You can play literally anything on active pickups. The pickup selector, volume, and tone knobs are there for a reason. The majority of your tone is the amp tone circuit, speakers, and cabinet.
Agreed, I had to buckle down and just listen to which frequency band each knob affected. There's still a difference between pickups and they are totally different beasts. I can get a lot of tones out of my emg pups. However, I favor my Samshin Korean shredder passive pups because everyone else has actives already and it works well for tonal separation.
Buddy Guy used EMG’s for blues for a while. Also, David Gilmour used them in the 90’s and 2000’s with Pink Floyd. Seen a lot of co7ntry guys use them too.
It's cool you're doing an EMG video. I used to play a semi-hollow guitar with an EMG active 81 or 85. I loved it. That sucker cut through for leads like a laser. That was my most favorite lead tone I've ever had. Btw, not once did I have a feedback issue on stage. I was playing rockabilly, classic rock, Johnny Cash, Waylon, etc...Here's another cool part about the story. After ordering the pickup, one of the top guys at EMG calls me 2x to make sure I'm making the right pickup decision. He wanted to know what type of guitar it was going in, do I play lead (mostly rhythm then), etc... He actually thought I should try a different pickup or two based on what I was really looking for. I was a bit stubborn instead listening to a man that knows his product. So I got my pickup and he actually called me (the 3x) months later to see how it worked out. I played it for a few years and then sold it. Due to an injury, the guitar was just to heavy for me. The pickup didn't remind me of heavy metal. I used a Fender Super Champ XD amp at the time. Oh and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead was using them in the '80s.
You're right Dyl, the AMP makes the most difference to the sound of an electric guitar than the actual pick up (apart from sound foot print) It is better to have a reasonably good amp and speakers than a good guitar. A GOOD amp will make even the cheapest guitar sound half decent, but a crappy sounding amp will make ANY guitar, even a $XXXXK's guitar sound like cheap crap!
Good reference to all purists and tone experts; David Gilmour and Mark Knopfler played EMGs in the 80' and 90'. Others like Jeff Beck - used to play on noiseless pickups, Andy Timmons is playing on ceramic minihumbuckers. All ot them chose those pickups by some reason... at the end all of them still sound incredible.
That's great in your bedroom. Not when you need to fit into a mix, and low end is the enemy of a tight high gain sound. That being said, blackouts sound good to me.
Some great points here. And I really liked the sound samples. Reminds me of a clip of something Mikio Fujioka did once. He had this ESP 7-string, his signature model. Some thing, a Kemper. But he was running them with a slight breakup. Sounded great. Between that and your clips here, I’ll never have to wonder of EMGs do cleans well. Lol Since pickups tend to emphasis some frequencies, wouldn’t that be why some people think of actives as being “sterile”? Like, they just haven’t heard pickups with that full a range if that makes any sense? Sorry for the lack of articulation. I’m still waiting for the caffeine to kick in. Lol
I have an Ibanez RG with emg 81/85 and I dont play metal but i love metal. I find these pickups to have a beautiful range of tones and I use them to record a variety of different music styles. On another note, I enjoy your videos and I appreciate your open-mindedness and chill approach.
I have gone on a major guitar buying spree lately, mostly because I want them, but I have bought several types that I never had interest in simply for the pickup style. I want to make pedals and pickups and I wanted to be able to just pick up a certain style and see what it sounds like. The amp and cab are the final and loudest voice but the flavors added along the way are what help us define ourselves.
I was thinking about what you said like 2 days ago! I said to myself like «tone people are so stupid. Its not only the guitar that makes the tone. They get so caught up in the guitar that they forget amp, pedals, etc.» and here you come and say it out loud! Thanks!
A compromise between active and passive pickups would be a passive pickup circuit with an external preamp (like the Kemo MO40N) that you can just bypass if it's not needed. This costs almost nothing and preserves the original tone circuit.
I have been saying for years that guitar pick-ups "shine" through their flaws, through the way they alter the frequency range of what the strings generate. People mistake personality for quality (unless they use the word in its original descriptive meaning , which no one does) and like holes in the frequency response the same way they like scratches on a relic'd guitar. A pick-up without such holes, with a flatter, broader frequency response, removes that personality to let you hear the strings more. It removes the guitar from the sound shaping system, making them "sound all the same" because they no longer "sound" at all. It doesn't have charm, it's just a better tool.
I'm blown away by how you avoid mentioning the biggest tone change of them all,... the SPEAKERS !!!! Same guitar, same pickups, same amp, even same settings. Change the speakers 20 times, it will sound like 20 different rigs !!!!
Only issue I had with active pups was the battery issue. Didn't want to have to constantly change batteries. Solved that problem when I installed Fishman fluence classics. Also installed their battery pack which can last up to 250 to 300 hours. Absolutely loving these pups. Fishman also makes more universal battery packs.
EMGs will last 1000 hours with alkaline 9V... Fishman is a lot more power hungry since they basically has active eq going on. If you REALLY want eq, just use an eq pedal I guess.
You can play anything on EMGs. Blues, jazz, classical, impressionism, baroque, samba... Just roll back volume and tone then hit the bridge for non harsh highs. Roll up tone with volume still rolled back, then go to neck for definitive lows.
A Duncan nazgûl makes every guitar sound the same as well, and I never hear anyone talk about that. I hated active pups until I bought a guitar with ahb-1’s in it with the intention of changing them…. Then loved them. Play and respond wayyyy different than expected. I may not want a set of 81’s now, but I am way more willing to have more blackouts or 57/66’s. Great video
I think that the biggest difference between active pickups and passive pickups is the fact that there are a buffer between the pickup and the volume/tone circuit. I think that if you take any passive pickup and place a buffer circuit (just op-amp with gain 1.0) right after the pickup (using only one pickup and no volume / tone circuit, just the pickup) you get a guitar that acts more like a guitar with active pickups than a guitar with passive pickup. That would be a cool experiment to do. You will of course get different tones depending on the pickups resonance peak but will react like a active pickup otherwise. The thing with passive pickups sounds / acts different in different guitars is probable to a high degree depending on the passive volume/tone circuit and on the component tolerances. If you have an active pickup those differences affects the tone much less. That is my thoughts, it would be cool to test that. I have not made any calculations but my intuition tells me that I'm on the right track.
People who think emg pick ups sound bad probably never turned the tone knob a bit down. I love toto and steve lukather and i have a musicman luke 2, wich is plain simple a strat. EMGs sound amazing with that guitar, even a bit dark for my taste, and that's because the guitar sounds fenomenal by itself and those pickup reflect that. Put emg on a bad guitar they will reflect that as well
Before I knew anything about guitars I bought a strat with EMGs in it and still love the tone to this day. It definitely does something different than a vintage strat pickup, but I think they're very versatile.
I just don’t like guitars with batteries in them. I’ve used active pickups in the past they tend to hit the amp harder making a clean amp start to drive or send it over the edge if it’s on the edge of breakup. Actives not for me although if I decide to buy a Metallica inspired guitar then yes I will get some EMGs but probably passive ones.
