Its funny all the internet on this crazy hate active pickup kick the last few years and in this video I take the EMG 81 all day long for this style of music. I get the application of full chord stuff for passives but for straight power chord metal ripping, the warmth, fullness and chunking power of the active is still it for me. Duncan blackouts for an honorable mention and maybe my favorite pickup of all time now the EMG 57 a wonderful mixture of all that is good in metal pickups. ALL of these sound really good though, the BW and Nazgul would do just fine but to me a bit thinner on the lower end than the actives. Its all good, and its mostly all in the fingers gentleman.
At last someone who plays proper Metal and is neither a poser nor someone advertising a product for his own company! I love the riffs you play, which is why you are going to get my like (I never give likes on UA-cam). Also, thanks to you, I decided to go for the Black Winter and Distortion pickups a week ago - as of yesterday, I have the Black Winter one on my B.C. Rich Warlock and the Distortion on my Jackson RR32. I have an older guitar too, that one will get the EMG81 and 85. Keep up the good work!
81 and Black Winter tied, but noticeably different. BW had a nice low end bloom that gave palm mutes some chunk that the 81 didn't, but they had a similar snarly midrange.
Nice playing, I enjoy a lot your music, 1. EMG 81 and SD Black winter The others are not in the same level of clarity, punch and crunch, this is why there are some guitars with only an emg 81 bridge, and a volume pot!!! SD, took years to became with something like this black winter, to bet the emg 81, a 30+ years old pickup Best wishes,
its a specific genre of guitar playing though, with one tone that happened to suit emg 81s better, that doesn't really show whether one is better than the other, i've used emgs for ages i know their shortcomings.
There are lots of guys doing good pickup comparisons, but man, the combination of good riiffs, back to back changes, and cool but basic editing makes this one the best I've seen. Wish you'd done the 89 with the same riffs as the others, though!
Great comparison, I have SD Black Winter set and It's awesome, I play mostly Gothic, Symphonic and Black metal and for that genre It's probably the best choice. On my second guitar I have distrortion, its similar to Black winter, but doesn't sound that cold and harmonic to me. Anyways, all these pickups are great, thank you for the video!
Truth is, you can't go wrong with any of them. They will all all get you from point A to point B. It's like a vehicle, just a matter of how YOU want to get there. Plus, EMG and Seymour own the Active pickup market, what other choices do we have? haha. Just a matter of liking active pickups or not.
@KyleP133 I know. It's crazy how this comment is only six years old and EMG had been the active pickup brand for decades and fishman, a company that primarily made equipment for acoustic guitars, has become pretty much the lead example for actives.
Hi gain they all sound good and so similar i dont see how it even matters.....clean is a different story. The 81 embarrassed all the others imo. 81s give the cleanest, brightest, and loudest tone your ever gonna get
I feel the same way about them all sounding the same except in clean, I've watched several of these pickup comparison videos and it's always the same thing...no discernible difference except when they are in clean
After couple of nights of comparing differend pickups, and trying to decide new pickups for my BCR all maple Eagle (now it has EMG 81 & 85), I decided to go for SD Distortion and Jazz. Black Winters were quite long at top position, but they are bit too bright, and maple is quite bright wood, Distortions have nice low "chunk" and mid-range sounds great. And why Jazz? It is simply one of the best all-around neck pup's. Oh, what I was saying was that great vid here!
I have the 81,85, distortion and the blackened black winter and the order goes something like this I guess.. 1. 81 2. Black winter 3. Distortion 4. 85 The 85 is OK but just doesn't have enough crunch for my current amp. Fender lt25.. really want to get the katana 50 or 100. I have a behringer um300 and that helps my tone alot but the fender amp wasn't a good choice but it was cheap and I had nothing but a headphone only setup and that just sucked to be that limited. Watching the video to help me decide over the bw and distortion for my king v that has an 85 currently. Stole the 81 for a newer guitar to check it out. 81 was great too but now I have to many 81 setups lol
Clay C. Black Winters are even better. Listen 3:45-4:00. BW have more punch and crunch. Black Winters are best pickups for extreme metal and even rock music. \m/
Black Winters have a shrill to them. No matter what you do they always have this treble high behind them. That is not a bad thing. I played them for a long time, then the Nazgul. Went back to the SH6 Distortion. Balanced, tight, awesome cleans. But if you like that treble high, get the Winters.
