Charvel Model 3 pickup rec

[HairForceONE]

1st time poster.

Backgound: I have a Model 3 with old school EMG's in it. I like the sound but they are noisy. Have copper lined the cavity and replaced all the pots, switch, and use Mogami interconnect. These EMG's are noisier than my passive humbucker's.

Question: I like Duncan HB's and am looking for single coil recommendations that physically fit (no offset) and make a good Strat set with the JB.

Thanks!

[DonP]

EMG's should be silent. Which models are they?

[Jackson8090s]

Welcome to the board, I'm pretty new here myself. Nice Axe! I have EMG's loaded in pretty much every guitar I own, never noisy... maybe it's time for some new EMG's

[toejam]

Did you replace them with the right 25k pots, stereo jack? Did you also make sure not to hook up the ground wire?

[HairForceONE]

They are hooked up right and thanks for asking. 81/SA/SA from the '80's. The pups aren't noisy except in high gain situations.
I'm not really interested in troubleshooting the EMG's - they work fine but are just noisy for whatever reason. I went so far as to build a Faraday cage and mock-up an installation and the EMG's were still noisy - the pickups were generating the noise and only detectable in ultra-gain modes.


I could go for EMG's again but have great luck with passives, copper shielding and star-grounding. OTH, maybe I haven't had an authentic EMG experience.


Cheers!

Tom

[HairForceONE]

bump

[warlok]

In my experience, you are not going to get a good fit with any single sized HB without modification and tweaking. I buy the ones with the cable out the side and file away the small bit of board underneath so it goes out the bottom. Then start filing away at the ears and case as needed to physically fit without binding. Then drill the threaded insert for direct mount. Then start again when you install it and it's binding still... My recommendation would be a little '59 in the neck. Matches with most bridge HB's. Put a Duckbucker in the middle and a JB in the bridge and split them all if you want a stratty tone. That's how I have my Model 6. I've never tried any Duncan true singles.. Good luck.

[Matt_B]

Duncan and Dimarzio both offer all of their singles without the flange/tab so there's not need to remove it.

Only a few dealers stock those pickups without the flange (banjomikez on eBay does) but any dealer can order them.

[HairForceONE]

So I went with the EMG SA-X, SA-X, 89-X set. They sound better to my ears than the vintage set I had but there were some issues that I want to share:
1.) The kit ships with one less inter-connect than is needed to support installation in a volume/tone/tone setup. I contacted support and they sent me new one.
2.) The supplied 5-way switch fits but the thickness of the cavity mount required a little modification of the switch tip. In order to get a switch tip to stay on, I drilled and tapped the switch tip with a #6-32 set screw and replaced the switch mounting screws with hex-button head screws to provide extra clearance.