EMG DG20 Pre-Wired Pickguard - White Pearl

Wow! For years I liked and was ok with my Fender "Fat Strat". I'm never ok with factory pickups and always swap them out (usually Seymour Duncan pickups) but the Fender "humbuckers" were, meh, ok for what I do. I've had this Fat Strat for years and tolerated the factory PUs but they were lacking. Decent crunch and could get ok Les Paul and Strat tones. Not great, but ok... the whole jack of all trades, master of none thing. Anyway, I saw a YouTube of Dan Huff recently and his tone with the Humbucker in the bridge and single coils mid and neck. Thought about doing something similar. I found this, pre-wired setup - by Steve Lukather, an absolute guitar hero of mine, and it got me thinking. Did my research and went with this and the EMGs over swapping everything out as I was thinking of doing. Wow! WOW! The tone through my Line 6 amp live and through a board is WOW amazing. Do I have the chime, twang and tingling of a Strat? Very very close - much closer than with the factory PUs. The Strat tone is definitely there. Put on a little chorus, delay and some gain. WOW. This setup is amazing. Do I have the tone and crunch of a Les Paul? No. But, a Les Paul is a Les Paul and that is what is needed, IMHO, to sound like a Les Paul. But, I have better bottom and fullness in the bridge and neck PUs for incredible, full crunch. Amazing crunch through the Line 6. There is a lot of sizzle in this setup. It is all I need for what I do. Assembly was a breeze. I was able to swap out without removing my strings. Just loosened up a lot and was able to remove the old assembly and put this one on - but note I usually have about 4 turns on the pegs. No soldering, which I was skeptical of, just snap in the connectors and done. No soldering at all. Again, assembly was easy as could be. The only thing was my cable plug has to be in a specific position to fully insert my cable; the terminals have to be towards the back of the body. That is it. I highly highly recommend this setup. Especially for any Fat Strats. It is amazing.

I have a Travelcaster guitar (a strat travel guitar) that I love. It had 3 single coils and a 5 way switch. It sounded great, but was noisy, and I couldn't get a great distortion sound from the single coils. I considered a number of solutions, but got this because I could install it myself, and I have used EMG pickups in the past and really liked them. It took me about an hour to install the whole thing. I had to make new holes for all of the pickguard screws, but that was very easy. It was truly plug-n-play. This configuration is SSH with the H being in the bridge position, right where you want it for a good distortion sound. I play a wide variety of rock music using very clean to very grungy distortion sounds. This thing is fantastic. Oddly enough, the middle single coil with distortion on it sounds REALLY good. I am getting zero hum out of this thing. The single coils are completely quiet even with really high gain. This is huge, because I really like the sound of the middle single coil with distortion, and the old pickups were just so noisy it was almost unusable. Dead quiet now all else the same. Each of the settings with the switch provides a different tone, and they are all super useful for different songs to get a different tone. I chose to mount the battery externally on the back of the guitar with velcro. I didn't even try to put it inside, because I use a wireless velcroed to the back so there is a hump there anyway. When I need to recharge that battery, I can just pop it off and top it off. The guitar pictured had the 1/4 jack on the back but that didn't work for me, so I cut a hole and moved it to the bottom of the guitar, running the wires for the 9v through the hole. I think it would have fit inside, I didn't even try. The only downside to this that I can see is that I thought $300 is pretty pricy for pickups. The Travelcaster cost the same amount as this pickguard with pickups. I justified paying the high price because of the ease of installation. EVERYTHING was pre-wired and good-to-go. No soldering. It was super easy. I really liked the feel of the neck, the size, and everything else about the guitar. Now I absolutely LOVE the tone I am getting from it.

I have a 1989 Fender Stratocaster Plus. It came from the factory with a trio of Fender Lace Gold Sensor pickups. While I liked the fundamental tone and voice of these stock Lace units, they were incredibly noisy. I know single coil pickups are normally not as quiet as hum-buckers but the sizzle, hiss, and spit I was getting was unbearable. I got headaches while practicing to the point I just stopped playing this guitar. I researched on how to fix this issue. I found some internet resources that advised adding metal foil shielding inside the guitar. When I opened my Strat up, I discovered a lot of shielding had already been applied at the factory. In addition, everything was also properly grounded. But, there was still too much pickup noise. So I was intrigued at this set from EMG that promised good tone and low noise. They come pre-wired and ready to drop in with zero soldering required. The installation how-to video on EMG's site ([...]) was especially helpful. I am extremely pleased with the results. The EMGs are REALLY quiet and have a wonderful tone. OK, I don't sound like David Gilmour but it's going to take more than a pickup upgrade to make that happen. While practicing last night, even my wife commented "Wow, that guitar sure does sound nice." That's something I never thought I'd hear anyone say about my Strat. Pros === QUIET - This was my number one requirement and it has been met. Excellent Tone. Evaluated with Peavey Classic 50 head amp and Peavey Classic 410E 4x10 open back cabinet. (FYI, this is incredibly subjective. Don't assume you'll like the tone and voice just because I did. You really have to try them in your guitar, your amp, while you are playing. This is obvious to most of you but I get a lot friends who ask for blanket recommendations and IMHO, tone is too subjective and too dependent on associated gear). Very easy installation - you'll need a phillips screwdriver and wire cutters. Attractive pick guard (I've read a lot of reviews call it ugly so YMMV) Cons === Expensive - One could easily make the argument that it might be wiser to sell a guitar you don't like playing and buy another rather than dropping this much cash on an upgrade. For me, the pickup noise was the only thing that I didn't like about my guitar, so this made sense. 9V Battery Required - These are active pickups and therefore require a battery. I'm not a gigging musician and I own other guitars so this is a non-issue for me. Also, you have to remove 4 screws from the pick guard to be able get at the battery. If you are a frequent performer without a guitar tech, I can see how this can be a deal breaker.

