The ugly truth of EMG Guitar and Bass pickups
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- Опубліковано 3 лют 2024
- Hello everyone in this video We talked about Emg pickups really are bad or its just miss information, bad publicity and old fashioned trend.
Hopefully enjoy please share like and subscribe
I have a few guitars with EMG's and a bunch with passive PU's. The one area where the EMG's shine above the passives is for leads. They have more sustain and compression making those high notes ring out loud and clear. For rhythym guitar I prefer passive pickups for that bass response and thump through the speakers.
I feel like this video is 10 years late tbh.
It’s okay. In a few years I bet people will want that “classic EMG sound” and knock Fishman for being so popular like they did to EMG.
I have never seen someone listen to a song and say "this song would be better if only they used passive pickups". If it's a good song its a good song!
Actives are bridging the gap between active and passive. In the future I expect the use of actives to continue to grow because the benefits not only outweigh the downside, but the downside is going away. You can get the best of both worlds. EMGs are still extremely popular, Fishman is growing, Duncan makes actives, and there will be more competition in the future. The 81 exploded in popularity in the 80s because players wanted more gain with more headroom. Amps were getting hotter and pickups were needed that were totally noiseless. The combination of an 81 running through a Boogie, hot Marshall or Soldano is just classic. It's the standard for high gain tone. The biggest hangup a lot of players have about EMG is that they run off batteries (the active EMGs, not their passive models).
You know how obtuse people get. Guitar players take that to a entirely new level with their superstition and proneness to unverified truisms and disinformation. The EMG skepticism is completely unfounded.
💯 true. Thanks for the comment
Couldn't agree more. What's wrong with having an appreciation for everything at our disposal? I love both passives and actives for what they each can offer. Active pickups offer saturation AND clarity that passives can't match under higher gain situations. Passives offer more dynamics and touch response (neither of which is very meaningful if you're playing with high gain). Actives are also extremely easy to record because of the compressed dynamics that corksniffers bitch about. People tend to forget that frequency spikes are more often than not undesirable in music production.
Yes, agree...
I love my Emg57...
But i have a really wierd combo in my sls elite... A Emg57 as bridge and an alnico fluence modern at the neck...
If anybody play's the same set outthere, let me know and tell me why...😅
they're just a different flavour of pickups that sound and do a certain thing, i get how the active/preamp part can sway people's opinions, but there are also a lot more pickup options in the last 15 years or so
actives have had a long association with metal i guess since really Metallica, Slayer etc.. were using them, they're stock on a lot of esp guitars, some brands have added fishman fluence to their line ups
but don't forget Steve Lukather, David Gilmour or Mark Knopfler were using emgs, just to name a few, they're simply a different flavour, how you dial them in, play with them makes all the difference
I held off messing with EMGs for the longest time because I could not get over the the thought of having a battery in my guitar, lol.
It sucks, lol.
yea because swapping a battery every 1500 hours of playtime is so time consuming.
@@ryinrumery2124It’s a non issue, but still, it doesn’t beat the idea of being able to never worry about it at all. Guitar plugged in the whole time or not.
@@ordohereticus3427 No guitar/bass should be plug'd in all the time...
Safety reason's...
I think the hate for EMG pickups come from people that look for more traditional sound. I love how EMGs sound on distorted but cleans can sound sterile. (I dont really play clean stuff so thats ok for me)
Its good that today we have so much different pickups to choose from.
I feel the opposite. Cleans sound wayy better on EMGs to me. Fuller, more low end, so much clarity. A tip for everyone out there- try an 81 in the neck position in place of the usual 85. I run 60/bridge, 81/neck and it’s KILLER 🤘
Thank you for saying what I have been thinking for a long while now. EMGs are great!
I enjoy my 81 85 in the Explorer kit I built. That said I highly prefer passive pups with a separate active preamp.
Is Just preferences. Like I said in this video my favorite pickups gotta be the EMG MF signature and those are passive based on the legendary set of Seymour Duncan JB and jazz. Thanks for the comment.
@mvyper
Separate pre amp as in pedal or rack pre amp or another brand on board pre.
Cheers!
@@flamulated séparate on board pre. I like to put one in some of my kit guitars.
Things stand the test of time for a reason. But always just rock what you like
EMG's marketing is really really weird. They market the 85 as mainly a rhythm/neck pickup, where I find it sounding really really good in the bridge too. They market the 60 as a rhythm/neck only pickup, but it also works really well in the bridge for an active classic rock tone. And then, like you said, the 57 is marketed as a PAF-like pickup, but imho it doesn't really sound like a PAF at all. Maybe compared to the rest of EMG actives, it does. But overall, it sounds way too aggressive to be a traditional PAF.
Agreed 💯. Thanks for the comment.
I love Emg pickups. Rather them over passive anyday.
Cheers for the vid.
Thanks 🙏
Perhaps that gotta be the most annoying thing of owning an active guitar specially if you're on a 18 or 24 volt mode; but if we are brutally honest unless you play full-time 8 hours a day you don't gonna change that battery in a year or more.
@@solomonicdemons680 yeah you really gotta play them solid for hours a day everyday for months. I’ve got a Hellraiser with Actives and I haven’t changed the battery in over 2 years and it’s still going. I don’t play for hours everyday. Plugged in maybe 7hrs a week and never had a problem. Got it tested a few months ago and battery was still fine. I play other guitars without actives, but my go too is Emg’s for that extra punch.
808 on my 8-string, 909X on my 9-strings and 81-7X on my 7-string. I love EMGs.
Emgs always sound the same , I love how they feel with the power, but there’s not much tone availability , with traditional paf pickups there’s wide ranges of different sounds and even the same two pickups can even sound different, especially old Gibson pickups there not all made exactly the same some are great some are not good
It depends upon what you play. The 81 is still killer for thrash and death metal, but many people want something different: more bass, more mids.... whatever. I suggest you try 3-4 pickups if you want to try some: Fishman Fluence Modern bridge, FF Will Adler and the Seymour Duncan Dimebag bridge. Oh: and the RZK or Richard Kruspe Fishman bridge pickup because his model's sound will probably be most similar to the EMG 81(?).
Hi thanks for the comment. I did owned a Dean Razorbolt in the past that one came with a Seymour Duncan dimebucker its one of my favorite pickups very trebelish and not that versatile but i Really like it ( also i had a guitar with a billlawrance L500Xl and i can say that I prefer the Duncan version ). I definitely will try a Fishman that can offer something similar with the ability of a multivoicing alternative for something more dark like a Seymour Duncan Nazgul or Pegasus. I like Fishmans hopefully soon I can make a video about those great pickups and the revolutionary technology that offer
Use your own ear. If you like them, use them. Many a famous artist has stolen the old pick-up or two from their first guitar and put them on the new flashy one because they liked/identified with that sound.
bro where do u live? the reason i ask is it looks like you have a air purifier system for clean air like you would have in a bunker, really cool.
Thanks for the comment. This is just my basement.
they sound tribble clean or on the edge. you guys play your amps, not your guitars
I'll use what I like and I like EMG's!
Th EMG 81 is hard to beat for brutal tones. Even at 9 volts.
Indeed. Its a classic
At least my emg 81 gives me the sound i like without any noise, not like the fluence modern i got...
My Emg57 paf style pup has a little bit of ground noise, but no compare to the fluence...
For them i need a good noise gate...
The drummer does not like the guitar pickup. I dont like your cymbals too. Lol. EMGs since 93 here and counting...
Well is electric drums. I can understand that part.😂
I love emg
Nice riffs man
Thanks
What a dramatic title haha
You have the best cheap rig ive ever seen
Cheap for life 🤣 lml