounding pickup through a clean channel! Maybe a darker amp would help but through my Orange Rocker 30 they sound embarrassingly cheap. Like an elephant farting into a bowl of rice crispies!

[David Schwab]

Maybe a better amp would help. Orange amps have never been all that great, especially the new ones. I've gotten some very nice clean tones from EMGs as have a lot of other people. That ESP Viper comes with an 81 and an 85. No one would put an 81 at the neck. The 85 is a very nice sounding pickup clean. That's too nice a guitar to make into a test bed. Use an Epiphone for that. They already come with junk pickups.

[mondo]

Off topic a bit but the Viper is a pretty nice guitar to play for 200 bucks but I am not into the heavy metal/thrash stuff so much. If you want to sound like Slayer you could do a lot worse. I tuned it down to C for fun and it really does the job for playing the downtuned/stoner rock stuff. I have heard that Orange is now making stuff in Korea now! So many companies are cutting corners these days. I tried out a lot of combos before falling in love with my British made Orange. I destroyed 2 Vox AC30s made in China at the Korg factory in less than a week. They sounded like Vox AC30s with Alnico Blues should but they are pieces of shit made with cheap chinese components. Consequently both of them fried within hours! They were both brand spankers out of the shipping crates! The Orange Rocker 30 is a killer little amp that kicks the crap out of most small combos in it's price range for the stuff I play. It is insanely loud for a 30 watt combo with one 12" speaker. It has more gain than any Class A circuit on the market according to the Orange website. It sounds nothing like the pricier Orange AD 30 which I don't care for so much. The main drawback is that it has no effects loop and the clean channel has only a volume pot with no EQ. It also hates pedals as far as I can tell. I have tried out several decent pedals on it like my Beano Booster and none of them seem to improve it's natural tone. The amp is now discontinued apparently. I won't be getting rid of it unless I lose some fingers.

[David Schwab]

Off topic a bit but the Viper is a pretty nice guitar to play for 200 bucks but I am not into the heavy metal/thrash stuff so much.

Why? It's just a guitar. You can play any kind of music you want on it. Even with the EMGs.

As far as the amp, 30 watts is 30 watts. Class A has nothing to do with gain.

Back in the day Orange amps were so freaking loud it was impossible to get a dirty tone from them. I used to play in a band in the 70's with a guy that had an Orange half stack.

We have an Orange Tiny Terror hanging on the wall at our workshop. It's a loud little amp, but doesn't have much in the way of tone IMO.

[mondo]

Is the terror made in Korea or in the UK? I've heard that the older UK made ones sound better. They are only 600 bucks new so it's not going to sound anything like an expensive boutique amp. Mind you there are a lot of expensive big name amps being sold that are garbage IMO. Hiwatts today are nothing like the old ones. Marshalls have been missing the mark for years. I've had some great amps over the years. Many years ago I had an old Ampeg V4-G from the late 60s that I picked up for 200 bones. I got it working and it was glorious! I will always miss having that one but I won't miss lugging the beast around. My dad's old JCM 800 50 watt combo was really nice too. I tried out a newer Fender Twin that was OK but I much prefer the little Orange for whatever reason. It is surprisingly versatile for a simple, stripped down small combo. It will do Ska music to Metal. Acoustic guitars sound fantastic through the clean channel too. It definitely has it's limitations though like any amp.