Such great advice here 👍🏻 So many things impact tone. A player’s fingers have more impact than anything and this pickup argument has always cracked me up. If Billy Gibbons hands you his guitar you won’t sound anything like him. However, I guarantee you that Billy could pluck anything with a string on it and it’s gonna sound like Billy Gibbons. I’m a metal and jazz guy and I use the tried and true EMG 81 in an ESP M1 and it works for both. Even my LP has EMGs in it and I love it. Part of the problem in my world (metalhead world), is that everyone wants to grab an edge but most, not all seek the same few heads, guitars, and pickups, wonder why brutal metal magic isn’t happening, and then still need affirmation that what they have is the ultimate in metal tone. The reality is that a guitar only puts out what you give it, every single time but all the “best” gear won’t do anything for you that your playing won’t do first.
I Love my EMGs. I have quite a few guitars and a couple have EMGs. They are different than passives. They aren't tremendously versatile, but what they do, they do phenomenally well. I don't grab those guitars to play blues stuff, but they are pure thrash goodness. Any Testament album in the last 10-15 years or so, the guitar sounds killer.
BTW. People that say you can’t play classic rock with EMG’s are more of the internet mob brainwashed people. One of my favorite guitarists (Steve Lukather) used EMG’s to record some of the biggest classic rock songs ever recorded. LONG before any of the wimpy new metallers you mentioned. And EMG’s were actually developed for their neutral clean tone. That was what they were really designed for....clean tones.
Your relentless honesty is rare (nowadays) and highly admirable. I have a Warmoth strat that I built with an EMG Vince Gill signature model loaded pickguard (and I don’t even like country), and one of the two tone knobs shapes the sound from single coil “flavor” to humbucker, and I’m really happy with the pickups and tonal variety I can get out of this strat. It’s way more tonally diverse than the American Standard Strat I sold in order to buy parts for the Warmoth build. One annoying thing about active pickups is you always have to remember to unplug the cord from the guitar or else the battery will drain until it runs out of juice. All that said, genuine single coils are great too and should never disappear.
Funny you mentioned discovering Rammstein in the Vin Diesel xXx movie. That's how myself and my buddies discovered them as kids and since then we've traveled to see them 3-4x whenever they come to North America hahha.
It drives me crazy when players determine that a genre is a tone or a guitar model. Example: Country = Telecaster. Or Strat = "blues" tone. When asks me what single coils should I get to get a good "blues" tone. Or that a Gibson Hollowbody is the only style to play jazz.
@@thekramer1097 Which is a useful thing. We keep similar things in common drawers so we remember where to find them. But some are just all too willing to be pure receivers of drawers they think others make.
Does that mean you don't care about pick up choice for playing blues? If you had the choice between P90s and active EMGs f ex, would your answer be that it doesn't matter?
Never played metal in my life. I've been using EMGs since the mid '80s. I've two guitars with them. I also use a Mesa Triaxis. :) I don't use the EMGs all the time, but... they were good enough for Gilmour to use from the mid '80s until only a few years ago. Love the name, by the way. I had an Audi Quattro about 25 years back.
Amen Brother ✌ Only reason I don't use EMG's is I can't be stuffed replacing Batteries 😉 As an Audio engineer I love them. That V is looking real good. Got an old LTD v200 here that I'm going to re-work soon, will be interesting to see what the timber under the Black finish looks like. LOL, the "Sometimes" comment, man, that's why I've got a "Load" of guitars, what I tell myself anyway 😉 Take care bud ✌
I agree. EMG's are just a flavor. I've replaced EMG's with passive pickups in three guitars, and they're all better sounding guitars for it, but I recently bought a Fender Jim Root Tele with EMG's in it (why do all the cool metal guitars come stock with EMG's?!), and I haven't had the will to replace them yet, 'cause just amazing for the kind of music a Jim Root Tele is made for playing. Super tight, aggressive and cutting. I might just end up leaving them in there this time. Cleans are kind of bland, but still very usable. With high gain they're amazing.
Active is a no brainer for bass imo. For guitars I think it depends a lot more on what you're doing, but to me, actives in a bass has almost no downsides.
@@Patrick-857 actives have a lot of variability between designs. I once tried all EMG soap bars - PJ was my favourite combination. Seymour Duncan blackouts sound utterly different (and better) than the EMG CS pickups they are similar to.
The newer X series offerings (alnico) sound more like traditional passive pickups and still do the high gain thing very well. I think they sound great and I love not hearing the buzz.
You are spot on. The amp shapes the sound. That is why I tell people when buying an electric guitar, match it with an amp that brings out its character.
Bro I play through a JVM. AMAZING amp. Amy decent guitar sounds amazing through it. It's so versatile. I recently bought a Les Paul Classic and was embarrassed at band practice at how bad it sounded when plugging it in
Playing high gain the amp and speakers pretty much set the tone. Example: I recently recorded a track with the lead guitar on one side and a harmony line on the other side played on a Minimoog through a high gain amp. Nobody could tell they weren't both guitars
Very good point Which underlines the fact that heavy metal is not a good indicator for guitar tone In addition i think Dylan plays through an amp simulation? Not good To hear the tone: A slightly crunchy / dirty-clean tube amp will reveal it right away if playing with a minimum of skill.
Although I have never played a guitar with EMGs I played with a couple of guitar players in the 1990s for a number of years and they both played guitars with EMGs to begin with. They both eventually switched to Strats, one with Lace Sensors, the other with stock American Standard single coils. I can only speak from my own experience, but the difference was like night and day, and for the better. To my ears now their playing sounded way more dynamic and sweet and clear, when before it was compressed with too many highs and lows constantly mixed together. That being said, we were playing basically classic rock and I think EMGs would be a good choice for a high gain sound for metal.
"EMG's sound compressed" says guitaists that have a compression/ sustain pedal on their board. I love EMG's 81/60 are some of my all time favorite but i do avoid them on guitars I think I'm not keeping forever as they suck for resale. If I'm keeping it forever, I love them.
I agree with most of what you say but I don't really get these contradicting statements: you say actives have a more flat or linear frequency response and no spikes, but also that they make every guitar sound the same. But a flat response would mean that they will more accurately follow the influence of the guitar materials and construction than a passive pickup which would impose more of it's 'own' tone on the signal. I have only one EMG equipped guitar and for me the main difference is less noise and more annoying battery hassles.
I own three EMG equipped guitars. One of them is a Godin Redline One. It has one EMG 81, one volume knob and a 9 volt battery. For some reason it sounds downright twangy with the volume rolled off.
Most of people that hates EMGS never played an EMG through 18 or 24v. All of the weirdness and compression goes away. Dylan, throw a pair of 12v A23 batteries there and test it , you won´t regret. Another BIG tip that took me years to figure. 85s in the bridge position, specially in guitars equipped with floyd rose sounds fat, organic and beutiful. just try it too.
I switched to bass from guitar a year ago and I can say I like passive pickups better on bass. Of 25 years of playing guitar I never owned a guitar with active pickups. With my basses, I own a sr300 which is passive pickups with a preamp, but I own a Rogue with a pj setup all passive and it is more powerful sounding than the sr300 with a preamp. I don't know if anyone has had a similar experience, but this has been mine.
True - More bands I like play active than passive. Personally, I had my anti emg era- actually more of a snob era-where I only owned Gibsons, PRS, USA fender. It's all in the past now, though. Currently I only have 2 ltd's w actives.
