pickups

[Vuts]

Hi
A pickup question
well i ll be buying a guitar soon so what do you suggest

Active ? Passive? i never owned a guitar with active pickups
is it pain in the a.. with the battery ??

whats the difference between EMG 81/85 active series with the EMG LH series?

any ideas?
i m looking for clean distortion, metal sound

i m a bit confused with all the options

 

[Gnash]

An EMG is a one trick pony, but they have the most balls. I like a Seymor Duncan Distortion SH-6, or a Dimebucker, in the bridge, and a Dimarzio Evolution in the neck right now. :Smokin: uke:

 

[Ravenous Enemy]

i just got an gibson explorer with EMG 81/60 set. VERY good for distortion sounds, but definitely a one trick pony as Gnash said - if you want a kind of classic rock tone or something they are not much cop. I also have a Custom Custom / '59 SeymourDuncan set in my washburn, i really like how verstaile they are, will pretty much do anything including metal, but they don't have the stereotypical metal tone straight away. As far as actives go, EMGs are very straightforward to fit and the battery doesn't seem to be much of an issue to me. Try some duncans and EMGs out and see which ones you prefer the sounds of - ignore the other issues - tone is of the essence!

 

[FULLMETALSPEEDO]

I've been running an EMG 81/85 set in my Gibson SG and, for the amount that I play, the 9 volt lasted a year. Just make sure you unplug the guitar when not in use.

 

[Jacob Hansen]

I would sure go for EMG 81, but keep your old passive pick-ups in case you need to go back to them. The 81 is, as suggested, not very versatile, but then again, it's the easiest to give you that really chunky, cutting attack that's so great for modern metal. Another plus is that you can take down your gain on the amp a notch, and thus have less noise.

It's a great pickup. I've used it since '91.