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Installing EMG singles in a 69?


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First, let me start by saying,... don't do that.

And I'm speaking as someone who's done his share of custom re-builds over the last 40+ years.

These are not our grandfather's Gibsons or Fenders with passive electronics. So many times

someone has told me they knew what they were doing, then sending me their JTV to correct

what they'd done. There are maybe five people in the Americas (north or south) I trust to do

a mod correctly on a JTV. Be very careful before deciding on this, errors cost, in time and money.

Know what you're getting into before attempting any mods.

 

 

"EMG SA's,... anyone successfully installed these in a 69?"----

Line 6 does not endorse modifications. Being the guy whose bench your JTV will land on,

should something go wrong, I would advise against it. If you are going to do this, be sure

the impedances are matched, or you'll have a host of problems, not the least of which is the

tone matching,... since impedance is a function of frequency.

 

Also, too strong of a magnetic field, and the pick-up height to string adjustments will have to

be altered, or you will risk "warbling" when using the JTV in Model mode.

 

"Is there any room for a 9V battery?"----

Barely, maybe,... it would have to be insulation wrapped. Any jostling around inside can short

out the electronics, should any metal from the battery touch an exposed part. Then there's

Charlie_Watt's caution,... and you would need a voltage regulator on top of that, or you risk

wiping the firmware or damaging any memory chips that might be in there. With a voltage regulator

in your battery circuit, it's iffy whether it will all fit in the cavity and not short circuit something.

 

And since it would be my bench it will come across, should something go wrong. I'd like to avoid that.

 

 

Line 6 does not endorse modifications that affect the function of the product. Any

warranties for that product would be voided.

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One further issue I forgot to mention is that you would have to invent a way to turn the power on and off to the pickups.  Normally, it is done with a third connection on the 1/4 inch jack.  The JTV already uses this to turn on it's own electronics.  If I were tempted to try this, I would try to use the JTV power to run the pickups rather than a 9V.

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One further issue I forgot to mention is that you would have to invent a way to turn the power on and off to the pickups. Normally, it is done with a third connection on the 1/4 inch jack. The JTV already uses this to turn on it's own electronics. If I were tempted to try this, I would try to use the JTV power to run the pickups rather than a 9V.

And as we all know, electrical incompatibilities notwithstanding, doing any sort of work to a JTV yourself will curve your spine and make the Allies lose the war...

 

Authorized service center, authorized service center, authorized service center!!!! ;)

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

For years I loved my JTV69 stock pickups, and they still are great in their range - but finally warranty expired and I dared it... I have just recently replaced them with Dimarzios (area 61 neck, area 67 middle, Transition for the Bridge.) I am overwhelmed by the difference and it was easy to do. I dared it... enough room in the cavities, easy to disassemble and reassemble, I never had my JTV69 sound so stratty and versatile with no hum  - and the new humbucker screams and brings out every harmonic and squeal ever so easy. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Lol all this bulllollipop about warranty, I swaped my 69s with the dimarzio's areas after just 3 days lol

Bought the pack on ebay, it actually costed cheaper on a strat pickgard as apparently the seller wasn't allowed to ship just the pickups. Bye bye noise if that is what you want

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Lol all this lollipop about warranty, I swaped my 69s with the dimarzio's areas after just 3 days lol

Bought the pack on ebay, it actually costed cheaper on a strat pickgard as apparently the seller wasn't allowed to ship just the pickups. Bye bye noise if that is what you want

I swapped mine with the DiMarzio Paul Gilbert set about 3 months into having my 69S, mainly due to being spoiled by the lack of noise for a long time.....

 

Dave

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Charlie and ozbadman are right about active pick-ups.

 

The only problem with passive pick-ups is making sure the impedance

is close to what's already in there, or you'll have amplitude variations that

you might not be able to control easily. And be sure the pick-up distance

from the strings is set so that you don't get warbling while in Model mode. 

 

And like Stevekc says,... he's one of about four or five individuals in the Americas

I trust to do a mod on a JTV, without messing it up. Authorized service centers

also know what they're doing. But since we officially don't sanction mods, it

wouldn't be warranty work.

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  • 1 month later...

For years I loved my JTV69 stock pickups, and they still are great in their range - but finally warranty expired and I dared it... I have just recently replaced them with Dimarzios (area 61 neck, area 67 middle, Transition for the Bridge.) I am overwhelmed by the difference and it was easy to do. I dared it... enough room in the cavities, easy to disassemble and reassemble, I never had my JTV69 sound so stratty and versatile with no hum  - and the new humbucker screams and brings out every harmonic and squeal ever so easy. 

This is a promising thread! I started one but no response. Just looking to replace my Korean JTV69 Neck/Middle pups... was looking at Area58 and the Seymour Duncan stacks....  You reckoan the Area 61 and 67 are the job?

 

Looking to reduce hum and maintain my stratty tone... I use neck position alot..... middle position always sounds weak.... I like the humbucker that already in the JTV

 

did you need to sway pots, add resistors or was it a straight swap like any other pickup swap?