Given that nowadays there’s a whole universe of gear, pedals, and pickups to modify one’s instrument with, my motto has been the same for the 21 years I have been playing the guitar in earnest, and that is: buy the thing that was used on the song you like.
It's not just about tone. It's about feel, dynamics, headroom the pickup translates to the amp. The 81 is compressed to hell. Give me the tone of an 81 and feel of a passive and I'm good.
I felt like many about emg. Went to g.c. one day looked at a zakk wylde epi lp. I like big necks and maple necks figured I could get a few bucks for the emgs. But I liked them when I put familiar settings on the amp. I ended up buying a Dean with 808s instead. And the worst thing emg does is the buffer. But if you have one boss pedal on the floor you shouldn't say boo about emg. Now the 'one more thing to go wrong' argument about the batteries is still super valid. I want one of your vintage tele bridge pickups bad. I need a some alnico 2 in my life.
EMGs are a bit more than wire wrapped around magnets, there's an op-amp in differential mode, so instead of a low-pass behaviour like a conventional pickup, in something like an EMG 81, you get a massive mid hump peaking at about 750Hz. Looks a lot like running through a tube screamer with the volume up and the drive down. They work, because the massive mid hump sounds almost jazzy clean and into a lot of distortion you have the midrange grind without the bass going flubby or the highs going too shrill. It's going to sound a lot like you have a tubescreamer other mid boost in there. And it does a specific thing. It's very hard to get a crunch tone that plays well with other guitars as you need all the gain to smash that mid hump into the EQ shape of the amp (or a distortion pedal). If you have a lot of EQ to hand you can make EMGs do other sounds, but it's easier to take something with a flat response out to a sane cutoff and add a a tubescreamer or a klon clone when you want that kind of grind than it is to take that mid hump out with a graphic EQ. I do keep a cheap LP copy around with an EMG 81 in the bridge for moments of stupidity though.
Don’t bother with EMG’s. Their support sucks. I had horrible buzz from. my output jack and was asked to send in pics of my wiring. I did and heard crickets, nada.
I’ve played on EMGs before and I loved the sustain. I got comfortable with them from the start. I never understood why people say you can’t do this or that on this or that. I play everything on my Telecaster because that’s the only electric guitar I have. I know it’s known for Country but didn’t find that out until recently. First song I ever learned on it was “Smoke On The Water” and what I got into afterwards was Pop Punk. Metal came later. Thing is…I had to use what I had. 20 years after first picking up a guitar, I now have the money to buy something that I’m gonna have for the rest of my life so I picked a 6 string loaded with a single EMG complete with a Floyd Rose instead of that 8 string multiscale guitar with 2 pickups because at this point, it doesn’t need to be super versatile. It’s me that makes it versatile. Actives all the way 🤘
I have got emg 81/85 for 15 years in my les Paul and for 10 years, they were my favorites. Now I'm getting older my taste has changed and I like the seymour duncan jazz + jb combined or dimarzio tone zone + air hb. The passive pickups are working better with tube amps and get more character out of it. The advantage of the emgs is, that they sound good in every guitar. I ve got 3 guitars with emg 81/85 and sold 2 of them, because they sound like my les paul but had a worse playability. If I really want to change my sound, I would buy another speaker. Price is nearly the same for one speaker and one good pickup but the difference is more noticeable than with another pickup. I think in supervision every part in the signal chain has to be good quality to get a nice tone out of the material. Correct wiring is really important too and not as easy as it sounds at first.
I came in here with guns out all ready to let you have it about amps being way more important than pickups, and you went and said it first. Way to steal my thunder, dude 😆👍 Having said that, I prefer vintage voiced pickups (P90’s, If I’m forced to pick one) because that’s what works best for my preferred rigs and tone. I have a couple of EMG guitars, though. Nothing wrong with them.
EMG pickups do sound different in different guitars, or at least 85s 89s SA and S models do. I'm not an 81 fan but Love the others. Take an 85 in a LP with mahogany and then put it in an Ash bodied strat while leaving the amp settings the same. Huge difference. But you and adjust the amp and make them sound similar. Warning EMGs will make more mistakes more apparent. You will have to play cleaner in my experience. I never noticed my sloppy muting during bends until I installed EMGs. But then I cleaned up my playing and fell in love.
Hands down my fav active PUs is the 57/66 combo by EMG. No one seems to know them for some reason. The battery never bothered me. It takes a long time until it runs out and by buying two rechargeable ones you save money over time.
Yeah all these guys keep saying I don't want to have to change the battery all the time! It lasts like a 1000 hours or something like that. If you just remember to unplug your guitar that's like 3 months playing 10 hours a day.
Quattro is a great name. Anyone who things they hate rum, try a "Rom e Perra" A shot of straight (and not "spiced", fite me) rum with a chaser of unfiltered pear juice. Get a rum like Flor de Cana Anejo or a mid-tier Pampero. In a pinch, go with Cruzan -- it's the Cazadores of the rum world. Cheap but good. Getting the right pear juice can be hard -- it should have a consistency like Guava nectar, not like thin like an apple juice. The little 8oz cans with a blue and yellow label are pretty good. Maybe it won't change your mind, but it just might. I've converted a lot of rum-haters with Rom e Perra.
I have 10 guitars, and they all have emgs and fishmans. Emgs DO sound different in different guitars. My neck through guitars with a bone nut and alder body is way brighter than my bolt on, plastic nut, mahogany body guitar. Both with only a bridge pickup and only 1 volume knob.
I enjoy your videos Dylan, you have an easygoing way of presenting technical information, which is refreshing. I personally haven't used EMGs but that is more due to spending most of my time on an acoustic archtop and hardly ever plugging in my solid body axes. I once told a friend that the exact composition of his pickups wasn't that big component to his overall tone and to think of his complete signal chain in his overall tone... I now feel somewhat vindicated with my advice.
I think there are three main reasons people don’t like EMG actives, and one main reason people don’t like their passives. 1. EMG is responsible for all three, but the first is 81 as the de facto bridge pickup. None of the other pickups even seem to matter, or didn’t for a long time. 57/66, Het Set, RetroActives, etc have changed this to some regard. However, EMG basically told people, “no matter what it is, 81 in the bridge.” Therefore, everyone got 81 pickups, and disliked them because “they make the guitar all sound the same,” when that’s not entirely true at all, though 2 and 3 do not help. 2. 9v has a major issue for most people. Some like the compression, so they do not care, as it reduces their pedalboard footprint by one, or, gives them space for something else. I feel that EMG should’ve pushed 18v and 24v (the original 24v mod you can find on eBay, not the copycats), as this gives a more dynamic response. People who are used to those dynamics would prefer higher voltages. If you can’t fit them in the guitar, then get the EMG ES-918. It’s an external power supply, requiring a stereo cable, and you can run the guitar at 9 or 18 volts for all of your EMG pickups. 3. The literature they gave you with the pickups basically gave people the impression you can and should crank them as close to the string without the string banging around on the pickup. This also adds to the over compressed, sterile, “every guitar sounds the same” thing people complain about with EMGs. Instead, I suggest starting out with the pickups around where you’d set up normal humbuckers and single coils. Then, adjust from there. With EMGs, a quarter to full turn of the screwdriver up or down can move the tone from okay to great, so experiment. Personally, I have a slew of their active and passive pickups. Two guitars have EMG 85/60A sets, two have EMG SLV/SA/SLV sets with EXG and SPC controls, and one has 58/SA/58 (not a typo) set. I have in a parts drawer, that I swap in the first two guitars from time to time, are a slew of their passives. Mostly, people shit on these pickups. Why? 1. The HZ pickups (H1, H2, H3, and H4, as well as the alnico variants) end up stock in mid tier guitars, typically - though not always - through mid tier or lower amps. Of course they’ll sound like ass. You also need to adjust the pickups like any typical pickup height wise to get the best tone. I think they are good, but people already have bad experiences, so they must be bad, and never question the other pieces of gear as the issue. So yes, I use EMGs in all of my guitars.
