What's with the EMG bashing?

[SkuttleFunk]

tried EMG's in several of my basses. spent several years really trying to like them. got tired of yawning every time I plugged those basses into my Mesa D-180 head and 2x15 Road Ready cab. Offed those basses for something else (can you say Kubicki X-Factor and Ken Smith Chuck Rainey model 5-string!  :blob7

since then I've never looked back, although I would like to have one of those basses back so I could load a Nordstrand into it. do I bash EMG's? nope. but I won't buy them either


IMO a mid-80's marketing button I have from EMG states my thoughts perfectly. this button reads

  EMG
Suck Tone!

I do need to scan that wonderful button and post the image here sometime


clearly the EMG marketing master minds were thinking that this would be understood as implying that their pickups sucked up all the available tone and rammed it on towards the amp ... but it turned out to be one of the year's biggest NAMM marketing blunders

all the best,

R

 

[DocNrock]

Sounds like they may not work well for bass, but they kick axx on the guitar!

 

[SrDeMaFp]

That's a sweet V. I'd learn to love EMG's for that one.  :icon_thumright:

Oh man, it sounded even better than it looked. The ONLY reason why that went was (for whatever reason) my hand stuck to the neck and the neck was a bit thick, as I have small-ish hands. Otherwise, I would've kept it. It looked/looks KILLER. And sounded even better. Still kicking myself over that one... :sad1:

 

[Mapleg4]

Sounds like they may not work well for bass, but they kick axx on the guitar!

I love my 35DC's!

 

[TexxasJam]

i like the look of them, simple and flat.

+1... however they sound, they definitely look cool!

I like the white ones on a white axe.  :glasses10:

Kinda like this?...

I wish I hadn't sold that...

I guess I was just expecting a lot with my EMG's (81&85) that came in my ESP.  They didn't seem to have much low end, and the thing I liked the least about them was that it was a lot harder to get pinch harmonics out of them than my passive pickups.

Maybe you had them set up wrong or something? I get PH's by accident with EMG's. :dontknow: :icon_scratch:

THAT'S WHAT DADDY LIKES!  Sharp axe, man!  :guitarplayer2:

BTW, I fixed my typo back there.

 

[DocNrock]

My rear-loaded strat body just shipped.  Rear routed and routed in the front for dual HBs.  EMG 81/85.  Double wide battery route in the back for the 18v mod.  Alpine white swamp ash body.  Ain't no EMG bashing here.

 

[Xplorervoodoo]

My rear-loaded strat body just shipped.  Rear routed and routed in the front for dual HBs.  EMG 81/85.  Double wide battery route in the back for the 18v mod.  Alpine white swamp ash body.  Ain't no EMG bashing here.

Man after my own heart...  :icon_thumright:

I'm going with a 60/81 in the V I plan to make next...

 

[DocNrock]

My rear-loaded strat body just shipped.  Rear routed and routed in the front for dual HBs.  EMG 81/85.  Double wide battery route in the back for the 18v mod.  Alpine white swamp ash body.  Ain't no EMG bashing here.

Man after my own heart...  :icon_thumright:

I'm going with a 60/81 in the V I plan to make next...

That would be cool, as well!  :icon_thumright:

 

[dmraco]

My rear-loaded strat body just shipped.  Rear routed and routed in the front for dual HBs.  EMG 81/85.  Double wide battery route in the back for the 18v mod.  Alpine white swamp ash body.  Ain't no EMG bashing here.

don't the 81/85 combo work on 12V?  What is the 18V mod??

 

[DocNrock]

My rear-loaded strat body just shipped.  Rear routed and routed in the front for dual HBs.  EMG 81/85.  Double wide battery route in the back for the 18v mod.  Alpine white swamp ash body.  Ain't no EMG bashing here.

don't the 81/85 combo work on 12V?  What is the 18V mod??

Typically they run on 9v.  They can run on up to 27v.  The 18v mod is a pretty popular mod I have found from other boards.  I am told the extra battery fattens up the sound somewhat.  I've also heard that running them on 27v is indistinguishable from 18v.