 
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I cannot compare with other replacement pups, only with the stock ones.

 

The areas are very good pickups with no audible hum whatsoever, at least in my environment. I always found the stock pickup in the neck position of the JTV quite sharp and a bit over the top with it's high frequencies. I very often had no time or forgot to adjust the tone knob, and I couldn't do it reproducibly anyway... The middle stock pup was never really used. Now after the replacement the neck pup sounds more balanced and still enough stratty (as far as you can get with hum cancelling pups). Now I can ignore the tone knob in almost all the songs. The middle is much more useful on it's own, and it is a dream to combine middle and neck in the second selector switch position. This blend sounds very convincing to my ears. Also the combination of Humbucker and middle pup is giving me a pleasant and balanced sound. 

 

Pots were left unchanged and I do not hear a difference in their behaviour, although there might be a measurable change. I am pretty sure that there is no chance to do anything about the pots as they are working directly with the electronics and not at all with the pickups!

 

From the specs my new "transition" humbucker has more output than the two areas. It sounds fantastic but switching from neck or middle to bridge changes volume ( esp. for clean sounds) more than before the mod. So leaving the stock bridge as it is is probably not the worst idea if you switch pickups often in the middle of a song, it might help to stay friends with FOH guys... Playing through a crunched or overdriven amp, switcing from neck to bridge on my JTV69 now adds considerably more sustain and grit to the tone without too much of volume boost, which for me is desirable and no problem at all... 

 

When installing the new pickups I followed the installation manual from DiMarzio but it turned out that in doing so bridge and middle find themselves in an out-of-phase configuration. Swapping the wires from the humbucker to circuit board was an easy cure to this of course, but I had to unstring and reopen the cavity again...

 

Btw, soldering the wires off and onto one of the the circuit board inside the JTV is required.  I recommend to do that only with a little bit of experience.

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First, let me start by saying,... don't do that.

And I'm speaking as someone who's done his share of custom re-builds over the last 40+ years.

These are not our grandfather's Gibsons or Fenders with passive electronics. So many times

someone has told me they knew what they were doing, then sending me their JTV to correct

what they'd done. There are maybe five people in the Americas (north or south) I trust to do

a mod correctly on a JTV. Be very careful before deciding on this, errors cost, in time and money.

Know what you're getting into before attempting any mods.

 

 

"EMG SA's,... anyone successfully installed these in a 69?"----

Line 6 does not endorse modifications. Being the guy whose bench your JTV will land on,

should something go wrong, I would advise against it. If you are going to do this, be sure

the impedances are matched, or you'll have a host of problems, not the least of which is the

tone matching,... since impedance is a function of frequency.

 

Also, too strong of a magnetic field, and the pick-up height to string adjustments will have to

be altered, or you will risk "warbling" when using the JTV in Model mode.

 

"Is there any room for a 9V battery?"----

Barely, maybe,... it would have to be insulation wrapped. Any jostling around inside can short

out the electronics, should any metal from the battery touch an exposed part. Then there's

Charlie_Watt's caution,... and you would need a voltage regulator on top of that, or you risk

wiping the firmware or damaging any memory chips that might be in there. With a voltage regulator

in your battery circuit, it's iffy whether it will all fit in the cavity and not short circuit something.

 

And since it would be my bench it will come across, should something go wrong. I'd like to avoid that.

 

 

Line 6 does not endorse modifications that affect the function of the product. Any

warranties for that product would be voided.

 

They've shown diagrams on how to wire new pickups for a JTV before. The main problem is they're active pickups and it's not going to work with the JTV electronics.

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  • 4 years later...
On 11/12/2015 at 8:53 PM, thorneven said:

I put EMG H4 passive pickups in my JTV59 and love them. I posted about the install a while back.  Only problem was neck pickup - no room in body cavity for height adjusting.

Hello, I have the same idea - put in H4 and H4A. Even so they have similar parameters (orig. jtv and emg) EMG has a little bit higher values. For example DC rezistance. If you have both in the guitar, do you hear a difference? In the lowest tuning for example.. Something bad vs. original?....In tone by any playing techniques...whatever? If you should make a comparison? Some people say the jtv-89f it´s perfect but has problem when they does the palm-muting. Did you have the same problem too? What after exchanging for emg? Thank you! Or anyone if you can comment... Do you think this is a good idea?

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On 1/28/2021 at 2:55 PM, Alienstonesour said:

Some people say the jtv-89f it´s perfect but has problem when they does the palm-muting. Did you have the same problem too?

 

The palm muting issues have nothing whatsoever to do with the magnetic pickups, no matter what kind they are... it's a piezo-related problem that affects the modeled sounds only.

Quote

Do you think this is a good idea?

 

No. These guitars are full of quircks as it is... active pickups are just gonna be a pain in the a$$, and you'll have a tough time finding a place for the battery.

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