They do not make all guitars sound the same, especially if you run them at higher voltages. I think the Preamp really wants to see higher voltages, because otherwise, it basically hyperfocuses on a frequency, and treats the rest as an afterthought. There are videos on TH-cam where a guitarist goes through a bunch of different bands, and uses a few EMG loaded guitars. Guess what? The EMG sounds different in each guitar. I can never get my 85s to sound the same, or my SLVs to sound the same.
Anyways, I agree with your overall point about the big picture. That said, I think the speaker and cabinet are the most overlooked for really shaping the voice. It’s ridiculous, too, because the speaker and cab have the biggest effect in my opinion on the overall voice. You can take a great amp head, but pair it with a cab/speaker that isn’t right for it, and the entire thing sounds horrible. If someone is unsatisfied with their voice, then I suggest to mess around with the speakers. X pattern two types in a 412, or if you want more mid range, look at 212s, or perhaps try different speakers, etc. I use tone and voice interchangeably, probably, in my messages. However, tone to me is derived from the player and their technique on the guitar. The voice is determined, to me, by the pickups, cables, pedals, amp, cab, speakers, voltages the stuff is running at, etc.
I get it, I read something that made me think along those lines. It said if you don't have that, two that add up to that value will work. That made me think, there's my room, for my sound. I have broken three norm's with a 10 position switch, I like four of 7 so far. With three yet to be,
Let’s check this out. John Sykes, Jake E. Lee, Yngwie, EVH, George Lynch, Doug Aldrich, Rafael Moreira, Richie Sambora and Slash. Zero EMGs here in my list of good post 70’s rock/heavy tone. I’d say, that the early incarnation of Zakk Wylde is the only example I like. Yes plenty of metal players have EMGs, but they don’t utilize any dynamic range. I bought a a really nice Nash Tele Dlx yesterday. It has Lollar Regals (Wide range). This is the humbucker, I’ve been looking for 20 year. I will buy EMG pups as soon as they offer the same tone.
Active pickups at least the original designs give you a flat response. Your job is to eq the tone you want as nothing is lacking. Your tone is based on the system, eg the entire signal chain.
They don't compress. The amplifier does when presented with a high output level. Guitars usually have a volume knob and active pick-ups do not suffer from treble loss as passive ones do.
It’s the sensitivity and dynamics for me that make actives a bit dull. Despite that, I still won’t lie and say I don’t like how actives sound. That would be foolish, as they can have incredible, consistent, and massive sound when used correctly. I appreciate this content, especially from someone who makes passives and prefers them! Too much bias against actives is present on forums, and many of us could definitely find use for EMGs. I play indie/alt and ambient and I’ve enjoyed the tones I got from some actives, although I still prefer passives due to the subtle dynamics and “liveliness” if that’s the right word haha
When it comes to bass, active definitely makes the instrument more enjoyable for me to play because of the sound I can get, which affects how I play. You trade convenience (no batteries) for versatility if sound . For electric guitar I’d rather lose the versatility of active pickups for convenience . The battery /preamp is a dealbreaker for me on the 6-string. Active pups do sound good though. But I love the sound of passive humbuckers.
Are EMG pickups noiseless? Does anybody know? My old charvel 1988 has active pickups and I love them because they are noiseless and sound great. I’m looking at an LTD with EMG pickups.
Hi Dylan! In some of your videos you were talking about a 'issue' that you keep hearing from guitar players - that guitar hums/buzzes while not touching the strings, and that this is not a real issue, because this is how guitar should work. But what about having a loud click when you do touch the strings or metal parts of guitar, is this something that could be fixed? So what I mean is, I loose contact with strings with both my hands, there's hum - ok, not a problem, but I touch the strings again and before humming quiets there's an audible pop which cuts through. In this example situation is not that realistic, because if you sort of let go of the playing all together, you'll probably turn the volume pot down as well. But this also happens when playing and, say, doing chord changes and loosing contact with strings for a moment.
You can play literally anything on active pickups. The pickup selector, volume, and tone knobs are there for a reason. The majority of your tone is the amp tone circuit, speakers, and cabinet.
Agreed, I had to buckle down and just listen to which frequency band each knob affected.
There's still a difference between pickups and they are totally different beasts.
I can get a lot of tones out of my emg pups. However, I favor my Samshin Korean shredder passive pups because everyone else has actives already and it works well for tonal separation.
I put EMG single coil style in my strat for high gain, and they are actually way better for clean or lower gain sounds.
Buddy Guy used EMG’s for blues for a while. Also, David Gilmour used them in the 90’s and 2000’s with Pink Floyd. Seen a lot of co7ntry guys use them too.
It's cool you're doing an EMG video. I used to play a semi-hollow guitar with an EMG active 81 or 85. I loved it. That sucker cut through for leads like a laser. That was my most favorite lead tone I've ever had. Btw, not once did I have a feedback issue on stage. I was playing rockabilly, classic rock, Johnny Cash, Waylon, etc...Here's another cool part about the story. After ordering the pickup, one of the top guys at EMG calls me 2x to make sure I'm making the right pickup decision. He wanted to know what type of guitar it was going in, do I play lead (mostly rhythm then), etc... He actually thought I should try a different pickup or two based on what I was really looking for. I was a bit stubborn instead listening to a man that knows his product. So I got my pickup and he actually called me (the 3x) months later to see how it worked out. I played it for a few years and then sold it. Due to an injury, the guitar was just to heavy for me. The pickup didn't remind me of heavy metal. I used a Fender Super Champ XD amp at the time. Oh and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead was using them in the '80s.
You're right Dyl, the AMP makes the most difference to the sound of an electric guitar than the actual pick up (apart from sound foot print) It is better to have a reasonably good amp and speakers than a good guitar. A GOOD amp will make even the cheapest guitar sound half decent, but a crappy sounding amp will make ANY guitar, even a $XXXXK's guitar sound like cheap crap!
@Chief Thundercock Yup!
Lukather plays emg, that should tell you everything you need to know
lol not at all
He played EMG for years, then went to DiMarzio with his signature Transition set, and now uses Ernie Ball/Music Man designed pups on his new Luke.
@@danaeverhart6487 nonsense
@@danaeverhart6487 Lol you suck
yeah it tells me i don't want em
Good reference to all purists and tone experts; David Gilmour and Mark Knopfler played EMGs in the 80' and 90'. Others like Jeff Beck - used to play on noiseless pickups, Andy Timmons is playing on ceramic minihumbuckers. All ot them chose those pickups by some reason... at the end all of them still sound incredible.
