Passive VS EMG VS Fishman Pickups! (Peavey 6505 Edition)
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
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Thanks for watching this comparison video of an ESP LTD guitar with a passive pickup (Seymour Duncan Custom) vs an active EMG81tw pickup vs a Fishman Fluence Modern (active and passive voicing). All through a Peavey 6505 (5150)! Which one sounds the best to you? Are the differences subtle or definitely noticeable for you?
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MIX
2:53 passive
4:29 EMG
6:14 Fishman active voicing
8:12 FIshman passive voicing
9:53 back to back 1st riff
10:15 back to back 2nd riff
10:36 back to back 3rd riff
10:57 back to back last chord
ISOLATED
11:18 back to back 1st riff
11:39 back to back 2nd riff
12:00 back to back 3rd riff
12:21 back to back last chord
The Seymour Duncan sounded the best to me, very open and lively. The EMG would tuck in nicely behind vocals with less work though.
Fishman passive not bad, but Seymour Duncan wins here.
It's a different magnet configuration. Put Fishmans classics against a Duncan passive
@@TheKensusi The FF Modern and Classic are both alconico? And custom ceramic? I dont really follow the logic here.
@@raakareiska9804 Pickup design is very different for the fishmans, the main difference for me is that they have very little self noise.
I can't decide whether to buy a Phoenix with Seymor Duncans or Arctic Metal with EMG 81?!?!
I still don't own a guitar with active pickups because I'm a sucker for my Duncans. They just feel right to me. Maybe next year when I get my tax return I'll buy a Balaguer and out Fishmans in it. The Espada is gorgeous.
The mids throatiness of the passive Duncans are nowhere to be found with the actives, clear favourite for me
The passive Duncan’s sound more dynamic during chords than the active pickups.
@@Tsudkyk Completely agree. That was the point where the others fell apart during the isolated A/B comparison. I didn't go into this expecting the Duncan to be my favorite, but here we are... haha. However, if someone were to send me guitar tracks sounding like any of these, I would not be disappointed.
Passive Duncan’s seem to always take the cake for me.
I preferred the Seymour Duncan as it was the least compressed, most articulate, and I liked its overall tone.
This series has me falling in love with EMG again.
81s and 5150/6505 are always a good combination. It just feels right
Me too, Jon was one of the reasons I've revisited the 81 after many years, and the reason I tried the 57. Loooove the 57 and am keen on the 81 with the right amp...
This is one of the best comparison videos of pickups I've ever seen. Comparing them in a mix with tight playing and varied riffs really helps for noticing the differences. They all sound great in their own way in a mix. The Fluence Passive was my least favorite, sounds the muddiest in comparison. I like the way the Fluence Active really cuts through the mix, but the tried and true Duncan Passives win again in a comparison test.
Been playing an 81 for 10 years… that Duncan was awesome.
The Seymour Duncan is clearly the best to my ears. The passive fishman comes in second surprisingly, but all sounded good.
Hey- great shootout! Loved the real time A/B comparison with and without backing tracks. Very comprehensive demo. We’re always proud of how the Seynour Duncan Customs fare in this space and love how well it pairs with the 6505 and other high gain applications. Great crunch and clear note separation.
Kevin Kroeger, Chief Product Officer at Seynour Duncan
The Seymour Duncan just sounds so open and articulate, wonderful!!!
The Duncan is the clear standout in this comparison. It still possessed note definition within this high gain demonstration. The attack was razor blade while muting as well. The Fluence did well, but is quite a bit of trouble to install. The passive/active modes are a huge plus. The main point of this comment is that the EMG simply lacked compared to the other entrants. The compression squashes note definition, and removes percussiveness during palm mutes. Thanks for posting!
I’m an active pickup fan but those SD’s surprised me with how well they responded… good comparison.
I've noticed with the Fluence's Modern's 1st voicing that if you use primarily amp gain and instead boost the amp with a graphic EQ the add and cut certain frequencies, you can get a really good compressed Metal tone with more dynamic range than one would typically expect. I've found this to be an even better solution to getting tight rhythm tones, while being abe to add that same treble bite you get from a tube screamer, as well as being able to cut as much of those bass frequencies as you'd like.
1. SD Custom
2. Fishman (Passive)
3. EMG
4. Fishman (Active)
This is a brilliant comparison and about as close as you can get without swapping pickups half a dozen times which is just daft and overkill. In terms of tone the Seymour Duncan Custom absolutely smoked everything else here, the active pedals just don't have that same presence and life. They all sound kinda sterile in comparison and that's what's always kept me away from active pickups.
I totally agree with your ranking.
