LTD EC-1000 and pickups?

Hey everyone,

So for like 3 years now I've owned a snow white ec-1000 with emg's.

I don't play metal as much as I used to, so I was wondering what were some options for swapping out my emg's for something else.

I know theres a ec-1000 (sunburst) that comes with seymour duncans, would those work in my guitar, not to sure because mine is setup for actives.

I love my guitar and I love the white so I dont want to completely get a new guitar, and having it custom would be kind of unique.

Let me know if you have any suggestions.

I'm pretty sure you can put whatever pickups you want in it with no modification as long as you're swapping buckers for buckers or SC's for SC's, P90's for P90's. If you put in passive pickups that just means you don't need the 9V battery anymore. It's easier to go from active to passive than the other way around because there won't necessarily be room in the back of the guitar for a battery. Volume and tone pots should work fine, though a lot of people recommend swapping out what the factory put in in the first place to electronics that are a little better. Often, even on higher end instruments, the pots are pretty cheap and buying new ones is a relatively cheap way to improve the tone of the instrument.

A lot of the pickup manufacturers have sound samples on their websites to give you an idea of what kind of tone you can expect. I recently contacted Tom Anderson at Tom Anderson guitars to ask about pickups for a couple git's I'm building. Told him about the construction of the guitar, what kind of amp I have and what kind of music I like to play and he sent me his recommendations. I've heard about people doing this with other makers too. There are so many choices for aftermarket pickups it is overwhelming. I recommend finding out about the pickups that some of your favorite guitarists use and searching through some of the conversations here, there are a ton of opinions and a lot to learn but it's worth the time. Having a guitar that sings to you makes all the difference in your playing, and having a guitar whose tone you don't like just sucks the life out of you.

Good luck!

deaconschwaz said:

I'm pretty sure you can put whatever pickups you want in it with no modification as long as you're swapping buckers for buckers or SC's for SC's, P90's for P90's. If you put in passive pickups that just means you don't need the 9V battery anymore. It's easier to go from active to passive than the other way around because there won't necessarily be room in the back of the guitar for a battery. Volume and tone pots should work fine,

Click to expand...

Bad idea IMO.
EMG pickups use 25kOhm pots.

Passive pickup circuits with single coils (normally) use 250kOhm pots.

Passive pickup circuits with humbuckers usually use 500kOhm pots.

Higher resistance - more highs allowed to pass.

I doubt wiring two humbuckers to 25kOhm pots would yield good results.

I might be mistaken, but I think if you want to put Duncans or any other passive pickups in there you'd have to rewire it completely since the EMGs are probably installed with their solderless install system.
It's not such a big deal. Just get 3x500kOhm pots (I think the EC-1000 has 2xVolume 1xTone, so you need 2xLinear 1xLogarithmic taper), pickups of your wish, some wire, and install the new set. Most manufacturers have popular wirings on their website (I know Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio have a truckload of diagrams).

The James Hetfield signature set is an update of the EMGs, it's supposed to be a mix between the punch and clarity of an active and warmth and creamyness of a passive, I think that might be worth checking out.

Jackie said:

deaconschwaz said:

I'm pretty sure you can put whatever pickups you want in it with no modification as long as you're swapping buckers for buckers or SC's for SC's, P90's for P90's. If you put in passive pickups that just means you don't need the 9V battery anymore. It's easier to go from active to passive than the other way around because there won't necessarily be room in the back of the guitar for a battery. Volume and tone pots should work fine,

Click to expand...

Bad idea IMO.
EMG pickups use 25kOhm pots.

Passive pickup circuits with single coils (normally) use 250kOhm pots.

Passive pickup circuits with humbuckers usually use 500kOhm pots.

Higher resistance - more highs allowed to pass.

I doubt wiring two humbuckers to 25kOhm pots would yield good results.

I might be mistaken, but I think if you want to put Duncans or any other passive pickups in there you'd have to rewire it completely since the EMGs are probably installed with their solderless install system.
It's not such a big deal. Just get 3x500kOhm pots (I think the EC-1000 has 2xVolume 1xTone, so you need 2xLinear 1xLogarithmic taper), pickups of your wish, some wire, and install the new set. Most manufacturers have popular wirings on their website (I know Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio have a truckload of diagrams).

The James Hetfield signature set is an update of the EMGs, it's supposed to be a mix between the punch and clarity of an active and warmth and creamyness of a passive, I think that might be worth checking out.

Click to expand...

Well that shows me for opening my mouth.

I believe the active pickup systems simply put a FET buffer after the pickups, allowing the use of unusual impedances in the pups.

You could possibly wire passive pups into the EMG buffer and get good results. If the buffer is unity gain, it would just give good preservation of pup tone and nicely buffer the guitar cable. If it has higher gain or attenuation, it will alter the pup output, which you may not like.

You may also want the pup impedance to interact with the cable, your stomp boxes, and/or your amp. In that case, you will need to change out the whole setup as deacon described.