Centaura Deluxe question

[Cboss]

I'm wondering if any of the experts could chime in on the sound and desirability of the EMG active pickup set in these guitars.. any comments are appreciated.. are they great? Only for metal?

[Jeff R]

I install and test clients' EMGs all the time in a wild variety of guitars, and I've had several guitars with EMGs dating back over 30 years. I only have one guitar with EMGs nowadays, my Vernon Reid Centaurafornian hybrid, which is about as close to a Hamer Centaura Deluxe as you can get without actually being one.

I find EMGs do clean clean and dirty dirty just fine. Their Achilles heel is in gritty pushed grindy natural breakup situations. They don't sound bad, they just sound kinda meh vanilla to my ears and not really too much character. Same goes for volume swells - the pots kinda only know off and wide open, nothing dynamic in between, especially with gain.

Truth be told, if my guitar hadn't been owned by Vernon, I would have pulled the EMGs within a week of owning it. If his weren't soldered old skool EMGs (it's a 1989) and instead the modern plug-in ones, I'd pull the 81 (ceramic) in the bridge position and swap for an 85 (Alnico V). 

Edited to add eye candy ...

[Cboss]

That is beautiful!! Thx for the great answer

[Bennyboy-UK]

They are desirable to me because I really like EMGs, and I really like Centauras.

 

I'm no metaller or anything, I'm happy to use them for everything. I love how quiet they are and that you can have some very powerful EQ with the SPC (on a Deluxe), which adds a decent mid boost - turning the neck SA into a fat humbucker or just piles on output for the Bridge 89.

 

Its 89, SA, SA in the Deluxe - so the volume control pulls up to put the pickup in SC mode - I prefer the 89/85 Humbucker sound along with the SA vs the S - same as Jeffro - I like the rounder character and they aren't short of output by any stretch of the imagination.

[Cboss]

On 2/26/2023 at 5:03 PM, Jeff R said:

I install and test clients' EMGs all the time in a wild variety of guitars, and I've had several guitars with EMGs dating back over 30 years. I only have one guitar with EMGs nowadays, my Vernon Reid Centaurafornian hybrid, which is about as close to a Hamer Centaura Deluxe as you can get without actually being one.

I find EMGs do clean clean and dirty dirty just fine. Their Achilles heel is in gritty pushed grindy natural breakup situations. They don't sound bad, they just sound kinda meh vanilla to my ears and not really too much character. Same goes for volume swells - the pots kinda only know off and wide open, nothing dynamic in between, especially with gain.

Truth be told, if my guitar hadn't been owned by Vernon, I would have pulled the EMGs within a week of owning it. If his weren't soldered old skool EMGs (it's a 1989) and instead the modern plug-in ones, I'd pull the 81 (ceramic) in the bridge position and swap for an 85 (Alnico V). 

Edited to add eye candy ...

Jeff, if hypothetically you were to pull the EMG's what HSS would you change to?

[Jeff R]

Carondelet Guitar and Bass Pickups without question ... I'm the owner, the designer and the hand-winder 

[Cboss]

Sweet!