I want to start off by saying this product- installed- is incredible. Beautiful, and wildly different-sounding tones with all five pickup variations on the 5-way switch. That said, on my Ibanez Gio GRX40, it took some thinking and modification to make it work. First off after removing strings and old yellowing pickgaurd, I checked the fit of the KH-20. The side of the main electronics (volume/tone/5way area is the hub where everything meets) didnt quite clear the cutout on my guitar. So i simply marked the wood that was in the way and grabbed my oscilating tool and cut it out. Then i swapped the input jack- easy peasy. Then i tried to find where the 9V battery would fit. After some thinking and frustration i took off the back plate and removed the center tremolo spring (out of 3) and drilled a small hole between that pocket and the other side and slid the wire through. I put the 9V in a toddler sock and tightened the tensioner bracket to try to compensate for the loss of a spring. (I dont ‘whammy’ much) then i put the pickgaurd into place and it didnt fit the shape of my guitar at all (BTW if you have a Squire I think you won’t have any of these issues or the ones to come), so I marked roughly the new shape I wanted to make it look right, grabbed my little wheel sander and carefully ate away at it until it was about right. Then with fine sand paper, at around a 45° angle I lightly smoothed and beveled the edges to match the rest of the pickgaurd. Lastly I drilled all new holes, because none of the pickgaurd ones matched my guitar. Plus when reshaping a couple holes were eliminated and needed new ones. Before I screwed it down I made all the connectionsfor the electronics, which was refreshingly simple. Although I did have to solder the green wire back onto the terminal it belongs to on the switch (could have been my fault that it came off, hard to say), I’m still giving this 5 starts because of how great the pickups are and how much I like the white pearl finish! It took a fair bit of tools and confidence sonif you dont have one of the two, find someone who does or maybe re-evaluate. The former would be better though, trust me. I’m ‘iffy’ on the pricepoint, because of my experience vs. how easy it is advertised to be. Would still recommend! Pictures kind of show the original look, the stages/hiccups of installation, and then the finished product.

I picked up a squire Strat from my local pawn shop. It was in great shape, and the original neck and middle pickups had a really nice tone. However, the bridge pickup was a single coil... and well, I was not so impressed with how that one sounded. i.e. it didn't chug. Swapping this unit in was super easy, no soldering required! It took less than an hour to complete the mod... which included a trip my local store to get a 9V battery. One hole out of eleven didn't quite line up. I had to drill that hole in the guitar using the unit as the template. I also had to widen the hole from the jack cavity into the pickup cavity a little to allow the wires to slide through with ease. Now this guitar rocks!!!! And the neck & middle pickups still provide excellent tone diversity. One other really important feature worth mentioning... Strats traditionally have the volume knob way too close to the bridge for my liking. This unit has some space between the bridge and the volume knob. Besides the humbucker bridge pup, the location of the volume knob was the thing that sealed the deal for me. The pearl color of the pick guard is totally awesome looking too! I am super happy with it and would recommend to anyone looking for fun and easy project to get a killer sounding guitar for not a whole lot of money.

I got these pickups because I absolutely love the sound of Gilmour's guitar in P.U.L.S.E. I have them in my cheap old Strat but I really want to get the Classic Series 50s Stratocaster in Candy Apple Red to match the famous P.U.L.S.E. guitar. The sound from these things is fantastic. These make it much easier to get that Gilmour sound, especially if you are going for the P.U.L.S.E sound. I love having the volume, tone, and presence controls instead of volume, tone, tone. These are active pickups so they require a 9v battery. Make sure you unplug your guitar when you're not playing. I used to always just leave my guitar plugged in and I made the mistake of leaving it plugged in when I first got these and it drained the battery in a couple weeks or so. If you unplug when not using, the battery lasts a long time so you don't have to worry about changing it all the time. I think it has been about a year or two since I last replaced it. These things are super easy to install too. Very high quality with nice connectors so soldering isn't necessary. I have had these for several years and they still work and sound perfect. The only thing I would change, and I did change, is the pickguard. I don't know why these come with mother of pearl. I have never seen David Gilmour use these pickups with a mother of pearl pickguard. It's a quick, easy, and inexpensive fix though so not a huge deal. So if you really love that P.U.L.S.E sound, these pickups are perfect. They're the real deal.

Very good quality, sounds good

I got this mainly for the pickups and prewired system, and I must say that I'm satisfied with both. Pickups sound amazing for metal, and rock, but where they really shine in my opinion is how they clean up. I don't really mess around with the volume (or tone) too much on my guitars, but with this thing I cant help it. at 5-7 You can get pretty good cleans on this (for EMGs) with a simple roll off, and if you need more dirt, tapping up the volume knob really drives your sound in a way that passives don't. Great for your strat if you've got a metal gig right after your jazz gig. Few things to keep in mind, though. Obviously these are EMG's so you will need a place to keep the battery (I set mine up behind the back plate, since I blocked/hard-tailed the trem), so if you dont have the space for a battery already on the guitar, be prepared to drill/make a cavity. The other thing to keep in mind (which im sure wont be relevant to most of you) is that the simple 1 Volume 1 Tone setup (which I love), wont fit with most standard 3 hole strat pickguard, since the spacing and mechanics on this pickguard IS DIFFRENT (so are the distances of the emg wires/ cables, so you might need to get longer emg active cables to get this to fit; which is a cheap fix/ a few bucks on amazon). Its possible to make space for it, but it WILL require some drilling and space clearing to the body if you are trying to swap the electronics over to your own beloved pickguard. That said If you aren't like me, and like the pickguard it comes with, then no prob! All in all I recommend it for your strat if you are an EMG and/or a Steve Lukather Fan.