 

[DiMitriR33]

though i can't say from real experience like an a/b comparison, a higher voltage shouldn't "fatten" anything. but it is supposed to improve the fidelity or thats the gist i get talking to an engineer friend. basically making them even more transparent, but not in a way that would be described as sterile. it might liven them up. if they run off an opamp the voltage is normally +/- 15 or even 18 for some if i remember right so 27 or more might work, but i bet the only reason 18 volts makes a difference is that 9 volts gives +/- 4.5 and is soo far below what some component is designed to work on that the transistor wont operate like it should. the signal never reaches the battery voltage so i doubt headroom is a problem and current is minimal so i doubt it's sag.

hey pulling batteries from our stomp boxes and powering them with 12 or 18 volt wall warts might give similar results, but it might also set fire to your pedal board.

 

[DocNrock]

though i can't say from real experience like an a/b comparison, a higher voltage shouldn't "fatten" anything. but it is supposed to improve the fidelity or thats the gist i get talking to an engineer friend. basically making them even more transparent, but not in a way that would be described as sterile. it might liven them up. if they run off an opamp the voltage is normally +/- 15 or even 18 for some if i remember right so 27 or more might work, but i bet the only reason 18 volts makes a difference is that 9 volts gives +/- 4.5 and is soo far below what some component is designed to work on that the transistor wont operate like it should. the signal never reaches the battery voltage so i doubt headroom is a problem and current is minimal so i doubt it's sag.

hey pulling batteries from our stomp boxes and powering them with 12 or 18 volt wall warts might give similar results, but it might also set fire to your pedal board.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that are not "supposed" to happen, but things happen that are unexpected. 

 

[ildar]

hey pulling batteries from our stomp boxes and powering them with 12 or 18 volt wall warts might give similar results, but it might also set fire to your pedal board.

Not to hijack, but...
Running stomps on 12v is a very common thing to do, esp. with dirt boxes. I'd be very careful about 18v, some can take it, some can't. Conventional wisdom is higher voltage results in more headroom, with stompboxes anyway.
<end hijack>

 

[JamesL]

Personally I just don't like the way actives sound.. They have no 'life' to them...
I'd rather take a crappy passive over a quality EMG any day but that's just me..

I much prefer the sound of passive.  :guitaristgif: :rock-on:

 

[ildar]

I think what happens with EMGs is kind of the same thing that happens with solid state amps. It's not that they necessarily sound worse, just that they sound different. Guitarists are notorius creatures of habit, and anything that is outside of the frame of reference of vintage sound is not accepted. Of course, vintage sound is what is blithely accepted as "good", and little progress is striven for.
My opinion, of course.

 

[Xplorervoodoo]

I think what happens with EMGs is kind of the same thing that happens with solid state amps. It's not that they necessarily sound worse, just that they sound different. Guitarists are notorius creatures of habit, and anything that is outside of the frame of reference of vintage sound is not accepted. Of course, vintage sound is what is blithely accepted as "good", and little progress is striven for.
My opinion, of course.

Well said.

 

[stratplayer1]

I have an emg 81 in one of my guitars, It's ok I prefer passive pups though, what I don't like about it is its output is very even, sounds "flat" and seems to lack character because of this, however throw a good eq pedal in your chain and it really brings them to life, I also feel this way about some solid state amps, tubes = char, thats just my opinion

 

[Fish Out of Water]

I agree with you on that one.  Since I got my Marshall Vitage-Modern head, I feel like I can't get a decent tone outta anything else.  I fear that I've become a tube head snob.... Still prefer passive pickups tho...

 

[LeeSkelly]

I wear a few different hats with a few different groups for fun. I'm really a passive guy most of the time but on occasion EMGs can cut through well. I tend to use the cocked wah and massive gain thing to get a little scoop before opening up the prog-with-harmonic-pinches stuff. That's just about the only place I use it though.  Honestly, I think i get just as wide a bandwidth out of my G&L split "z" coils. But if the tone works for you in whatever context you play in, great. seriously, trust your ears.

 

[jackthehack]

Most of the guitarists I see using EMG, especially the 81/85 HB type active sets seem to play metal/shred and through effects chains to the point that if there was any nuance to the pickup you wouldn't be able to tell anyway.

Just out of curiousity, anybody using an active 81/85 setup for genres other than metal/shred? Have clips/links to such?