I personally don't like EMGs but not for the typical reasons. I prefer the Seymour Duncan Blackouts for actives. They have more low end presence.
Have fun getting buried in the mix
That's great in your bedroom. Not when you need to fit into a mix, and low end is the enemy of a tight high gain sound. That being said, blackouts sound good to me.
Some great points here. And I really liked the sound samples. Reminds me of a clip of something Mikio Fujioka did once. He had this ESP 7-string, his signature model. Some thing, a Kemper. But he was running them with a slight breakup. Sounded great. Between that and your clips here, I’ll never have to wonder of EMGs do cleans well. Lol
Since pickups tend to emphasis some frequencies, wouldn’t that be why some people think of actives as being “sterile”? Like, they just haven’t heard pickups with that full a range if that makes any sense? Sorry for the lack of articulation. I’m still waiting for the caffeine to kick in. Lol
I have an Ibanez RG with emg 81/85 and I dont play metal but i love metal. I find these pickups to have a beautiful range of tones and I use them to record a variety of different music styles.
On another note, I enjoy your videos and I appreciate your open-mindedness and chill approach.
Keep preaching the truth and debunking those myths. Letting people believe lies when the truth is right there has never made sense to me.
I have gone on a major guitar buying spree lately, mostly because I want them, but I have bought several types that I never had interest in simply for the pickup style. I want to make pedals and pickups and I wanted to be able to just pick up a certain style and see what it sounds like. The amp and cab are the final and loudest voice but the flavors added along the way are what help us define ourselves.
The speaker and cabinet design have as much impact as the amplifier or the pickups. Also whatever pedals you go through of course!
I was thinking about what you said like 2 days ago! I said to myself like «tone people are so stupid. Its not only the guitar that makes the tone. They get so caught up in the guitar that they forget amp, pedals, etc.» and here you come and say it out loud! Thanks!
I agree with you. With pedals and amps and playing style, strings ect. ect. You can find many styles, just have fun.
A compromise between active and passive pickups would be a passive pickup circuit with an external preamp (like the Kemo MO40N) that you can just bypass if it's not needed. This costs almost nothing and preserves the original tone circuit.
I have been saying for years that guitar pick-ups "shine" through their flaws, through the way they alter the frequency range of what the strings generate. People mistake personality for quality (unless they use the word in its original descriptive meaning , which no one does) and like holes in the frequency response the same way they like scratches on a relic'd guitar.
A pick-up without such holes, with a flatter, broader frequency response, removes that personality to let you hear the strings more. It removes the guitar from the sound shaping system, making them "sound all the same" because they no longer "sound" at all. It doesn't have charm, it's just a better tool.
I'm blown away by how you avoid mentioning the biggest tone change of them all,... the SPEAKERS !!!! Same guitar, same pickups, same amp, even same settings. Change the speakers 20 times, it will sound like 20 different rigs !!!!
EMG81 is my personal favorite, don't know why... Its so much fun playing this 😎🔥
I put EMG Zakk Wylde Set in my 1978 Gibson SG and they sound amazing. Can play anything with them.
Only issue I had with active pups was the battery issue. Didn't want to have to constantly change batteries. Solved that problem when I installed Fishman fluence classics. Also installed their battery pack which can last up to 250 to 300 hours. Absolutely loving these pups. Fishman also makes more universal battery packs.
If you unplug when you're not playing the batteries can last for years.
EMGs will last 1000 hours with alkaline 9V... Fishman is a lot more power hungry since they basically has active eq going on.
If you REALLY want eq, just use an eq pedal I guess.
You can play anything on EMGs. Blues, jazz, classical, impressionism, baroque, samba... Just roll back volume and tone then hit the bridge for non harsh highs. Roll up tone with volume still rolled back, then go to neck for definitive lows.
A Duncan nazgûl makes every guitar sound the same as well, and I never hear anyone talk about that.
I hated active pups until I bought a guitar with ahb-1’s in it with the intention of changing them…. Then loved them. Play and respond wayyyy different than expected.
I may not want a set of 81’s now, but I am way more willing to have more blackouts or 57/66’s.
Great video
I think that the biggest difference between active pickups and passive pickups is the fact that there are a buffer between the pickup and the volume/tone circuit. I think that if you take any passive pickup and place a buffer circuit (just op-amp with gain 1.0) right after the pickup (using only one pickup and no volume / tone circuit, just the pickup) you get a guitar that acts more like a guitar with active pickups than a guitar with passive pickup. That would be a cool experiment to do. You will of course get different tones depending on the pickups resonance peak but will react like a active pickup otherwise. The thing with passive pickups sounds / acts different in different guitars is probable to a high degree depending on the passive volume/tone circuit and on the component tolerances. If you have an active pickup those differences affects the tone much less. That is my thoughts, it would be cool to test that. I have not made any calculations but my intuition tells me that I'm on the right track.
Now. Take that exact same set of EMGs and put them in a guitar made of different wood. It will answer the tonewood debate!
Dave Gilmore from pink Floyd uses EMG's. I easily fall into static thinking. So I do try to question my prejudices at times! Lol
People who think emg pick ups sound bad probably never turned the tone knob a bit down. I love toto and steve lukather and i have a musicman luke 2, wich is plain simple a strat. EMGs sound amazing with that guitar, even a bit dark for my taste, and that's because the guitar sounds fenomenal by itself and those pickup reflect that. Put emg on a bad guitar they will reflect that as well
Not everyone wants high output pickups. Also single coils sound better with raised pole pieces.
Before I knew anything about guitars I bought a strat with EMGs in it and still love the tone to this day. It definitely does something different than a vintage strat pickup, but I think they're very versatile.
I just don’t like guitars with batteries in them. I’ve used active pickups in the past they tend to hit the amp harder making a clean amp start to drive or send it over the edge if it’s on the edge of breakup.
Actives not for me although if I decide to buy a Metallica inspired guitar then yes I will get some EMGs but probably passive ones.
Such great advice here 👍🏻
So many things impact tone. A player’s fingers have more impact than anything and this pickup argument has always cracked me up.
If Billy Gibbons hands you his guitar you won’t sound anything like him.
However, I guarantee you that Billy could pluck anything with a string on it and it’s gonna sound like Billy Gibbons.
I’m a metal and jazz guy and I use the tried and true EMG 81 in an ESP M1 and it works for both.
Even my LP has EMGs in it
and I love it.
Part of the problem in my world (metalhead world), is that everyone wants to grab an edge but most, not all seek the same few heads, guitars, and pickups, wonder why brutal metal magic isn’t happening, and then still need affirmation that what they have is the ultimate in metal tone.
The reality is that a guitar only puts out what you give it, every single time but all the “best” gear won’t do anything for you that your playing won’t do first.
I Love my EMGs. I have quite a few guitars and a couple have EMGs. They are different than passives. They aren't tremendously versatile, but what they do, they do phenomenally well. I don't grab those guitars to play blues stuff, but they are pure thrash goodness. Any Testament album in the last 10-15 years or so, the guitar sounds killer.
BTW. People that say you can’t play classic rock with EMG’s are more of the internet mob brainwashed people. One of my favorite guitarists (Steve Lukather) used EMG’s to record some of the biggest classic rock songs ever recorded. LONG before any of the wimpy new metallers you mentioned. And EMG’s were actually developed for their neutral clean tone. That was what they were really designed for....clean tones.
