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active pups: battery low ?

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Bruno

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EMG active pickups *announce* low battery or I've not problem until.... puft, no more sound?(

I re-picked up a guitar that honestly for a long time I hated (guitar with 3 SA emg active pups - my last 3d here - ).
Well it will be an exagerate maple top (5/8" not carved ...) on mahogany body (2 piece), bird's eye w/ebony neck, hipshot hardtail or what you want  but that guitar has a moderate low volume respect  my other pups  - ex. texas special cs, suhr V60LP, duncan ssl-1 - they aren't higain pups!!).
NB: pups are close to the strings....

(ok, I could  changing the battery but today, in my country we have a snow storm very impressive - 80cm and still snowing profusely)
 
I can't hardly believe you asked this question today.  I don't have an answer (yet) but I've noticed the same thing.  I just finished my new build last weekend and I found a battery in a desk drawer and popped it in.  I found that the volume was noticably lower than with my other guitars which left me asking myself...

Did I wire something wrong?

Are EMG-SA's not as loud?

Was the battery low?

I don't know the answer, but the first thing I'm going to try is to replace the battery (tonight).  I'll let you know if it makes any difference.

Also, I assume that you never noticed the difference in volume before.  True?
 
Johnny said:
I can't hardly believe you asked this question today.  I don't have an answer (yet) but I've noticed the same thing. 
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Don't worry, it's our personal *truman show* 
:laughing11: :laughing11: :laughing11: :laughing11: :laughing11:

Johnny said:
Also, I assume that you never noticed the difference in volume before.  True?
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More, normally emg SA are much stronger than other pups.

I also add that when I have time and opportunity, I will put 2 batteries and a switch (push pull maybe) to verify difference between 9 and 18V :p 


(if I expend myself, it will be with pioneering spirit) 
:laughing3: :laughing3: :laughing3: :laughing3: :laughing3: :laughing3: :laughing3: :laughing3: :laughing3: :laughing3: :laughing3: :laughing3: :laughing3: :laughing3: :laughing3: :laughing3:)
 
The 9v/18v difference doesn't necessarily translate into louder output.  Also, IME, when a battery goes out in an EMG system, it cuts in and out and sounds static-y, almost like an exaggerated flanger.  However, I've only had it happen once on my J Basses, and I had extra batteries.  On a friend's P Bass with a low battery, the higher frequencies did come our but the lower ones did when the battery was dying.  Now I do scheduled changes whether it needs it or not.  In my Strat with an EMG 89 and 89r, I had a single 9v last over 3 years, and then I only changed it on principle.
 
Just got through replacing the battery with a brand new one. There was no discernible difference in volume.

I also compared the output of two guitars. The first is a Tom Anderson with an SSH configuration. The second is my new Warmoth Srat with 3 EMG-SAs. Since I run a POD X3 Live directly into a PA, I checked the meters on the mixer. The EMGs were registering 3 bars while the Anderson was registering 4 bars. Note that the result was the same whether I was comparing the bridge pup or just using the single coils. Now I didn't really need to see the meter on the mixer to know it wasn't as loud. The difference in volume was noticeable.

So, what does this mean? At this point, I can only assume that the EMGs simply do not put out as much volume. I think there are a lot of folks on this forum with EMGs, so I'd like to know if this is consistent with the experience that others have had or if maybe something is wrong. For me it's easy to just up the volume for when I'm playing through the EMGs, but I'd like to know if I have some problem.

Oh, and Bruno, you need to move south. Today was a beautiful day in Austin TX ;)
 
Super Turbo Deluxe Custom said:
In my Strat with an EMG 89 and 89r, I had a single 9v last over 3 years, and then I only changed it on principle.
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I get really tired of people freaking the hell out over changing batteries every gig, and going so far as to want to rig up external DC power supplies, so their battery won't die, but at the end of the day, EMGs use opamps that draw like 85uA current. A 9V battery practically lasts forever with that kind of current consumption, as you've noted. No need to even think about if the battery is good or not, you can forget it even exists until you change it once in a blue moon, to be safe.
:guitarplayer2:
 
Super Turbo Deluxe Custom said:
The 9v/18v difference doesn't necessarily translate into louder output.
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Of course!
I want try 18V because I want more headroom too
(I hope to find solutions to this decrease in volume)

Super Turbo Deluxe Custom said:
In my Strat with an EMG 89 and 89r, I had a single 9v last over 3 years, and then I only changed it on principle.
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My 9V... July 2007.
You say it's time to change it anyway?  :cool01:

Johnny said:
Just got through replacing the battery with a brand new one. There was no discernible difference in volume.
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This morning I compared these pups EMG (low volume) with others that I have on my Warmoth mahogany koa top (SSH w/89).
EM SA on Warmoth (neck & middle) have much more volume, more bass, more fat. Very good sc pup.
So I think of two possible explanations:
1. battery low
2. changing height pickups (more close to the strings - but two guitars have similar setup -)

Johnny said:
Oh, and Bruno, you need to move south. Today was a beautiful day in Austin TX ;)
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I take that as an invitation?  :cool01:
I live in central Italy (here is usually good weather).
But it's true too that I love hot weather, sunny days: sooner or later I will come in Texas  :hello2:
 
yes, correct!
I know this on emg website but I've another guitar with SA: same setup and differente volume output
(The curse of V years ???)
 
