Parts Required

EMG SA Single Coil Pickup (White)
EMG 81 Humbucking Pickup (White)
EMG Wiring Loom (supplied with pickups)
Schaller 1/4" gold plated humbucker surround
9v Battery

Tools Required

25w Soldering Iron
Set of good quality screwdrivers (flat & posi-drive)
Small socket set
Pliers
Wire Cutters
Scissors
Solder
Heat-shrink tubing (optional)

First things first - remove the strings. Normally I wouldn't recommend removing all the strings from your guitar at once but in this instance you have no choice!

Remove the bridge/tailpiece from the guitar and keep it somewhere safe. If left on the guitar it can  easily fall off and chances are it will damage the paint if it does. Now turn the guitar over and remove  the black plastic control cavity cover.

All EMG pickups come with a wiring loom (2 pots, a 1/4" jack  socket and a battery clip) and a detailed wiring diagram. You are going to re-use the 3 way switch  supplied with your Cloud so at this stage you may want to take a photo or draw a diagram of the guitar  wiring as it is now, just in case you need to put it back to it's original state for any reason.

The two existing 'Duncan Design' pickups will have to be disconnected from the wiring loom before you  can do anything else. The wires will be easily visible so using a soldering iron, de-solder the pickup wires.

Turn the guitar back over and carefully remove the two screws which hold the single-coil (neck) pickup in place. Lift the pickup out of it's cavity and carefully pull the wires free. Put the pickup in a plastic bag if you have one to save it from getting scratched.

The humbucker (bridge pickup) is held in place with 4 small screws. Take these out and remove the pickup (including the surround) out of it's cavity, Again, pull the wires free and put the pickup somewhere safe. You may notice that the pickup surround you just removed is made up of a black plastic surround with a gold-coloured plate on top.

Now you can remove the volume/tone knobs from the front of the guitar. These should pull off easily enough. Now CAREFULLY undo the retaining nut from each pot and remove the nut & washer. You need to take care with this as you can easily damage the paint. Use a small socket set rather than pliers for this job. You also need to remove the switch and the jack socket now. Put the nuts & washers back on each one as you remove them from the guitar.

Going back to the control cavity, there should only be one wire connecting the wiring loom to the guitar. This is an earth wire and it connects from the back of one of the pots (ground) to the bridge. This can be removed as EMG active pickups do not need to be earthed (another reason why I love them - you can't get an electric shop if your strings aren't earthed). You can now also de-solder any remaining wires from the 3-way switch as you are going to re-use this.

You can now lift the whole loom out of the control cavity. Now turn your attention to the wiring diagram that came with your EMG pickups. You will find several different diagrams here but the one you want is for two pickups with a 3-way switch, a volume pot and a tone pot. These diagrams are pretty fool-proof so just take your time and concentrate!

I use a block of wood with a few holes drilled in it to keep the wiring loom steady while I am soldering. I would advise you to do the same (it saves on burnt fingers - trust me!).

The EMG loom is already wired up for you. Refer to the diagram and it will tell you where to connect the pickups etc. Sorry but you are on your own here. If you get stumped I can help you but it should be pretty straight forward.

Don't connect the pickups to the connectors just yet (you will see what I mean). Wait until the wiring is all done. Once the wiring is complete, follow the reverse of the instructions above and re-fit the switch, pots & jack socket. You can re-use the gold nut & washer from the original jack (the EMG ones are chrome).

Connect the pickup wires to the underside of the pickups (make sure you get them the right way round - see the wiring diagram) and refit the pickups. Re-use the piece of foam rubber that came with the Duncan single coil as a cushion. You will need to mount the humbucker in the new Schaller mounting ring (if you have one) using the supplied screws & springs.

Now, take some of the foam packaging from the EMG pickup box and cut it to the size of the control cavity. Make sure it is a tight-fit and leave the battery clip & wires hanging out. You need to keep the battery away from the wiring inside the guitar. Batteries generally have a metallic surface and will cause a short if they come into contact with the wiring. The foam will keep everything insulated and will also stop the battery from rattling around.

Connect the battery to the clip and pad around it with some more foam. It will be a tight-fit but it will go (trust me). Now re-fit the control cavity cover.

In theory, that should be it! If you are lazy and don't want to re-fit the strings yet you can found out now by plugging the guitar into an amp and gently tapping the pickups. You should hear a dull thud as you tap each pickup. Move the switch back & forth to test that you are getting a signal in every position. If you are hearing any sort of buzz, you've done something wrong! Everything should be very quiet, hence the term 'noiseless'...

If you aren't carrying out any more mods today, refit FRESH strings (not those crappy old ones you just took off), tune her up and re-set the intonation if you know how.

You're done! Plug that baby in and make a funky sound.