I think I prefer passive pickups. Both the Duncan and the passive setting on the fishman were my favorites. The Duncan being number one!
It's a great comparison between pickup technologies, but there is one that is good too and people barely talk about it. That technology is called alumitone from Lace pickups, specifically the Lace alumitone deathbuckers.
Great test, thanks! What would be awesome is if in the future you could also capture the DI tracks off all the guitars and share them here. Being able to hear how the pickups would perform with our own gear would really take this to the next level. Thanks a lot!
what i like most about passive pickups is probably what doesn't comes through in these kind of videos but when playing them:
It's the response on palm mutes which is very direct and punchy.
Also i really like the high end of passives
Thats probably because of the greater frequency response overall, less high and low cut in a sense.
Funny, I usually find actives to have a somewhat "flatter" frequency response (relatively more even to be precise), while passives always have more obvious resonant peaks (because they rely mostly on the coil design, which gives them a more characteristic tone to them).
Actives always have more high end than passives
@@0megalul309 well thats not the case
Definitely the Duncan, sounds fuller. Interesting since I thought the EMG would have sounded slightly brighter.
For me, the Fishman Active wins. Just sounds the heaviest and the pickin’ parts sounded as clear as the Duncan’s. I like the SD’s but has a little fuzz to it which I don’t like. Fisheys sounded the clearest and had the best chugginess to them. EMG’s aren’t on the same field any longer, they just sounded distant.
Fishman Active is impressively powerful.
It's the chunk to end all chunks!
If you show off the 6505 in a Video i fall in Love with my amp again! Thanks for keeping this 15 Years of marrige alive! :)
The Passive SDs are for me the most interesting ones here. The Dynamics between the the Low and High Strings just kills...
That is why i switched back to SDs (The Nazgul is fkn awesome)
The 81s just work, we hear that combo so much we used to it and it feels instant right and good (played it myself for years).
The Passive Voicing of the Fishmans sounds more like the 81s than the passives to me.
Whenever I watch a video on Active vs Passive I always prefer the Passives. Whenever I'm actually in the room playing the guitar I always prefer the sound of the Actives.
That prolly means you prefer the sound of passives in a mix
You probably find that the videos you're watching the amps have been set using the passives, where you're probably setting your amp for the actives. In a video like this, they'll say "oh this pickup loses bottom end" say, but if they were too adjust the amp settings for it, the passive pickup would probably end up sounding boomy and flubby.
Sounds like you need to play a passive ceramic bridge then.
I like the Fishmans the most, to my ear they sound like a combination of active and passive. (if that makes sense lol)
Fishman Fluence modern (Active) is my favorite here! Great demo
Having all 3 of these guitars allows as much flexibility as realistically possible. You will never be out of tonal options.
I really liked the Duncan Customs the best. It just sounds the most full and it has the most character. The EMGs sounded good too, perfect for a more metallic sound. The Fishmans just weren’t it for me, but the passive voicing didn’t sound bad.
I’d love to hear this sort of comparison with a more mid gain amp, like like a Marshall, a Friedman, or an Orange. I guess all of those can be high gain, but I feel like they hit the mid gain vibe better.
Yeah I'll definitely do a mid gain amp in the future!
@@SonicDriveStudio Awesome! I'm excited to see how that turns out!
I'd definitely love to hear these through an Orange and a Mesa.
I'd go with the Duncans in this test but depending upon the amp and type music I'm playing I don't mind the Fishman Active tone either.
Great comparison! Congrats!!!
I'm quite relieved to see that these differences are easily achieved by an eq paired with just one guitar.
The Duncan just really seemed to smoke the others for me. So much more character.
I like both how unforgiving and clinical fishmans are, and how forgiving and rounded custom is. they perfectly complement each other, one for live and other for recording.
No matter what pickups I am using (even passive Bare Knuckles Nailbombs and Dimarzio Evolutions), I am always coming back to EMGs (at least for guitars with mahogany body and neck). And frankly - without those focused reviews, it's really difficult to distinguish the pickups in the mix.
Duncan Custom is the winner here for sure. Two of my guitars have that pickup and it's a mean, snarly bastard that can do pretty much anything. That said, the EMG-81 is the classic for staccato chugging and it does it well.
I can't get into Fishmans, not for a 6-string anyway. They seem to do better in baritone or 7/8-string guitars.
