INSTALLATION INTO GUITARS WITH ACTIVE PICKUPS

The Sustainiac Stealth PRO works very well in guitars with active pickups (such as EMG etc.). There are a few minor details that must be sorted out, but nothing very major:

• EMG pickups have reversed electrical polarity from most popular passive pickups. The way to deal with this is simple: Just reverse the red/black driver wires from that shown in the installation diagrams. By this, we mean the two wires that are contained inside the shielded driver wire. The shield wire (the un-insulated wire) connects to guitar ground as usual.

• We recommend that you use SEPARATE 9-VOLT BATTERIES for the active pickups and the Sustainiac. The way we do this is to use a special 9-pin jack. that has two built-in switches which disconnect both batteries if there is no guitar cord plugged in. This 9-pin jack is included with the kit at no extra charge when you specify active pickups. Otherwise, it is a normal 1/4 inch stereo guitar jack.

• Some people want to use only one 9-volt battery to power both the Sustainiac and the active pickups. Problems arise when you do this.

(1) First of all, sometimes an uncontrolled oscillation occurs when both are powered by the same battery.
(2) Even if no oscillation occurs, grunge (distortion) can be introduced into your guitar output signal.
(3) Sustainers use up batteries faster than active pickups do. Much faster. You will get about 20 hours of sustaining on a 9-volt alkaline battery. When the battery dies, the active pickups will cease to function. If you are gigging, you don't want to change batteries in the middle of a song.

Hit the "BACK" button at the top of the page to return to the previous page.