Upgrading from Sonic Ecstasy pickups?

[kb813]

I have a Majesty Monarchy. Is it a worthwhile upgrade going from the Sonic Ecstasy pickups to the new Rainmaker/Dreamcatcher pickups? Also does the Monarchy utilize the quick disconnect system?

 

[tbonesullivan]

Only you can really answer the first question. Just because John Petrucci now has pickups he likes more for the current music he is playing doesn't mean that you need them too. Many people out there are happy with their JP models as they originally came, whichever pickups they came with.

 

[Jp6Fanatic]

Only you can really answer the first question. Just because John Petrucci now has pickups he likes more for the current music he is playing doesn't mean that you need them too. Many people out there are happy with their JP models as they originally came, whichever pickups they came with.

Exactly as he said, it's all a personal opinion on whether you think you should swap them. I'd say really determine if you like the sonic ecstasies or not before you make a change. From my personal experience i've never swapped pickups in any of my JP's, and that's just because the crunchlab/liquifire sound exactly the way I like my pickups. And to answer your second question, your Majesty should have the quick connect system in it.

 

[AMR]

Hi, not exactly about the subject but if i want to disconnect the preamp circuitry in the majesty, can i do it? i don’t need it for the boost because i usualy don’t use it, but the main reason is that the preamp is always on even if the boost is of. if i want to add a preamp to my sound i use the JHS clover for this. I feel that the preamp is coloring my sound and compare to my musicman jpxi that don’t have this function, it sometimes bother me. thank you all.

 

[beej]

There's no colour from the preamp. It's just a buffer. (You'd notice it if you had a long cable run to your board.)

That said, you can certainly bypass it if you like. There's a thread on TGP (linked to in a thread here) where someone details the process of bypassing it. Pretty cool.

 

[tbonesullivan]

I seriously doubt the preamp on the Majesty is "coloring" your sound. The preamp is also ONE unit, which controls switching, piezo, everything. You can't just disconnect the boost. It's not that type of guitar. It's a state of the art instrument utilizing electronic switching and mixing for all sources.

The JPXI also probably runs the magnetic signal through the active mixer, though I am not sure about that.

If you are noticing major tonal differences, that is probably because of the capacitance in your signal chain interacting with the magnetic pickups, coloring your sound. Active electronics are known for the fact that they do NOT allow signal loading to color your sound.

 

[Daniel]

Hi, not exactly about the subject but if i want to disconnect the preamp circuitry in the majesty, can i do it? i don’t need it for the boost because i usualy don’t use it, but the main reason is that the preamp is always on even if the boost is of. if i want to add a preamp to my sound i use the JHS clover for this. I feel that the preamp is coloring my sound and compare to my musicman jpxi that don’t have this function, it sometimes bother me. thank you all.

The Majesty guitars preamp system actually controls not only the boost, but the switching on the guitar. If you were to disconnect the preamp, you would lose your switching as well as your Piezo system.