i wanted a flexibility contract on what i find to be a very comfortable archtop jazz of small-bodied variety, an Ibanez AG95 that wears significantly easier than full-bodied ones on me.
sure, it's meant to adhere to jazz guitar 101 tonal recipe, but its comfortable ergonomics makes me want to use for a much broader palette of genres...
...which is where this EMG 89X (and its sibling 89XR) fits the bill nice and easy: beside the possibility to split the two internal discreet pickups, there's the smoothest volume and tone controls ever, thanks to the active variable low-pass control, too.
combining both bridge and neck variations, between "entire" and "split" setting, different output level and roll-off setting, you get a really wide choice of tones, from chime-y to velvet-y, from smooth-y to assertive.
for those concerned with the proverbial fame of active pickups, known to have impossibly hot output levels, these seem quite polite compared to the historical models that made EMG pickups a staple of metal-like genres...
installation is as easy as it gets, no matter how complicated the scheme you have in mind... even where space is at a premium like in a small-bodied archtop, even when the installation dragged through the dead of night, i waited until the next day to check the existence of an audio signal... and it's here, solid and pristine.
active pickups for jazz guitar... sure, why not? it's never too late for improving your lateral vision, and it's never too late to fight all the potential drawbacks of passive pickups! even if my guitar doesn't come with a battery box, a simple nylon-fabrics sleeve, velcroed to the inside the body, does the job neatly, without giving it away at first sight.
and, to those who worry about the battery dying in the middle of a gig or a recording, ain't 1000 hours enough (when we change strings every 20 or 30 anyway)? at the highest peak of stage fright and pervasive paranoia, replacing the battery every time strings are changed shall not be a big drama, shall it?
