Using 11R with active-pickup guitar

[MattBaron]

I've had my 11R for over a year now and have had no problems with it up until now. I recently changed the pickups in my guitar to active EMG pickups and now when I plug it into the 11R I either get little to no sound from the guitar, or a very quiet clean (even with heavy distortion on) sound that cuts out a lot. What am I doing wrong, I know it's not a problem with the pickups as I have tested the guitar with my actual amp and also have plugged headphones directly into the output of the guitar and both times I could hear the guitar fine to the pickups are wired correctly and the preamps are working. Any help would be much appreciated.

[Benoni]

That doesnt sound right at all. Do you have another guitar to try with the 11R to narrow down the possibilities of what the problem might be.

Are you try this with Pro Tools open or just the 11R unit?

Did you change any settings on the 11R and forget to change them back?

I use EMG and Blackout active pickup all the time with the 11R and so do many others - with no problems.

Have you tried another guitar cable?

[mrgroovy]

Don't have it handy yet remember reading something last night about some adjustment needed for active pickups in the 11R manual. Check that out.

[MattBaron]

Yeah, I have another guitar that I've tried and it works just fine. Right now I'm just using the rack by itself, not plugged into my PC and I haven't changed anything at all since before I changed pickups. I've also tried another cable. I also noticed that when using my Rickenbacker bass which has a regular output and a stereo output, on stereo out the same thing that my guitar is doing happens, but only on one of the directions of the three way switch. When I changed the pickups I changed the output jack on my guitar to a stereo TRS out, the only thing I can think of is that this has something to do with the problem, but I could be totally wrong. I would assume it was something wrong with the wiring, but I've checked multiple times and everything is as it should be, and like I said if I plug headphones directly into the output jack of the guitar I can hear it just fine.

[MattBaron]

Originally Posted by mrgroovy

Don't have it handy yet remember reading something last night about some adjustment needed for active pickups in the 11R manual. Check that out.

Thanks I'll look into that.

Edit: Was it something to do with the input impedance? That was the only thing I could find and that didn't help.

[sorcerer27]

The manual just says they recommend setting the True-Z to 1M for active pickups. It sure sounds to me like the rewiring of the jack for stereo caused the problem! Sounds like the channels have to be reversed for the 11R to get the correct signal. It immediately makes me think that the 11R is designed to accept a mono input signal. BTW, are you using a stereo guitar cable?

[MattBaron]

Yeah, I'm using a standard TRS cable. The pickups came with a TRS output jack and as far as I know all active pickups use TRS out (the added ring is what connects the circuit to the battery, and that's why if you leave the cable plugged into the guitar the battery will die.) Also, I connected my guitar to an external mixer and then routed that to the 11R and when I turned the gain up on the mixer the sound from the 11R starting being normal again, so it seems the problem is with the output signal, not with the 11R at all? These pickups came with the new EMG solderless system and I'm starting to think it might be worth just rewiring the pickups normally and soldering to see if that fixes things.

[TieDyedDevil]

That's where you're going wrong. Use a TS cable and everything will be fine.

[Benoni]

Originally Posted by TieDyedDevil

That's where you're going wrong. Use a TS cable and everything will be fine.

+1

I use TS cables even when the jack says its TRS.

Try it out OP and see if that works.

[TieDyedDevil]

Right. The reason that you want to use a TS plug with a TRS jack in this case is that the ring (in conjunction with the sleeve) acts as a power switch. The signal is on the tip and sleeve.

The reason that it "worked" with your headphones and mixer is that the ring-to-sleeve circuit in those devices passed enough power to activate the preamp in the guitar.

Regardless, the correct connection is a TS cable.

Also, remember that you need to unplug the cable from the guitar to turn off the preamp. The battery will probably last a couple weeks if you don't unplug the guitar when not in use, but it'll last a lot longer when you do unplug the guitar.