As a longtime emg user, I have to admit that I like the other two just as much, if not better. All are good. i see seymour best passively. Above all, the combination of the phat cat and the split function of humbucker and single coil seem to have the most interesting range of sounds
It helps having multi types of the same guitar so you dont have to swap the pickups in and out of one! There is a defiantly a difference. SD has bright high end, EMG tams the high end and keeps everything in a nice pocket (compressed I guess you can say but no in a bad way) and the Moderns sound good, but they have that mid hump in them I dont care for ( I am a massive fishman fan btw). But overall they all sound really good. Just depends which ones works better with your setup/work flow.
Plus I can't solder to save my life haha
@Sonic Drive Studio 😂
Man, they all sound great (loving that 6505!)…I do believe I prefer the Duncan passives here though
All pickups sounded great,SD shined isolated,really great tone but in the mix I preferred emg without a question,I think that’s the reason most modern metal records used the emg/6505 combo,seems to blend effortlessly in the mix.Fishmans are really good,especially having two voices is great but they don’t sound as good as the emgs to me,maybe it’s bias because I use 81/85 and 57/66 for years.I really liked the passive voice of fishmans though,it seems it’s better balanced and not as percussive over the top as the active
the thickness and warmness of the SD is just too good
Awesome comparison! The EMG's have a great tone in the mix, not necessarily when isolated out of context. The Duncuns seem to cater toward classic rock vs metal. However, they all sounded great in the mix. I prefer the Fishman! Perhaps do the same comparison via an ENGL Powerball, since channel 3 and 4 seem to be more compressed on this amp - I would think this would tax the pickups.
I think what this shows more than anything is how small of a difference that different pickups make in this case, even between the active and passive I think matching the input gain would reduce that further, but it's still pretty close, even on the isolated guitars. In the mix, if I wasn't listening for it, I doubt many people would ever think "oh, that's a different pickup there!"
Yeah.. it seems like as long as they are good quality pickups it doesn't really matter in the end, lol.
@@bmhyakiri even cheap stock pickups usually get the job done just fine. Of all the guitars I've tested and worked on, only 2 really needed a pickup replacement. One was an already unplayable cheap sears guitar from the 60s and the other was a super cheap epiphone branded (clone I think) with incredibly low output single coils. An $11 hot rod made it sound mostly as good as a Dimarzio
I have always been a passive guy, but that fishman active voicing was right on spot too! Would love to see some blind test with these pickups.
SD wins in my opinion, second place goes to Fishman's passive setting. My favorite guitar has EMG's in it and im thinking of changing it like i already have done on all my other guitars to either SD's or Bare Knucle. This video helps pushing me towards passive pickups!
Great demo !! It’s hard to tell .what’s best . They all sound amazing
Very useful video because there are certain contexts where a given pickup, due to its own distinct EQ filtering, can really make a fixed amp, speaker and microphone/IR setup stand out in a manner that another pickup would not. That said, I did prefer the Seymour Duncan Custom; I have come to favour passive pickups on the whole, given that they relay a thicker and imposing tonality for my requirements, but obviously, the actives do have their distinct advantages, especially the Fluence Moderns and all the various iterations of the Seymour Duncan Blackout.
IDK in a live situation, I'd lean towards actives. More dependable/ less to worry about going wrong
My vote? If I am to cast an objective and unbiased vote it goes to Fish man Fluence; it has a more tighter and more focused sound, and it is a modern pickup whereas the other two are older technology..
Tom Sisson
1. Seymour Duncan
2. Fishman (Active)
3. EMG 81TW
4. Fishman (Passive)
The Duncan was the clearest sounding pickup of the bunch, that's a winning characteristic to me by far. The Fishman (active) wasn't far behind. The EMG81TW was a little too muddy to my taste, same with the Fishman in the passive configuration.
Agreed.
Duncan’s sound so nice. Never would have thought
Great comparisson! My inner nerd wonders if you can hear any difference between the guitars acoustically. I found the fluence to sound a bit "strangled" for lack of a better word. On the chuggy sounds, the EMG sounded like a cleaned up version of the Duncan. I could see the preference for the pickups depending on the application.
You are correct - As an observation, the Fishman Moderns are indeed compressed (or clipped) already going into the amp. I have an Ibanez Prestige with Moderns and have analyzed the DI's which have tops clipped even when I lower the input volume on my interfaces (compared Focusrite Scarlett and Presonus Quantum). My EMG pickups (Schecter) does not.
Duncans definitely are my favorite, but forgot how much I enjoy the EMG sound. nice to have in your arsenal. Really underwhelmed by the Fishman surprisingly. Thought I'd enjoy them more.
apply small dB boost to get them to shine. I too was unimpressed at first but have come to love them as much as BKP blackhawks.
