Active to Passive Pickups On Charvel Model 5FX

[Charvel1975]

Hello everyone, I'm going with passive pickups on my Charvel model 5fx instead of the EMG's that are in it now and am looking for advice, suggestions etc.

I have to save up money for the pickups, potentiometers, output jack, capacitors and whatever else is needed and am looking for suggestions and input.

The guitar has a Poplar body with Maple neck-thru neck, rosewood fingerboard. Al this was done to it so far and also had the original floyd rose tremolo and old EMG-81 put back in bridge position:

* The ungrooved nut was replaced with a LSR roller nut
* New Kahler locking nut installed
* Custom sleeves around the tremolo springs
* Orange Drop cap installed (don't know what value?)
* 3-way toggle switch put in - now it don't seem to be switching the pickups right

I don't know what single coil for the neck as I read something about which way the wiring comes out of the neck single coil could be a problem when installing?

[Charvel1975]

I've been trying to narrow down a list of Trem-Spaced bridge pickups and neck single coils/single coil sized humbuckers for my Model 5FX and this is the list I have so far:

Bridge pickups:

59/Custom Hybrid - Some people said might not sound right?
Custom 5
Custom - Some people were telling me this might be too bright sounding in my Charvel?
Perpetual Burn - Jason Becker pickup
JB - Some say to use a 250K volume pot with the JB
Gravity Storm
AT-1 Andy Timmon pickup
Tone Zone - Some say might have a boomy low end which I don't want

Single coils:

Cool Rails
Lil 59
Classic Stack Plus
True Velvet

[Razor]

For me I'd be hard pressed not to restore it back with J-80C or J-90C and a J-100/200. I know the Model 5A came with the J-95, but the J-80 and 90C's just totally kick ass. An old Duncan JB or Dimarzio Super Distortion would be a great choice too. Yeah, I'm old school.

[DonP]

For me I'd be hard pressed not to restore it back with J-80C or J-90C and a J-100/200. I know the Model 5A came with the J-95, but the J-80 and 90C's just totally kick ass. An old Duncan JB or Dimarzio Super Distortion would be a great choice too. Yeah, I'm old school.

Same here.

[Charvel1975]

Another pickup combination I've been reading up on is the JB TB-4 and Flat Strat SSL-6 pickups. Wonder too what value short shaft pots would work with this combo, 250K or 500K as my Charvel has 1 Volume and 1 Tone pot and what capacitors?

[metalhobo]

500k to start out with. if the ssl-6 sounds too bright then you can go down to 250k. but the ssl-6 is pretty warm sounding to begin with so it's probably okay with 500k.

0.022 uF and 0.047 uF are both common. 0.022 will sound brighter than 0.047. all the duncan wiring diagrams show 0.047 so I'd say start with that.

[wrldeatr7]

But what music do you play, what sound are you going for, how much output do you want?

If you want vintagy type stuff, you could just go for a Fishman Fluence Classic, and avoid all the hassle of replacing everything.

[Charvel1975]

But what music do you play, what sound are you going for, how much output do you want?

If you want vintagy type stuff, you could just go for a Fishman Fluence Classic, and avoid all the hassle of replacing everything.

As far as what music I play in the covers band I'm with, we play Classic rock/hard rock/80's metal to 90's/early 2000's rock. I also write my own music as well which can be diverse going from progressive to hard rock to modern metal

[DonP]

As far as what music I play in the covers band I'm with, we play Classic rock/hard rock/80's metal to 90's/early 2000's rock. I also write my own music as well which can be diverse going from progressive to hard rock to modern metal

Another combo that might be good is a DiMarzio Super Distortion with a DiMarzio humbucking single (Area / Injector etc.). With the ease of getting high gain amp tones these days, you don't really need that high of an output for pickups.

[toejam]

You can keep the stereo output jack for passive pickups, it's not a problem.