I was never really a big fan of classic EMGs except for extreme heavy music personally, but I find the EMG single coils are great and very versatile.
Your relentless honesty is rare (nowadays) and highly admirable. I have a Warmoth strat that I built with an EMG Vince Gill signature model loaded pickguard (and I don’t even like country), and one of the two tone knobs shapes the sound from single coil “flavor” to humbucker, and I’m really happy with the pickups and tonal variety I can get out of this strat. It’s way more tonally diverse than the American Standard Strat I sold in order to buy parts for the Warmoth build. One annoying thing about active pickups is you always have to remember to unplug the cord from the guitar or else the battery will drain until it runs out of juice. All that said, genuine single coils are great too and should never disappear.
Funny you mentioned discovering Rammstein in the Vin Diesel xXx movie. That's how myself and my buddies discovered them as kids and since then we've traveled to see them 3-4x whenever they come to North America hahha.
It drives me crazy when players determine that a genre is a tone or a guitar model. Example: Country = Telecaster. Or Strat = "blues" tone. When asks me what single coils should I get to get a good "blues" tone. Or that a Gibson Hollowbody is the only style to play jazz.
Some people just want to fit in moulds.
@@Leo_ofRedKeep Humans love to do stereotypes on everything
@@thekramer1097 Which is a useful thing. We keep similar things in common drawers so we remember where to find them. But some are just all too willing to be pure receivers of drawers they think others make.
Does that mean you don't care about pick up choice for playing blues?
If you had the choice between P90s and active EMGs f ex, would your answer be that it doesn't matter?
@@vhollund No it doesn't matter. The blues, like any other music style, is defined by the notes played, not by the way they sound.
Never played metal in my life. I've been using EMGs since the mid '80s. I've two guitars with them. I also use a Mesa Triaxis. :) I don't use the EMGs all the time, but... they were good enough for Gilmour to use from the mid '80s until only a few years ago.
Love the name, by the way. I had an Audi Quattro about 25 years back.
Hello Dylan !
Your take on flavors is spot on !
Some like it salty , some like it sweet !
And the cravings can be different at different times. ;)
Amen Brother ✌
Only reason I don't use EMG's is I can't be stuffed replacing Batteries 😉
As an Audio engineer I love them.
That V is looking real good.
Got an old LTD v200 here that I'm going to re-work soon, will be interesting to see what the timber under the Black finish looks like.
LOL, the "Sometimes" comment, man, that's why I've got a "Load" of guitars, what I tell myself anyway 😉
Take care bud ✌
If you unplug your guitar while you are not playing batteries can last for years
I agree. EMG's are just a flavor. I've replaced EMG's with passive pickups in three guitars, and they're all better sounding guitars for it, but I recently bought a Fender Jim Root Tele with EMG's in it (why do all the cool metal guitars come stock with EMG's?!), and I haven't had the will to replace them yet, 'cause just amazing for the kind of music a Jim Root Tele is made for playing. Super tight, aggressive and cutting. I might just end up leaving them in there this time. Cleans are kind of bland, but still very usable. With high gain they're amazing.
EMGs are perfectly fine for whatever- a wide open blank canvas, the player dials in what they want.
My bass’s Blackouts work with all styles of music I love. They kill it playing metal and smooth down to pop with the onboard EQ.
Active is a no brainer for bass imo. For guitars I think it depends a lot more on what you're doing, but to me, actives in a bass has almost no downsides.
@@Patrick-857 actives have a lot of variability between designs. I once tried all EMG soap bars - PJ was my favourite combination. Seymour Duncan blackouts sound utterly different (and better) than the EMG CS pickups they are similar to.
It wasn’t just metal of course. Mark Knopfler, Yes Mr K himself used EMG’s from the late 80’s ‘till the mid 90’s!! His famous Pensa is EMG loaded.
The newer X series offerings (alnico) sound more like traditional passive pickups and still do the high gain thing very well. I think they sound great and I love not hearing the buzz.
The Retro Active series is more "passive" sound IMO.
The X series just has more headroom compared to traditional EMGs.
I have the 81 60 set installed in my Ibanez. I went with that because I prefer the flavour of the 60 over the 85.
The 60 has better clean tones
I even have a floating Jazz EMG on a Jazzbox. Fantastic.
You are spot on. The amp shapes the sound. That is why I tell people when buying an electric guitar, match it with an amp that brings out its character.
Bro I play through a JVM. AMAZING amp. Amy decent guitar sounds amazing through it. It's so versatile. I recently bought a Les Paul Classic and was embarrassed at band practice at how bad it sounded when plugging it in
I like active pickups I use seymour duncan blackouts ahb-2b/ahb-1n with cts's 25k pot's and pure tone full contact output jack
“Mojo in a can”. Brilliant. Wm. Shakespeare couldn’t have said it better
Playing high gain the amp and speakers pretty much set the tone. Example: I recently recorded a track with the lead guitar on one side and a harmony line on the other side played on a Minimoog through a high gain amp. Nobody could tell they weren't both guitars
Very good point
Which underlines the fact that heavy metal is not a good indicator for guitar tone
In addition i think Dylan plays through an amp simulation?
Not good
To hear the tone: A slightly crunchy / dirty-clean tube amp will reveal it right away if playing with a minimum of skill.
Although I have never played a guitar with EMGs I played with a couple of guitar players in the 1990s for a number of years and they both played guitars with EMGs to begin with. They both eventually switched to Strats, one with Lace Sensors, the other with stock American Standard single coils. I can only speak from my own experience, but the difference was like night and day, and for the better. To my ears now their playing sounded way more dynamic and sweet and clear, when before it was compressed with too many highs and lows constantly mixed together. That being said, we were playing basically classic rock and I think EMGs would be a good choice for a high gain sound for metal.
"EMG's sound compressed" says guitaists that have a compression/ sustain pedal on their board.
I love EMG's 81/60 are some of my all time favorite but i do avoid them on guitars I think I'm not keeping forever as they suck for resale. If I'm keeping it forever, I love them.
It definitely looks so cool! Congrats Robin!! Enjoy the pickups.
I have EMG DG-20 and love them. I’m probably going to get the Retroactive Fat 55 set next.
I agree with most of what you say but I don't really get these contradicting statements: you say actives have a more flat or linear frequency response and no spikes, but also that they make every guitar sound the same. But a flat response would mean that they will more accurately follow the influence of the guitar materials and construction than a passive pickup which would impose more of it's 'own' tone on the signal.
I have only one EMG equipped guitar and for me the main difference is less noise and more annoying battery hassles.
I own three EMG equipped guitars. One of them is a Godin Redline One. It has one EMG 81, one volume knob and a 9 volt battery. For some reason it sounds downright twangy with the volume rolled off.
Most of people that hates EMGS never played an EMG through 18 or 24v. All of the weirdness and compression goes away. Dylan, throw a pair of 12v A23 batteries there and test it , you won´t regret. Another BIG tip that took me years to figure. 85s in the bridge position, specially in guitars equipped with floyd rose sounds fat, organic and beutiful. just try it too.