Passive pickups here have that smacky chunk, i really enjoy it along with the clarity
Great video! However, I do think that the difference between all these picups sounds aren't that huge as people think. A much bigger difference in my opinion is how it feels like playing all these pickups. I have Fishman Devin Townsend PU, it felt kinda wierd first playing these. I guess, it has to do with the magnets and dynamic response.
For me I prefer active pickups. I run my gain dimed at all times with a boost (Dual Rec). Passives just turn into mud unless I drop the gain. Seems to me like the extra compression on the active pickups kills all the body from the tone with lower saturation. However, for your test here with your amp and settings, I prefer the tone of the Fishman Passive and the Seymour Duncans.
Custom hands down. One of my favorite passive pickups ever made and well suited to everything from slightly broken up crunch to modern djenty metal. It has all the tightness and articulation you need for modern djent style metal, without needing to be overly compressed and it's still a very dynamic pickup in comparison to typical actives. The fishmans are great especially the moderns on their active voicing, definitely my favorite actives on the market but my tastes have definitely shifted over the years to favor passive pickups, typically anywhere from 11K to 15K in terms of output. SH5, Omega, Nazgul, etc.
Loved the video. Really showcases that pickup model barely matters at all when playing through a great sounding rig.
John, I just want to say that I LOVE your riffs!! Listening to them is awesome regardless of the content.
I don't have much of a developed ear, so they sound very similar to me. But I can tell the Seymour Duncan has something that makes me like it a little bit more, although you can't go wrong with the EMG either.
EMGs have this particular thing where I don't necessarily enjoy playing them the most BUT they sound incredible recorded. The compression and aggressive tone just come out in spades in recordings. With that said, I was under the impression that Fishmans had fuller low end because I was considering switching out EMGs in one guitar for Fluences, but this review is making me rethink that. Maybe I just need a good ol 18v mod or an EMG x
I like the Duncans the best. I always used to default to EMG (metal kid grew up reading GuitarWorld), but lately I’ve really been liking passives. I have a set of Fishmans and really don’t like them, might get a set of these Duncans!
As a whole, I preferred the seymour duncan custom. Just had a more dynamic sound and the mid range was really nice. However, I will give credit whenever it is due. When it came to the chugs/palm muted stuff, the active pickups were awesome.
I will say though, in the context of a proper mix, the difference would be pretty hard to notice. I know these are instrumental mixes and that these are guitar pickup demos, so obviously it's a very very guitar heavy mix. But throw in some vocals and pull back the guitars a smidge to make some space? It's something that the average person would struggle to differentiate.
if i could find a pickup that had the sound of the seymour duncans with open notes but with the sound of the fishmans with palm mutes, i think it'd be the greatest pickup ever
Fishman classic opencore
In this demo song, my ranking is
SD=fishman active>fishman passive>EMG81，but all sounds good! 👍
I'm a huge fan of passive pickups... This Seymour is amazing
Great job Jon! All three sound great. BTW, you are the reason I started using York Audio IRs!
1st SD passive
2nd emg 81
3rd fishman passive
4th fishman active
Play emg81 for at least 15 years and I love it !! but the duncan sh5 sound killer
Passive Duncans with Peavey gives a nice wet texture that I adore. Well done!
Over all I prefer the Duncan tone the most. I will say that to my ear the fishman modern active tone sounded like the Duncan with a tube screamer in front. Least favorite was the fishman passive voicing. I think the fishman modern would be better suited to drop B and lower given it's frequency range in the active voice.
Emg fan here but gotta admit the Duncan sounded great. The very end is the most telling when comparing these. Quick clips without drums. Was hoping you did that! Thanks 🤘🏽
Excellent demo, VERY well done. The EMG is my least favourite (in real life and on your demo). Although the SD Custom sounds open, I prefer a lot more the Fishman on active mode, it has a lot of clarity and the playing feel is a lot better than both SD and EMG. I tried them on multiple guitars and ended up using Fishman's moderns everywhere. Thanks for the great video!
Excellent pickup comparison demo. Seymour Duncans hands down!
they all sound great, it's like blue is my favorite color and deciding which hue I prefer the most. I like duncan classic > fishman passive > fishman active > emg 81. I have white passive duncan invaders with black poles in my snow white Jackson Kelly with black binding maple fretboard black sharkfin inlays and floyd rose... love it.
Duncan nailed it. I cant believe it.
I liked the passive Fishman until AB comparison
The Seymour Duncan sounded best to me, with the Fishman Fluence passive voicing being a close second. The actives were tied for me
I think the Custom sounds great and clear winner imo, but the Active Fishman when you hit the F chunks have an interesting sound like you can really hear the strings individually. liken it to if barbed wire was stringed kind of a tin chunka which was really a cool sound in drop C. I love my Pheonix 1000 with the custom in it. I didn't really care for the EMG because it sounded muffled not as many mids/highs i guess. Mesa Boogie Mini or any rectifier would be my vote for next amp to use.
