EMG's to DI

[Ukapitalo]

What's your opinions on how the 81's sound when DI and re-amped. I never noticed anything wrong until I picked up my brothers guitar and recorded a song using his standard BCRich humbuckers and the tonal quality was much better after I put the tracks side by side. The EMG's had a real sharpness, almost twang sound where the BCRich was smooth and fell into simulation easily without overdoing the EQ. Anyone else notice this? What are you guys using?

 

[deLuther]

There is difference between passive and active pickups, later have high pass effect due to realisation of internal preamp. Sometimes passive pickups, sometimes active
Personally I`m don`t very like 81, prefer 85 instead. I`m tried 81X and 85 in my Caparison TAT, but native passive pickup was better.

 

[GuitarHack]

Not sure if it is going to help, but here is an EMG 81 DI from a Hellraiser I used to test Tubescreamer V's NO Tubescreamer.

Chain:

EMG81>Focusrite Saffire 24 Instrument Input (Zero Gain)-

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/24344836/TS Test DI.wav

I have a BC Rich HB in one other guitar at the moment, BUT it is in neck position of an 80's Warlock, so I cannot compare directly for you at the moment. I also HAD the same pickup (BDSM?) in the Bridge position and it sucked pretty hard..................no, not in a good toe-curling way. EMG Pwned it.

 

[Rex Rocker]

I like EMG's. They seem to work better for me than most passives I've tried with my setup.

Thanks to a couple of shootouts here I picked up an 81TW. I dug aspects of the 81 and 85 in the bridge position respectively, but neither convinced me 100%. Of course the 81TW is much closer the 81 than to the 85, but it has a little bit of what I like about both mixed into one pickup. That, and the single coil mode is sweet.

I run mine at 18V and I find DI's seem every bit as dynamic as passives. I heard no clipping nor see it in the DI's waveforms. I actually wanna run it @9V now because I want a little bit more of that compression of EMG's.

Either way, >I< like the DI's I'm getting of it with the Radial ProDI better than when I had the Countryman Type 85. Maybe my T85 was deffective all along, but man, the ProDI is much less noisy.

 

[Terminus]

They sound great but I would suggest doing the 18volt mod if you are unhappy with the sound at 9 volts.

I recently did a comparison between my 81 and a SD Blackout and there is so much more headroom with the blackouts it's ridiculous. Even tried lowering the 81 and still clips, so I'm about to mod the 18v in this week.

 

[Ukapitalo]

Yeah after listening to GuitarHacks DI file, my problem seems to be clipping. It's odd because no matter how low i adjust the input volume on everything there still seems to be noticeable clipping that really affects the tone. My setup is Rhodes performer w/ 81 and 85 > m audio audio buddy box > computer. When I switch to the 85 the clipping gets worse too. I've got every possible input setting at almost zero (guitar, DI box, system audio, and garageband inputs) and yet when I zoom in on the wave file there is obvious clipping occuring so it must be something with the pickups? They're definitely not too close to the strings, maybe switch the battery?

This is what I'm getting:

 

[Terminus]

The internal preamp on the pickup itself is what causes the clipping so there's not much that can be done about it other than to do the battery mod, and i'm not even sure that will get rid of all the clipping, just some of it.

 

[deLuther]

On jacksons situation with clipping is even more noticeable, because rear pickup located further from bridge than on other guitars (it`s a feature).
Just try 18 V mod and judge yourself.

I don`t think that blackout have larger headroom, from my experience with 85 and Ahb-1, when both pickups have the same height (on the same guitar), amount of clipping is comparable, Ahb-1 just have larger output.

 

[PD-Baraka]

EMG het set has less compression than a standard 81 but has the voicing.