First: nice riffing and very very very useful comparison. Also, putting the Black Winter straight after the 85 has been a really wise choice. Few youtube demos are as good as this one. Congrats, pal! The only thing I''d have added, though, is the same comparison, but with just the guitar. Then... I've always had a guitar with EMG 81/85 and really like the tone straight into the amp. With pedals, I only managed to make the BOSS HM-2 work and the trick has been to roll the volume knob a bit off from the guitar. (Consider that the way I use dirt pedals is getting most of the dirt from the pedal, onto a slightly distorted amp already... like 2/2.5 or maximum 3 of dirt from the amp and at usually dimed or almost dimed from the pedal). Recently, I got a RAT, which I yearned for more than two years and was REALLY disappointed at how it sounded. I thought I got a lemon. Then I bought a japanese Les Paul copy (with passive pickups) and tried it again... well, now it sounds indeed like I thought it would have. I figured out that EMGs are more a ''plug and play'' kind of thing... maybe just with an overdrive, but that's it. They aren't very versatile, as far as comination of pedals and dirt stacking goes. Unfortunately, I have no idea what pickups are in the Les Paul, so I'll find out only when I'll get the new pickup, but I bought it with the intention of changing the bridge pickup and I'm thinking about the Black Winter. My doubt is... will the Black Winter work with high-gain guitar pedals or (due to the hot output) it will just sound like a mess, ultra-muddy, etc. like the EMGs did? I'm thinking that the issue is them being active, not because they're hot, but I'm not sure. What do you think?
But dont they sound much more similar to each other since you ran them all through a low/high filter? I have an 81 in my Arrow and a Black Winter in my Viper and man, I know everyone seems to love them but it doesnt have nearly the attack as the 81 and the low end...it muddies up the single note stuff a lot and Ive messed wiht pickup height and amp settings to improve it to no avail. But here it sounds much better lol
Hey can you do a comparison between the 81 and the 89, both of them in the bridge position? I never saw you using the 89 in the bridge and I can't make the call on whether to buy the 89 or not if I can't hear the 89 in both positions. It could help if I also got a comparison between the 89 in the bridge and that same 89 in the neck.
Exactly no 89 demo with dirty channel either.. fuckin annoying man. You think they would do a comparison test in all phases between pick ups ... answered nothing..
Why limit yourself, I have two main guitars one (fender strat custom) I use emg 60-81 and the second ( Jackson rhoads custom ) with nazgul ( just one pickup )
Any of those will do the job for metal. I like EMG's alot when I tune down below B. The active sound gives better gain sound at low tuning in my opinion. Otherwise I like Duncans.
In my honest opinion, I couldn’t tell the difference and I watched/Listened through my car stereo. Comparison vids never work for me with all the drums and bass going on in the back. We want to listen to and compare guitars ONLY. Great playing but for it was just like watching a play through.
Black Winter is more weaker but have more harmonic , its specally made for Black Metal since Distortion Mayhem set is more for Death Metal and have more low bass.
Great job. The riff by riff pickup changes really helps to hear the differences!
Its funny all the internet on this crazy hate active pickup kick the last few years and in this video I take the EMG 81 all day long for this style of music. I get the application of full chord stuff for passives but for straight power chord metal ripping, the warmth, fullness and chunking power of the active is still it for me. Duncan blackouts for an honorable mention and maybe my favorite pickup of all time now the EMG 57 a wonderful mixture of all that is good in metal pickups. ALL of these sound really good though, the BW and Nazgul would do just fine but to me a bit thinner on the lower end than the actives. Its all good, and its mostly all in the fingers gentleman.
love the SD Winter !
At last someone who plays proper Metal and is neither a poser nor someone advertising a product for his own company! I love the riffs you play, which is why you are going to get my like (I never give likes on UA-cam). Also, thanks to you, I decided to go for the Black Winter and Distortion pickups a week ago - as of yesterday, I have the Black Winter one on my B.C. Rich Warlock and the Distortion on my Jackson RR32. I have an older guitar too, that one will get the EMG81 and 85. Keep up the good work!
Thankyou very much:)
fantastic job!
thanks for the great comparison video :-)
81 and Black Winter tied, but noticeably different. BW had a nice low end bloom that gave palm mutes some chunk that the 81 didn't, but they had a similar snarly midrange.
I think they all sound great!
Nice playing, I enjoy a lot your music,
1. EMG 81 and SD Black winter
The others are not in the same level of clarity, punch and crunch, this is why there are some guitars with only an emg 81 bridge, and a volume pot!!!
