Installing an EMG

[Nazgul]

I ran into the same problem when I installed EMG in my friend's guitar.

The problem was that I didn't solder the wire from the pickup the right way...I suggest you take a look at diagram at EMGs site....you'll see how the pickup wire is soldered. There's actually two "wires" in that one wire from the pickup and it's hard to notice that on the older diagrams.

Here:

http://www.emginc.com/downloads/wiringdiagrams/Humbuckers_active.pdf

Notice the "pickup braid" and how it's soldered?

[Izegrim]

That's a clear diagram. I still don't see what I did wrong because if you look at my picture, I have soldered the braid to the pot. Now I know it doesn't look pretty but it should be fine. Man... this is really weird. I'll buy a fresh battery to see if that helps but the one I use now is not that old. It comes from my tuner pedal.

[Nazgul]

I don't know then...how about rewiring everything then? I don't see there's much else to do...

[Izegrim]

Just did that... Nothing has changed. Let me get this straight. When you have the gain channel engaged and the volume on the guitar all the way down, there's a slight hiss from the amp. When I turn the volume knob the hiss increases. This is not normal, am I right? The APC's are much more quiet. EMG's should be even more quiet if I understand correctly.

[Mikernaut2]

yeah the arrow on the quick connect should be up.

Just double check and make sure you have good solid soldered connections. I was just installing Emg's recently and I was only getting half power. I triple checked everthing , tried a different set of new pots and nothing fixed it. Then I re-soldered all the red wires that connect to the battery pack.
This solved it.

Also do you tend to sit or play close to your amp. I notice I get more hiss when doing so as I sit pretty much right by infront of my Vetta II when I'm playing.

[Izegrim]

My my... I resoldered everything twice and it looks awful but still: nothing. Okay I've got this hissing problem. I'll go out and get a new battery now. If that doesn't solve it then I'm clueless. This is just too weird. What are the odds that this EMG is faulty? Close to none I suppose but still. What is it?

[Sunbane]

One thing I've noticed with the EMGs, is that you notice right away when they pick up radiostatic interference. Have you tried facing away from amp/computer monitor/lights?

The EMGs I used were much quiter than my Duncan and Jackson pups, that's for certain - but they were still snsitive to interference if I faced certain ways.

Just grabbing at straws here. I have zero experience with APCs, btw.

[Grayson]

By the way, the EMG won't work at all if you have the quick connector upside-down...so you have it the right way.

It does look like everything is wired correctly, though I don't see the wires going to your input jack.

Are you absolutely, positively, 100% sure that your cable is being inserted all the way into your input jack? On one of my strats my jack was installed just fine, but I couldn't plug the cable in all the way since the tab the jack pushes on was bottoming out in the cavity. I had to rotate the jack about 75° so that it would clear. Anyway, I was getting lots of noise until I figured that out. The guitar certainly played even with the problem.

The EMG jack was a lot tighter than my original strat jack. I have to push the cable in a lot harder, which to me is a good thing.