Okay, a few weeks in, which is usually well after the honeymoon for me, still loving both of my EBMMs and haven't picked up my LPs since getting them. The tone and flexibility of these suckers is amazing, and both of these combined cost less than my previous #1, Lee Roy Parnell LP. That one can stay at home now. Which is good after a recent potential headstock break scare (never assume a never used door will never be used!)
I had picked up a Luke3, and after hearing about the DarkLord, I jumped on that as well. The DL is now the number one, though the Luke3 is a very close second. That sucker is so comfortable to wear and plays fantastic.
I’m down to one band at the moment, but I need to cover a lot of territory. I use an AXE-FX2 with a wide array of tones and I needed a guitar that could get close enough to a strat, maybe a tele, and my main tone is Les Paul. And, I’d like to do that without changing guitars. I tried a JTV-59, but my eyes aren’t what they used to be(pain to change settings) and I really wasn’t convinced by the tones. As with pretty much every guitar I ever buy, I have to make it fit what I need it to. Changing all the electronics in a brand new LP-yep, pretty standard.
I already posted about adding an EMG PA to boost the Darklord. Still digging that, but the guitar didn’t have the one strat tone I wanted to pull off…so it was time to open up the steve morse signed cover and see what was what.
First thing to check-pups are 4-conductor wired (or at least 3 as some vendors do). Check! A quick look at the switch showed that EBMM only uses 2 of the 4 poles in the 5 way switch, which leaves a ton of room to do a bunch of stuff, but this is a simple change. The goal was to mock position 4 on a strat. Since I wasn’t really using the “2 full humbucker” position (position 4 on the DL) that seemed to be the perfect spot, and I didnt want to give up the other ones. I attached a ground wire from an unused pole, and dropped that on the top of the volume pot (about an inch of wire). Then I took the heat shrink off the neck pup a put that connection on the lug for position 4. Then I changed the wiring on the existing hot poles so that the middle pup was on in that position instead of the bridge pup-which was just a purple jumper wire change. It was that easy.
So, now I have the bridge humbucker at 1 and the neck at 5(LP covered). At 2, still the bridge and middle (tempted to split the bridge pup here as well, but haven’t yet). 3 is the single coil (close enough to Tele for me-especially with the PA2 kicked in). 4 is the middle single coil and neck in single mode (strat-covered). At this point, it is pretty much locked into the #1 slot because it is married to the axe-fx and the tones I need for this band. I’ve also simplified my axe2 setup a little (10 presets instead of 5 and up/down stuff) so with the exception of one lo-fi patch I need for the start of Wish You Were Here, I am one switch and one 5 way flip from any of my tones. Couldn’t be happier. My cello patch was too boomy, but when that is the only thing that bothers me after a 4 hour practice-life is good.
Thanks SM, JB and EBMM for making this guitar happen.
I had picked up a Luke3, and after hearing about the DarkLord, I jumped on that as well. The DL is now the number one, though the Luke3 is a very close second. That sucker is so comfortable to wear and plays fantastic.
I’m down to one band at the moment, but I need to cover a lot of territory. I use an AXE-FX2 with a wide array of tones and I needed a guitar that could get close enough to a strat, maybe a tele, and my main tone is Les Paul. And, I’d like to do that without changing guitars. I tried a JTV-59, but my eyes aren’t what they used to be(pain to change settings) and I really wasn’t convinced by the tones. As with pretty much every guitar I ever buy, I have to make it fit what I need it to. Changing all the electronics in a brand new LP-yep, pretty standard.
I already posted about adding an EMG PA to boost the Darklord. Still digging that, but the guitar didn’t have the one strat tone I wanted to pull off…so it was time to open up the steve morse signed cover and see what was what.
First thing to check-pups are 4-conductor wired (or at least 3 as some vendors do). Check! A quick look at the switch showed that EBMM only uses 2 of the 4 poles in the 5 way switch, which leaves a ton of room to do a bunch of stuff, but this is a simple change. The goal was to mock position 4 on a strat. Since I wasn’t really using the “2 full humbucker” position (position 4 on the DL) that seemed to be the perfect spot, and I didnt want to give up the other ones. I attached a ground wire from an unused pole, and dropped that on the top of the volume pot (about an inch of wire). Then I took the heat shrink off the neck pup a put that connection on the lug for position 4. Then I changed the wiring on the existing hot poles so that the middle pup was on in that position instead of the bridge pup-which was just a purple jumper wire change. It was that easy.
So, now I have the bridge humbucker at 1 and the neck at 5(LP covered). At 2, still the bridge and middle (tempted to split the bridge pup here as well, but haven’t yet). 3 is the single coil (close enough to Tele for me-especially with the PA2 kicked in). 4 is the middle single coil and neck in single mode (strat-covered). At this point, it is pretty much locked into the #1 slot because it is married to the axe-fx and the tones I need for this band. I’ve also simplified my axe2 setup a little (10 presets instead of 5 and up/down stuff) so with the exception of one lo-fi patch I need for the start of Wish You Were Here, I am one switch and one 5 way flip from any of my tones. Couldn’t be happier. My cello patch was too boomy, but when that is the only thing that bothers me after a 4 hour practice-life is good.
Thanks SM, JB and EBMM for making this guitar happen.