Street Avenger said:
Batteries are for flashlights, not guitars.
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It's quite closed minded to say that batteries should not be used on guitars. I don't know why active components are such a rarity with guitars, but they do wonderful things for basses.

With a proper transparent buffer, you can provide a constant input impedance for the pickups, and a lowered output impedance, which will allow you to run through any rig, without changing the behavior of the resonant circuit of the pickups, and without losing highs to the parasitic capacitance of your cables.

You can also get a clean gain boost to make your guitar as loud as you want, straight out of the jack. (Though you will raise the noisefloor and lose headroom, as with any gain stage.)

Getting a bit more adventurous, you can do a fixed active EQ circuit to provide a slight coloration to the signal, giving the pickups a certain flavor. Or even onboard equalization to allow you to adjust the bass, mids and treble straight from the guitar.

Furthermore, such designs are a rarity, except with piezo buffers, but you can also experiment with multiple buffered inputs, to allow the blending of multiple pickups of dissimilar output impedances, without the traditional problems associated with doing so. You could also try buffering three Strat pickups in various combinations and adding in a dummy coil, in a system that would allow humcancellation at all positions, with minimal interaction of the complex impedance of each coil, and no output loss.

And for all of these possibilities, you should never top a couple of milliAmperes current draw from a 9V battery, so you can forget the battery exists until you have to change it once a year or whatever.
 
I had a Levinson Blade R4 about 100 years ago that had an active EQ in it so there was an onboard battery I had to worry about. But, is is as you say - they last forever. I used to change it once a year just on general principles out of fear of the damned thing leaking. Back when I was younger, leaking batteries were a way of life. You didn't dare leave a battery in anything more than 6 months, and that was pushing it. Otherwise, you wrecked whatever the battery was in. Things are much better now in the battery world - I see Coppertops with "fresh dates" 3 years out all the time - but after losing all sorts of toys/radios/flashlights/etc. you get a little gun-shy and the preference is to not have any battery at all if you can manage it.
 
I've seen guys whine about batteries for pickups, never mentioning the sound.  The same guys also use batteries in effects.  Batteries are (relatively) cheap, easily replaced, and readily available.  For those reasons, you should never be left high and dry.  Now tOObs....
 
Cagey said:
I had a Levinson Blade R4 about 100 years ago that had an active EQ in it so there was an onboard battery I had to worry about. But, is is as you say - they last forever. I used to change it once a year just on general principles out of fear of the damned thing leaking. Back when I was younger, leaking batteries were a way of life. You didn't dare leave a battery in anything more than 6 months, and that was pushing it. Otherwise, you wrecked whatever the battery was in. Things are much better now in the battery world - I see Coppertops with "fresh dates" 3 years out all the time - but after losing all sorts of toys/radios/flashlights/etc. you get a little gun-shy and the preference is to not have any battery at all if you can manage it.
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It tends to be young-ish players that flip out about batteries. At least that's what I've observed.
Probably the same kids that don't realize that their treasured vintage gear was CRAP back in its day, but that's a different rant. :doh:
 
When I was trying to decide on pickups for my Strat, I was reluctant to go with active pickups.  Why? Because I would have a tendency to sit the guitar down and forget to unplug it.  And nobody is gonna call me young ;). Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how the SAs sound other than my worry about the lower output. Looks like I'll need to pull the strings and add some more foam to get them a little closer to the strings but even then it still looks like the output will be less then with my other guitars.
 
I'm no "kid", and since active pickups do not sound better than passives, there is no justification for dealing with batteries in a guitar.
 
Street Avenger said:
I'm no "kid", and since active pickups do not sound better than passives, there is no justification for dealing with batteries in a guitar.
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What does it matter if they sound better or not? There are other advantages.
 
Street Avenger said:
I'm no "kid", and since active pickups do not sound better than passives, there is no justification for dealing with batteries in a guitar.
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That is of course if sound is the only factor. I wanted an EMG route because I think it's a much cleaner layout. With that route, my pickup options are pretty limited. So, I thought the EMG would sound better than the Lace pickups. Maybe they do - maybe they don't but a battery is really not a big deal.  You can argue that I should have gotten a regular single coil route, but for me, the esthetics of the guitar were important enough for me to limit my pickup choices.
 
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