Battery box placement

[stratpurist]

I'm retiring my 72 strat and removing all the mods to get it back (close) to all original. The plan is to build a partscaster (my holiday gift to myself!) and I plan to use GFS active pickups. My only issue is where to put the battery? I used to have an alembic preamp in my strat and the 9V was under the pickguard which meant pulling 11 screw every time I had to change the battery. not going that route again. I see that fishman active pickups use a rechargeable that replaces the trem cover on the back. I'm thinking just widen that cavity just enough to make room for the batt holder.

Anyone add a battery box to a strat body? and how did that work out? thanks

[dnic]

The Tele I built I routed the box in the back past the the bridge toward the back. I also used the active GFS pups.

[stratpurist]

Aesthically / symmetrically, that makes more sense to go towards the tail, thanks for that. how do you like the pickups? I am expecting that I will get more tonal flexibility with the active set. plus, turning down the volume w/o tone loss/change. that was the best part of the alembic pre-amp I used to use.

[Deleted]

I like active pickups to a point. I don't like the Battery thing. seems they always go out when you least expect it. HA! What I do like about the active pickups are they are now pedal or effects shy. I had a Carvin guitar that had passive and active pickups in it. I loved that guitar. wish I had it back. But It was one of them things were I had to sell it.

I just sold my LP copy that active pickups in it. Way cool guitar. Again I needed the money... So at this time I have no guitars with active pickups.

But active pickups are like everything else in life, you like them or not. For me I like all kind of sound/tones, I play all kinds of music so I select the guitar or guitars I need for the gig I am doing.

Yes I would put the batt on the back of the guitar. I have seen some teles with it on the front. They take the tele control plate and make it longer. Not a big fan of that but it works.

EB

[stratpurist]

I'm confused ... are now effects shy or NOT effects shy ...

[Deleted]

For me active pickups like effects... Some pickups to me don't sound as good as an active pickup going through a pedal or effects.
I have some guitars that to me just don't work with pedals or effects all that good.
Active pickups seem to have a good strong single that will give you a good push to pedal or effects you are using.
Even playing clean there is a difference in the way an active pickups respond over the non active.
At least to me there is a difference... I have owned a lot of guitars and played through all kind of pedals/effect and clean with no pedals/effects.
I like to play clean most of the time. I will use at time the built in effects on an amp, and I will also use pedals at times. I only have two. A 50 bassman and a delay.
that is all I use these days.
But I like both active and non active pickups. Like I said it really depends on the stile of music I am playing.

The pedals/ effect are not shy... It the guitar and what they are using for pickups that become shy. Active pickups have a different response to pedals/effects than a passive pickup. Some passive pickups just sound dead to me when It comes to effects or pedals... No mater what or how I try to make a guitar sound off... there are some that just don't respond the same way that some guitars do. So I call them guitar that don't respond well. Pedal or effects shy.

EB

[dnic]

I'm always up for new things in my builds. Why keep building the same guitar over and over, right? So when designing this build I thought why not try these active GFS pups. They claim to be very quiet and they are. Past that they sound like Tele pups to me which is ok. They're not extra hot, they don't seem to hit the amp any harder, with or without pedals. Having said that these are my first experience with actives I also hate batterys and taking things apart for access. Thus the battery box on my Tele.

[hoz]

Did this issue ever get resolved?

Several years ago I put together a Squire partscaster with the active mid boost tone pot. I routed a small notch alongside the springs under the spring cover. No extra covers were needed, looked like a stock strat. Pretty sure I used a battery clip to hold the battery too so the spring cover didn't necessarily have to be on. I sold it on ebay for less money than I had in it, priceless!

-Chris