SD, took years to became with something like this black winter, to bet the emg 81, a 30+ years old pickup
Best wishes,
There is no proper lead part here though. Duncan JB for example sounds far much better at leads than EMG 81 which is pretty harsh sounding.
its a specific genre of guitar playing though, with one tone that happened to suit emg 81s better, that doesn't really show whether one is better than the other, i've used emgs for ages i know their shortcomings.
There are lots of guys doing good pickup comparisons, but man, the combination of good riiffs, back to back changes, and cool but basic editing makes this one the best I've seen. Wish you'd done the 89 with the same riffs as the others, though!
Great comparison, I have SD Black Winter set and It's awesome, I play mostly Gothic, Symphonic and Black metal and for that genre It's probably the best choice. On my second guitar I have distrortion, its similar to Black winter, but doesn't sound that cold and harmonic to me. Anyways, all these pickups are great, thank you for the video!
Truth is, you can't go wrong with any of them. They will all all get you from point A to point B. It's like a vehicle, just a matter of how YOU want to get there. Plus, EMG and Seymour own the Active pickup market, what other choices do we have? haha. Just a matter of liking active pickups or not.
Mark
check out fishman fluence.
@@zxexrxox 4 years later Fishman is now the dominant player in this game.... I still prefer my EMG's, but Fishman came out swinging.
@@KyleP133
Yes they did
@KyleP133 I know. It's crazy how this comment is only six years old and EMG had been the active pickup brand for decades and fishman, a company that primarily made equipment for acoustic guitars, has become pretty much the lead example for actives.
Bare knuckles
pure eargasm in 1:47 to 2:49 (specially black metal part 2:18). emg81 sounded superb!. great riff and playing dude.
Hi gain they all sound good and so similar i dont see how it even matters.....clean is a different story. The 81 embarrassed all the others imo. 81s give the cleanest, brightest, and loudest tone your ever gonna get
I feel the same way about them all sounding the same except in clean, I've watched several of these pickup comparison videos and it's always the same thing...no discernible difference except when they are in clean
The black winter sounds amazing on the strummed chords with distortion. Wich i assume its modeled for in the first place
After couple of nights of comparing differend pickups, and trying to decide new pickups for my BCR all maple Eagle (now it has EMG 81 & 85), I decided to go for SD Distortion and Jazz. Black Winters were quite long at top position, but they are bit too bright, and maple is quite bright wood, Distortions have nice low "chunk" and mid-range sounds great. And why Jazz? It is simply one of the best all-around neck pup's. Oh, what I was saying was that great vid here!
I have Godin poplar/maple with distortion bridge, dimarzio distortion sinle midle and jazz neck and sound awesome. Newer thread
Nice comp video,Sweet playing I think I am going with winter for my Jackson soloist thanks for this video thumbs up 👍🏻✌️😎
I have the 81,85, distortion and the blackened black winter and the order goes something like this I guess..
1. 81
2. Black winter
3. Distortion
4. 85
The 85 is OK but just doesn't have enough crunch for my current amp. Fender lt25.. really want to get the katana 50 or 100. I have a behringer um300 and that helps my tone alot but the fender amp wasn't a good choice but it was cheap and I had nothing but a headphone only setup and that just sucked to be that limited. Watching the video to help me decide over the bw and distortion for my king v that has an 85 currently. Stole the 81 for a newer guitar to check it out. 81 was great too but now I have to many 81 setups lol
Great Video, you have power..
for me: SD distortion, EMG81, SD Black Winter... but it´s depend tou want to have...
Emg 81 and Duncan Distortion by far! Nazgul third . Duncan Distortion and Emg 81 pickups have been a rock and metal mainstay since way back.
Clay C. Black Winters are even better. Listen 3:45-4:00. BW have more punch and crunch. Black Winters are best pickups for extreme metal and even rock music. \m/
Black Winters have a shrill to them. No matter what you do they always have this treble high behind them. That is not a bad thing. I played them for a long time, then the Nazgul. Went back to the SH6 Distortion. Balanced, tight, awesome cleans. But if you like that treble high, get the Winters.
The warmth of EMG85 (that i love) lose in front of the balance and power of the SD Black Winter. I think we have a winner!
Ivan Bassx Black Winters rule!! \m/
Excellent work!!!! 85 and Distortion for me!!!
Those riffs are sick AF
First: nice riffing and very very very useful comparison. Also, putting the Black Winter straight after the 85 has been a really wise choice. Few youtube demos are as good as this one. Congrats, pal! The only thing I''d have added, though, is the same comparison, but with just the guitar.
