Swapping out passives

Mark73

Hi
ive just bought an old Ibanez arz400 which has emg hz pickups which from what I’ve read I think are passive pickups. I want to remove these and either replace with a more classic Les Paul sounding pick up or Possibly emg 81’s What mods would I need to do with respect to wiring
thanks

ICBM

If you're fitting other passive pickups you don't actually 'need' to replace the wiring, but the chances are that what's in there is not especially high quality. The normal values for passive humbuckers are 500K Log pots and 0.022uF caps.

If you're fitting active EMGs and you're buying new they come with the correct pots, but if you're fitting second hand ones they may not, in which case you need 25K Log pots and 0.1uF caps.

Be aware that the holes in the guitar will probably be 8mm and the new pots may be 3/8" (9.5mm) so you will need to ream them out slightly. The existing knobs may not fit the new pot shafts either, without risking cracking them.

Funkfingers

EMG-HZ passive humbuckers should have a five-pin block connector system on the underside of each pickup housing. 

The proper EMG interconnect cables have corresponding block connectors at pickup end. (They may also have blocks at the controls end.) These will need to be removed and replaced with conventional cable. 

Some soldering will be necessary in the control cavity.

GluedtoMusic

With active EMGs you will also need to replace the mono output jack that is used with passive pickups to a stereo jack (this is included with new active EMGs).

Funkfingers

The TRS jack has always been supplied with aftermarket EMG active pickups - right back to the era of the raised embossed logo rather than a printed one.