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Your cart is empty.Most well known as a founding member of Toto, Steve Lukather's style is unique. He is known for fast, melodic lines that often combine blues phrases with jazzy 'out' notes. His vibrato is very pronounced and unique. Well versed in theory, Lukather can follow chord charts and changes as a jazz musician would. To authentically capture his technique and style, Steve relies on his EMG Pro-Series system, the EMG-SL20. This set utilizes two alnico loaded SLV single coils and an EMG-85 humbucker set up with a single master volume and tone, all prewired onto a custom 11-hole black pearl pickguard with black knobs. This is the perfect set to go from smooth jazz to hard rock; clean and simple.
Dad
Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2024
I want to start off by saying this product- installed- is incredible. Beautiful, and wildly different-sounding tones with all five pickup variations on the 5-way switch. That said, on my Ibanez Gio GRX40, it took some thinking and modification to make it work. First off after removing strings and old yellowing pickgaurd, I checked the fit of the KH-20. The side of the main electronics (volume/tone/5way area is the hub where everything meets) didnt quite clear the cutout on my guitar. So i simply marked the wood that was in the way and grabbed my oscilating tool and cut it out. Then i swapped the input jack- easy peasy. Then i tried to find where the 9V battery would fit. After some thinking and frustration i took off the back plate and removed the center tremolo spring (out of 3) and drilled a small hole between that pocket and the other side and slid the wire through. I put the 9V in a toddler sock and tightened the tensioner bracket to try to compensate for the loss of a spring. (I dont ‘whammy’ much) then i put the pickgaurd into place and it didnt fit the shape of my guitar at all (BTW if you have a Squire I think you won’t have any of these issues or the ones to come), so I marked roughly the new shape I wanted to make it look right, grabbed my little wheel sander and carefully ate away at it until it was about right. Then with fine sand paper, at around a 45° angle I lightly smoothed and beveled the edges to match the rest of the pickgaurd. Lastly I drilled all new holes, because none of the pickgaurd ones matched my guitar. Plus when reshaping a couple holes were eliminated and needed new ones. Before I screwed it down I made all the connectionsfor the electronics, which was refreshingly simple. Although I did have to solder the green wire back onto the terminal it belongs to on the switch (could have been my fault that it came off, hard to say), I’m still giving this 5 starts because of how great the pickups are and how much I like the white pearl finish! It took a fair bit of tools and confidence sonif you dont have one of the two, find someone who does or maybe re-evaluate. The former would be better though, trust me. I’m ‘iffy’ on the pricepoint, because of my experience vs. how easy it is advertised to be. Would still recommend!Pictures kind of show the original look, the stages/hiccups of installation, and then the finished product.
Dan Beery
Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2022
I have a Travelcaster guitar (a strat travel guitar) that I love. It had 3 single coils and a 5 way switch. It sounded great, but was noisy, and I couldn't get a great distortion sound from the single coils. I considered a number of solutions, but got this because I could install it myself, and I have used EMG pickups in the past and really liked them.It took me about an hour to install the whole thing. I had to make new holes for all of the pickguard screws, but that was very easy. It was truly plug-n-play.This configuration is SSH with the H being in the bridge position, right where you want it for a good distortion sound.I play a wide variety of rock music using very clean to very grungy distortion sounds. This thing is fantastic. Oddly enough, the middle single coil with distortion on it sounds REALLY good.I am getting zero hum out of this thing. The single coils are completely quiet even with really high gain. This is huge, because I really like the sound of the middle single coil with distortion, and the old pickups were just so noisy it was almost unusable. Dead quiet now all else the same.Each of the settings with the switch provides a different tone, and they are all super useful for different songs to get a different tone.I chose to mount the battery externally on the back of the guitar with velcro. I didn't even try to put it inside, because I use a wireless velcroed to the back so there is a hump there anyway. When I need to recharge that battery, I can just pop it off and top it off.The guitar pictured had the 1/4 jack on the back but that didn't work for me, so I cut a hole and moved it to the bottom of the guitar, running the wires for the 9v through the hole. I think it would have fit inside, I didn't even try.The only downside to this that I can see is that I thought $300 is pretty pricy for pickups. The Travelcaster cost the same amount as this pickguard with pickups.I justified paying the high price because of the ease of installation. EVERYTHING was pre-wired and good-to-go. No soldering. It was super easy.I really liked the feel of the neck, the size, and everything else about the guitar. Now I absolutely LOVE the tone I am getting from it.
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