Then... I've always had a guitar with EMG 81/85 and really like the tone straight into the amp. With pedals, I only managed to make the BOSS HM-2 work and the trick has been to roll the volume knob a bit off from the guitar. (Consider that the way I use dirt pedals is getting most of the dirt from the pedal, onto a slightly distorted amp already... like 2/2.5 or maximum 3 of dirt from the amp and at usually dimed or almost dimed from the pedal). Recently, I got a RAT, which I yearned for more than two years and was REALLY disappointed at how it sounded. I thought I got a lemon.
Then I bought a japanese Les Paul copy (with passive pickups) and tried it again... well, now it sounds indeed like I thought it would have.
I figured out that EMGs are more a ''plug and play'' kind of thing... maybe just with an overdrive, but that's it. They aren't very versatile, as far as comination of pedals and dirt stacking goes.
Unfortunately, I have no idea what pickups are in the Les Paul, so I'll find out only when I'll get the new pickup, but I bought it with the intention of changing the bridge pickup and I'm thinking about the Black Winter. My doubt is... will the Black Winter work with high-gain guitar pedals or (due to the hot output) it will just sound like a mess, ultra-muddy, etc. like the EMGs did? I'm thinking that the issue is them being active, not because they're hot, but I'm not sure. What do you think?
I was really hoping to hear the 89 in the bridge 😔
If you look on my channel the last Sunday with Ola was recorded with an EMG 89. I believe it was also on the single coil position for that recording.
Emg81 rule them all,distortion 🤘🏻
I prefer the sh6 distortion pups they stand out more from the rest and has better tone. At the end of the day it comes down to preference.
Seyomur ??? new pickups trade mark?
Thanks for the Video :)
Is it possible to re upload the DI files again?
Thanks
But dont they sound much more similar to each other since you ran them all through a low/high filter? I have an 81 in my Arrow and a Black Winter in my Viper and man, I know everyone seems to love them but it doesnt have nearly the attack as the 81 and the low end...it muddies up the single note stuff a lot and Ive messed wiht pickup height and amp settings to improve it to no avail. But here it sounds much better lol
Get a new distortion/overdrive and compression pedal lol. Mine sounds this good
I liked the black winter. Now I have to check if they are active or passive.
Balithazzarr black winters are passive
Which do you think was the easiest for pinch harmonics?
Hey can you do a comparison between the 81 and the 89, both of them in the bridge position? I never saw you using the 89 in the bridge and I can't make the call on whether to buy the 89 or not if I can't hear the 89 in both positions. It could help if I also got a comparison between the 89 in the bridge and that same 89 in the neck.
Joonho Ahn as far as i know 89 is basically splittable 85
Exactly no 89 demo with dirty channel either.. fuckin annoying man. You think they would do a comparison test in all phases between pick ups ... answered nothing..
What song is this?! I love the fat riffs
All riffs from our new album, comming soon ;)
emg 81 and 85 good for clean and very special for hi gain )
Where’s the 89 @?lol
Why limit yourself, I have two main guitars one (fender strat custom) I use emg 60-81 and the second ( Jackson rhoads custom ) with nazgul ( just one pickup )
I have 12 all with duncans, always good for versatility :)
Any of those will do the job for metal. I like EMG's alot when I tune down below B. The active sound gives better gain sound at low tuning in my opinion. Otherwise I like Duncans.
That 89 sounded purrty!
Put the 89 in bridge and it sounds great
1:33 miraculous!
Di files link is not good man!
I can hear a difference between the emgs and the sds. Literally no difference within each brand though.
In my honest opinion, I couldn’t tell the difference and I watched/Listened through my car stereo. Comparison vids never work for me with all the drums and bass going on in the back. We want to listen to and compare guitars ONLY. Great playing but for it was just like watching a play through.
85 and 81 in that order
Black Winter has a little more personality than the rest of them. I do rather like EMG's when they're clean though.
the riff at 1:47
Hi there ! A few new pickups / amps comparison comming soon !!
1:25 / 1:43
1:47 / 2:12
2:19 / 2:43
Does it djent?
OMG twfa! Tsdi. (Oh my god that was f in awsome.. try seymore duncan invader.)
Tyttylahand..
Black Winter is more weaker but have more harmonic , its specally made for Black Metal since Distortion Mayhem set is more for Death Metal and have more low bass.
Hi! Check our new video here !
ua-cam.com/video/WHc67x-lUm8/v-deo.html
Are you sure you swapped the pickups for each example? I heard zero difference
lmao - they all sound fucking identical, they all sound like a 5150
Emg 81 ultra versatile nice trebble. Winter is just a muff passive pickup really bad to a final work record
tab for riff at 1:05