I switched to bass from guitar a year ago and I can say I like passive pickups better on bass. Of 25 years of playing guitar I never owned a guitar with active pickups. With my basses, I own a sr300 which is passive pickups with a preamp, but I own a Rogue with a pj setup all passive and it is more powerful sounding than the sr300 with a preamp. I don't know if anyone has had a similar experience, but this has been mine.
True - More bands I like play active than passive. Personally, I had my anti emg era- actually more of a snob era-where I only owned Gibsons, PRS, USA fender. It's all in the past now, though. Currently I only have 2 ltd's w actives.
Never figured you as a Rammstein fan. Pretty cool you listen to different music. I think everyone should.
Hi, love the videos You upload. I am wondering if there are some cheaper good substitutes for my Chinacaster...😄
Given that nowadays there’s a whole universe of gear, pedals, and pickups to modify one’s instrument with, my motto has been the same for the 21 years I have been playing the guitar in earnest, and that is: buy the thing that was used on the song you like.
Try an emg 60 neck pickup. Try hz passives run the Gambit of emg pickups. You will see their versatility!
Dude, love me that Prong album. I like “Test” too!
drittal yea prong is awesome in general🤘
Gilmour (Pink Floyd) and Rothery (Marillion) use EMG live on Pulls and on All one Tonight. And on recordings too.
Back in the 80's
It's not just about tone. It's about feel, dynamics, headroom the pickup translates to the amp. The 81 is compressed to hell. Give me the tone of an 81 and feel of a passive and I'm good.
Lots of metal lead players prefer the 81(X) for high output. If you like to play more varied tones, consider the 89XR instead of an 81(X).
89 is meant for the neck
I felt like many about emg. Went to g.c. one day looked at a zakk wylde epi lp. I like big necks and maple necks figured I could get a few bucks for the emgs. But I liked them when I put familiar settings on the amp. I ended up buying a Dean with 808s instead. And the worst thing emg does is the buffer. But if you have one boss pedal on the floor you shouldn't say boo about emg.
Now the 'one more thing to go wrong' argument about the batteries is still super valid.
I want one of your vintage tele bridge pickups bad. I need a some alnico 2 in my life.
I just got a 81 for my Kramer I’m so fucking pumped to throw it in and play some 80s thrash with it
GRATS Robin! I'm sure these will be awesome!
EMGs are a bit more than wire wrapped around magnets, there's an op-amp in differential mode, so instead of a low-pass behaviour like a conventional pickup, in something like an EMG 81, you get a massive mid hump peaking at about 750Hz. Looks a lot like running through a tube screamer with the volume up and the drive down.
They work, because the massive mid hump sounds almost jazzy clean and into a lot of distortion you have the midrange grind without the bass going flubby or the highs going too shrill.
It's going to sound a lot like you have a tubescreamer other mid boost in there. And it does a specific thing. It's very hard to get a crunch tone that plays well with other guitars as you need all the gain to smash that mid hump into the EQ shape of the amp (or a distortion pedal).
If you have a lot of EQ to hand you can make EMGs do other sounds, but it's easier to take something with a flat response out to a sane cutoff and add a a tubescreamer or a klon clone when you want that kind of grind than it is to take that mid hump out with a graphic EQ.
I do keep a cheap LP copy around with an EMG 81 in the bridge for moments of stupidity though.
Don’t bother with EMG’s. Their support sucks. I had horrible buzz from. my output jack and was asked to send in pics of my wiring. I did and heard crickets, nada.
I’ve played on EMGs before and I loved the sustain. I got comfortable with them from the start.
I never understood why people say you can’t do this or that on this or that.
I play everything on my Telecaster because that’s the only electric guitar I have. I know it’s known for Country but didn’t find that out until recently.
First song I ever learned on it was “Smoke On The Water” and what I got into afterwards was Pop Punk.
Metal came later.
Thing is…I had to use what I had.
20 years after first picking up a guitar, I now have the money to buy something that I’m gonna have for the rest of my life so I picked a 6 string loaded with a single EMG complete with a Floyd Rose instead of that 8 string multiscale guitar with 2 pickups because at this point, it doesn’t need to be super versatile.
It’s me that makes it versatile.
Actives all the way 🤘
To paraphrase a great man, THINK FOR YOURSELF QUESTION AUTHORITY
EMG instructions tell you NOT to ground the strings. I think they still should be grounded but they do say not to.
I have got emg 81/85 for 15 years in my les Paul and for 10 years, they were my favorites. Now I'm getting older my taste has changed and I like the seymour duncan jazz + jb combined or dimarzio tone zone + air hb. The passive pickups are working better with tube amps and get more character out of it. The advantage of the emgs is, that they sound good in every guitar. I ve got 3 guitars with emg 81/85 and sold 2 of them, because they sound like my les paul but had a worse playability.
If I really want to change my sound, I would buy another speaker. Price is nearly the same for one speaker and one good pickup but the difference is more noticeable than with another pickup.
I think in supervision every part in the signal chain has to be good quality to get a nice tone out of the material. Correct wiring is really important too and not as easy as it sounds at first.
Nice watch trying different pickups but I have to learn to put them in emgs are sodderless but great you can use them for everything 🤓
I came in here with guns out all ready to let you have it about amps being way more important than pickups, and you went and said it first. Way to steal my thunder, dude 😆👍
Having said that, I prefer vintage voiced pickups (P90’s, If I’m forced to pick one) because that’s what works best for my preferred rigs and tone. I have a couple of EMG guitars, though. Nothing wrong with them.
EMG pickups do sound different in different guitars, or at least 85s 89s SA and S models do. I'm not an 81 fan but Love the others. Take an 85 in a LP with mahogany and then put it in an Ash bodied strat while leaving the amp settings the same. Huge difference. But you and adjust the amp and make them sound similar. Warning EMGs will make more mistakes more apparent. You will have to play cleaner in my experience. I never noticed my sloppy muting during bends until I installed EMGs. But then I cleaned up my playing and fell in love.
Hands down my fav active PUs is the 57/66 combo by EMG. No one seems to know them for some reason. The battery never bothered me. It takes a long time until it runs out and by buying two rechargeable ones you save money over time.
Yeah all these guys keep saying I don't want to have to change the battery all the time! It lasts like a 1000 hours or something like that. If you just remember to unplug your guitar that's like 3 months playing 10 hours a day.
What people should look at is if it sounds good across multiple genres
Quattro is a great name.
Anyone who things they hate rum, try a "Rom e Perra" A shot of straight (and not "spiced", fite me) rum with a chaser of unfiltered pear juice.
Get a rum like Flor de Cana Anejo or a mid-tier Pampero. In a pinch, go with Cruzan -- it's the Cazadores of the rum world. Cheap but good.
Getting the right pear juice can be hard -- it should have a consistency like Guava nectar, not like thin like an apple juice. The little 8oz cans with a blue and yellow label are pretty good.
Maybe it won't change your mind, but it just might. I've converted a lot of rum-haters with Rom e Perra.
I'm a bit biased on this but if it isn't Cacique or Santa Teresa, it's not rum.
I do like Pampero though.
I have 10 guitars, and they all have emgs and fishmans. Emgs DO sound different in different guitars. My neck through guitars with a bone nut and alder body is way brighter than my bolt on, plastic nut, mahogany body guitar. Both with only a bridge pickup and only 1 volume knob.
