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Bongo 2026 Collection

LUKE pickup routing question

Ok I don't post much but I come here often. Just thought I would chime in on this as I have recently performed the job of changing out my EMGs on my Luke for passive pups and it is NOT the huge horrible job that some are making it out to be.

YES you WILL need to get single coils that don't have the triangle flange. I got mine made by bareknuckle pickups and they fit perfectly. Although not a standard production feature I think many pup companys will do this to fit EMG routes and routes on some Charvels which I know have the same thing going on.

NO you WON'T have to do anything to the bucker route. The original screws will fit perfectly and all I had to do was run a small drill through the holes in the PUP base plate to make the existing screws fit. Very easy. You can pad the bottom of the route with sponge or do what I did and snip some passive pup springs in half and use those to let you adjust the pup height. The route itself is fine as it is.

YES you WILL need new pots but the existing switch can be used.

YES you WILL have to drill an earth wire from the trem cavity to the control cavity. You will need a pretty long drill bit to get the angle right. I have yet to do this myself and currently have some unshielded wire running between the two cavities to do the grounding. Only about 5mm of it shows and now I know I like the result I will drill the channel to make it neater.

I'm not knocking ppl here for doing what perhaps their tech or somebody advised them to do for the conversion but I am just trying to set the record straight that it's not absolutely necessary as I have done it myself.

I am immensley happy with the conversion and it took all of about 3 hours to do. And it looks cool as hell too.

For the record I fitted a Bareknuckle Crawler and two Bareknuckle Slowhands.

Hope that helps. :D
 
Thanks dodgeball !

Very inspiring for me (passive PU lover...).

*oh no, not another guitar modded for me...* :o

OK, next one might be a Luke though...

Thanks again!
 
Thanks for the kind responses guys,

GW I don't own a PC myself (yet I'm in the IT business ha ha) which is why I don't post much. I just sneak a few minutes at work. Perhaps I can take some pictures and email them to somebody to host/link to this thread? Anybody?

Cheers
 
Ill host them...
larryandrewsatgmaildotcom :) remove the obvious ;)
 
I don't get what it is that some people don't like about EMG's in the Luke... I really love the sound you get from them... it's a perfect combination of highs and lows.. the tone sits really well in a mix and in a live scenario it can cover just about anything bar a single coil bridge tone... IMO it's the most versatile guitar EBMM on the market... solid as a rock and a total pro instrument.... the design for me is near perfect...:)
 
Sorry i have not responded, I've had a couple of days off work.

Thanks for the offer Larry, I'll take some pics and mail them over in the next day or so.

As far as my reasons for changing the EMGs out it's pretty simple. I did/do like the tones of the EMGs but to me the attack was different, the feel of the pick on the string is just...softer? I dunno but I don't like it so much. The clean tones are great and the really high gain tones are great too but I find that in-between those extremes things were not as good as with passive pups. I don't play with a huge amount of gain and so I didn't feel I was getting the best out of them. Another reason is that I quite a percussive player, hitting muted strings and doing rakes and such and I found the EMGs didn't have that percussive attack that I like. It even says so on the EMG website actually. I had them in there for about a year and a half, then I had to switch.

But everyones different right, I'm really pleased some of you dig the EMGs on the Luke. No doubt it is a superb instrument!

Thanks for reading.
 
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