Great comparison John!!
the more i hear the fishman fluence the more i love it
the articulation on the passive SD when picking single strings sounds much better. You can definitely hear the compression with EMG that if you do a lot of chugging would help tighten that up. Fishman's were weird, the active had like a weird I wanna call it chambering effect if that makes any sense and the passive mode wanted to be passive but was just active modeling of passive. SD great passive, EMG great active...Fishman not great at either
Great comparison, all sounded good but EMG is #1 for me, followed by the passive voiced Fishman at #2.
More presence with passive one... The first is the best for me. Dumarzio PafPro is the one for me. And you ? Gibson 490t is not bad or Classic57.
Wow this is great. Great song/riff choice. Compliments the back to back comparisons. Well thought out, John! Cheers bro
The fishman sounds most like it would be on an album. But the Seymour Duncan sounds the best. Especially on those open notes
another phenomenal video, love it. My fave sound was the SD Custom (passive) with that snarl and high-end detail. My least fave was the EMG 81TW. The Fishman pickup voicing's fell in the middle for me, but I definitely dig the 'OD/tubescreamer' vibe of the Fishman's.
Good video. I have the EMG808X in my Ibanez RGIF7, from comparisons it seems the X version of EMG is slightly brighter. You might like those
Yeah I definitely want to try one
It is. Because the headroom is higher, there's a bit less of that "limiting" effect and the lows are less compressed to the front, so overall the X sounds a bit leaner and brighter. I think both the standard as well as the X versions have their charm so it's mostly gonna come down to preference and the guitar they're sitting in.
I really love the bite of the Fishmans in active voicing.
Great demonstration! I found the differences between the mixes very subtle, but with the isolated tracks they became more apparent. I always have been an EMG fanboy, but I have to admit the Fishmans sounded great as well.
Awesome comparison!
Let's be fair: If you would hear a full song with either of those pickups, you would never think anything bad about the sound.
Still in such a comparison they're definitely different.
I was surprised how clearly I preferred the Duncans both in a mix and isolated.
In the mix the Fishman (not differentiating the voicings here) took the second place in my ears -
the EMG was very... doesn't hurt but doesn't do anything else either for me. Very "trivial" somehow.
Isolated I liked the EMG second best - the Fishman sounds weirdly cheap to me when isolated.
Although I wonder what EQing (on the amp or afterwards) would do... maybe some mids would make the EMG sound more alive.
And the Fishman could definitely need some lower mids when I hear it isolated.
All in all it's an easy choice for me.
Duncans all the way. 🙏
Not having to worry about batteries and so is another plus for me.
I know you wouldn't make this point when you're hunting for THAT tone.
It's still a solid argument for me in practice and when they would sound exactly the same I would of course go for the more convenient option.
Duncan but they all worked well with your mix. Great channel man, your work is greatly appreciated.
Oh one more thing maybe for the next Video. I would be interested to hear the picking Attack on single Notes on the high stings. On a Simple Melody around the 12th Fret with a Pull off and a hammer On will do. Just to hear the slight Picking Scratch.
But as always: Awesome Video!
Duncan custom for me. No matter what, a 6505 just sounds so great.
The best comparison video I've seen, well done man.
Should have added a fourth pickup… Vintage PAF with Alnico II magnet. Otherwise sick comparison. Nice work!
I always find answers in your videos! Thanks! :)
Only youtube content with valuable comparisons. Kudos! Thank you!
Cheers!
EMG 81
Fishman Active
Duncan’s
Fishman Passive
Love your comparison video. I would give a shot of Fishman pickups for my next guitar.
Seymour Duncan wins overall for me. It has the most bite and articulation. I do like the sound of the fishman active voicing for the low powerchord chug riffs though. It sounds like the EMG without all the mids scooped. Well done man!
I tought id need the fishman, but no, EMG allready have a couple, what i need are some pasei e SD baby. Tks a lot for this cool and helpfull clip my dude
Fishmans with active voicing fit my ear best in this particular context.
Engl would be a nice choice for one of the following vids.
But a rather different approach would be absolutely killer to watch some time near future though. I mean, shooting out hi gain amps with low-mid output pickups, and in reverse, hi output PUs with more vintage voiced amps (preferably boosted)) like the SV20 for example. That would be Totally Killer imho
Consider a similar test using the Full Shred and/or Nazgul instead of the Custom.