I enjoy your videos Dylan, you have an easygoing way of presenting technical information, which is refreshing. I personally haven't used EMGs but that is more due to spending most of my time on an acoustic archtop and hardly ever plugging in my solid body axes. I once told a friend that the exact composition of his pickups wasn't that big component to his overall tone and to think of his complete signal chain in his overall tone... I now feel somewhat vindicated with my advice.
Nothing breeds more contempt for this world, than memories now formed.
I think there are three main reasons people don’t like EMG actives, and one main reason people don’t like their passives.
1. EMG is responsible for all three, but the first is 81 as the de facto bridge pickup. None of the other pickups even seem to matter, or didn’t for a long time. 57/66, Het Set, RetroActives, etc have changed this to some regard. However, EMG basically told people, “no matter what it is, 81 in the bridge.” Therefore, everyone got 81 pickups, and disliked them because “they make the guitar all sound the same,” when that’s not entirely true at all, though 2 and 3 do not help.
2. 9v has a major issue for most people. Some like the compression, so they do not care, as it reduces their pedalboard footprint by one, or, gives them space for something else. I feel that EMG should’ve pushed 18v and 24v (the original 24v mod you can find on eBay, not the copycats), as this gives a more dynamic response. People who are used to those dynamics would prefer higher voltages. If you can’t fit them in the guitar, then get the EMG ES-918. It’s an external power supply, requiring a stereo cable, and you can run the guitar at 9 or 18 volts for all of your EMG pickups.
3. The literature they gave you with the pickups basically gave people the impression you can and should crank them as close to the string without the string banging around on the pickup. This also adds to the over compressed, sterile, “every guitar sounds the same” thing people complain about with EMGs. Instead, I suggest starting out with the pickups around where you’d set up normal humbuckers and single coils. Then, adjust from there. With EMGs, a quarter to full turn of the screwdriver up or down can move the tone from okay to great, so experiment.
Personally, I have a slew of their active and passive pickups. Two guitars have EMG 85/60A sets, two have EMG SLV/SA/SLV sets with EXG and SPC controls, and one has 58/SA/58 (not a typo) set.
I have in a parts drawer, that I swap in the first two guitars from time to time, are a slew of their passives. Mostly, people shit on these pickups. Why?
1. The HZ pickups (H1, H2, H3, and H4, as well as the alnico variants) end up stock in mid tier guitars, typically - though not always - through mid tier or lower amps. Of course they’ll sound like ass. You also need to adjust the pickups like any typical pickup height wise to get the best tone. I think they are good, but people already have bad experiences, so they must be bad, and never question the other pieces of gear as the issue.
So yes, I use EMGs in all of my guitars.
They do not make all guitars sound the same, especially if you run them at higher voltages. I think the Preamp really wants to see higher voltages, because otherwise, it basically hyperfocuses on a frequency, and treats the rest as an afterthought. There are videos on TH-cam where a guitarist goes through a bunch of different bands, and uses a few EMG loaded guitars. Guess what? The EMG sounds different in each guitar. I can never get my 85s to sound the same, or my SLVs to sound the same.
Anyways, I agree with your overall point about the big picture. That said, I think the speaker and cabinet are the most overlooked for really shaping the voice. It’s ridiculous, too, because the speaker and cab have the biggest effect in my opinion on the overall voice. You can take a great amp head, but pair it with a cab/speaker that isn’t right for it, and the entire thing sounds horrible. If someone is unsatisfied with their voice, then I suggest to mess around with the speakers. X pattern two types in a 412, or if you want more mid range, look at 212s, or perhaps try different speakers, etc.
I use tone and voice interchangeably, probably, in my messages. However, tone to me is derived from the player and their technique on the guitar. The voice is determined, to me, by the pickups, cables, pedals, amp, cab, speakers, voltages the stuff is running at, etc.
I get it,
I read something that made me think along those lines. It said if you don't have that, two that add up to that value will work.
That made me think, there's my room, for my sound. I have broken three norm's with a 10 position switch, I like four of 7 so far. With three yet to be,
Preach! Try a bunch of different stuff and trust your own ear and hands. Nobody knows your ear and your preferences better than you.
Let’s check this out. John Sykes, Jake E. Lee, Yngwie, EVH, George Lynch, Doug Aldrich, Rafael Moreira, Richie Sambora and Slash. Zero EMGs here in my list of good post 70’s rock/heavy tone. I’d say, that the early incarnation of Zakk Wylde is the only example I like. Yes plenty of metal players have EMGs, but they don’t utilize any dynamic range. I bought a a really nice Nash Tele Dlx yesterday. It has Lollar Regals (Wide range). This is the humbucker, I’ve been looking for 20 year. I will buy EMG pups as soon as they offer the same tone.
Good for you I guess? Nobody told that you have to buy EMGs
Active pickups at least the original designs give you a flat response. Your job is to eq the tone you want as nothing is lacking. Your tone is based on the system, eg the entire signal chain.
Lol, for just a moment I thought you were wearing an orange tie! 😁
The biggest problem I have with EMG is how they feel. Im guessing the compression. They sound ok but the feel isnt for me
They don't compress. The amplifier does when presented with a high output level. Guitars usually have a volume knob and active pick-ups do not suffer from treble loss as passive ones do.
Try the Seymour Duncan Blackouts. Has a more open passive feel, but with the active boost.
@@JokerCat9 Had some for about 10 years now
This was a great vid. Thanks for the discussion on emgs
Tell these people in the forums to check out dave gilmour and they will see what you can get with emg pickups if you have the right hands
Again I'll say I'm glad these repeat.
It’s the sensitivity and dynamics for me that make actives a bit dull. Despite that, I still won’t lie and say I don’t like how actives sound. That would be foolish, as they can have incredible, consistent, and massive sound when used correctly. I appreciate this content, especially from someone who makes passives and prefers them! Too much bias against actives is present on forums, and many of us could definitely find use for EMGs. I play indie/alt and ambient and I’ve enjoyed the tones I got from some actives, although I still prefer passives due to the subtle dynamics and “liveliness” if that’s the right word haha
Try the Retro Active series.
When it comes to bass, active definitely makes the instrument more enjoyable for me to play because of the sound I can get, which affects how I play. You trade convenience (no batteries) for versatility if sound . For electric guitar I’d rather lose the versatility of active pickups for convenience . The battery /preamp is a dealbreaker for me on the 6-string. Active pups do sound good though. But I love the sound of passive humbuckers.
Quattros, I dig it. I’m a VW/Porsche fanatic myself.
Are EMG pickups noiseless? Does anybody know? My old charvel 1988 has active pickups and I love them because they are noiseless and sound great. I’m looking at an LTD with EMG pickups.
Hi Dylan! In some of your videos you were talking about a 'issue' that you keep hearing from guitar players - that guitar hums/buzzes while not touching the strings, and that this is not a real issue, because this is how guitar should work. But what about having a loud click when you do touch the strings or metal parts of guitar, is this something that could be fixed?
So what I mean is, I loose contact with strings with both my hands, there's hum - ok, not a problem, but I touch the strings again and before humming quiets there's an audible pop which cuts through. In this example situation is not that realistic, because if you sort of let go of the playing all together, you'll probably turn the volume pot down as well. But this also happens when playing and, say, doing chord changes and loosing contact with strings for a moment.