What is the deal with EMG Pickups?!

I had 81's in my LTD M-1000 that I sold. I liked the neck pickup. Clean was suprisingly good. But it was really the high gain sound that I didn't like. To me it sounded too processed, almost fake. It may be just cause it is so much thicker. But for me, it doesn't work. And no it doesn't make things any easier to play. Anyway, I'll take good passive electronics anyday.

No need to feud though, it's all a matter of personal preference.
 
Yngvai X said:
Im sure many purists would absolutely vomit over *my* combination of gear (an EMG laiden guitar going into a Line6 HD147 amp....active pickups with a digital amp...damn straight bitches...ehehe) ;)
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Haha i use an EMG 81 laiden RAN custom guitar, going into a line6 Flextone2 head...and the other guitarist in my band plays with an 'EMG laiden' ibanez also going through an HD147... :loco:
 
In Zakk's case, you have to look as his WHOLE signal chain. He uses a JCM800 amp that is not very high gain;the combo of the hot signal from the EMGs and his distortion pedal slam the preamp tubes hard to get that tone he gets.

It's a matter of personal preferance-I like hot passives. My current main guitar has a BL L-500XL(the REAL thing-I bought mine right from Bill). It's plenty hot and has GREAT tone..very balanced and warm.
EMGs sound cold and sterile to me..but others, they might not.
 
Opus(sy) said:
Christ i dont think i've read more bullshit in my entire life. Personally i use the dimarzios that Malmsteen uses because well, he's my god and i want to be him...but i also have an EMG81, and its a damn fine pick up for playing metal. Really good high gain, bloody nice clean sound....and its sterile, so you can hear everything you're playing...so mistakes are more noticeable.

Oh and you mentioned 'This is why none of the truly great guitarists use EMGs', well i dont know what you think of Zakk wylde...but he is a damn fine guitarist...he uses EMGs.
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HA! Malmsteens pickups are just as muddy as EMGs. The only thing that saves him from being completely devoid of definition is the fact that it's a strat. And Malmsteens runs are ALWAYS out of time and fudgy. He's fast but not in the way Paul Gilbert and Jason Becker are. Those guys hit their notes right in time. Malmsteen just moves from point A to point B is somthing resembling an evenly timed run. Him at G3 was slop city. In terms of Zakk Wylde, his tone is bland and if you REALLY think the pentatonic scale is the be all and end off music then yeah, I guess he's pretty good. Personally I like people with class and style like Steve Vai a lot better than the pentatonic mayhem of Zakk. Once again, there is a reason that all guitarists who can actually play abandon EMG very early on. Why do you think MJR uses Dimarzio now? I think everyone would agree that his tone and overall quality increased 10 fold the second he switched to Dimarzio. "all the albums up to Twilight", yeah all both of them, and then they had their successful CDs.
 
SyXified said:
HA! Malmsteens pickups are just as muddy as EMGs.
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"Muddy". You keep using that word. I have a feeling it does not mean what you think it means.

Nice to have an opinion; unfortunately, I think your opinion would change if you pulled your head from between your tightly clenched buttocks.
 
SyXified said:
HA! Malmsteens pickups are just as muddy as EMGs. The only thing that saves him from being completely devoid of definition is the fact that it's a strat. And Malmsteens runs are ALWAYS out of time and fudgy. He's fast but not in the way Paul Gilbert and Jason Becker are. Those guys hit their notes right in time. Malmsteen just moves from point A to point B is somthing resembling an evenly timed run. Him at G3 was slop city. In terms of Zakk Wylde, his tone is bland and if you REALLY think the pentatonic scale is the be all and end off music then yeah, I guess he's pretty good. Personally I like people with class and style like Steve Vai a lot better than the pentatonic mayhem of Zakk. Once again, there is a reason that all guitarists who can actually play abandon EMG very early on. Why do you think MJR uses Dimarzio now? I think everyone would agree that his tone and overall quality increased 10 fold the second he switched to Dimarzio. "all the albums up to Twilight", yeah all both of them, and then they had their successful CDs.
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I think the boy's trolling us. :rolleyes:
 
Malmsteens guitar is clean, not muddy. Your confusing the muddy tone with something else. Malmsteen tends to play with lots of bass for his runs, if you ever paid attention to him while playing you'll notice most of the time his selector switch is all the way up. As for the mis-timming you speak of I'm not hearing it at all. As far as the whole emg thing goes it sounds good if the guitarist is good, just like everyother pickup. It's all a tone preference.
 
very clever guys, glad to see that when someone has an opinion you don't agree with, instead of bothering to say somthing intelligent and worthwhile you make bad dumb jokes and think that means you're clever. It's fine if you don't agree with me, but at least take the time to say somthing the matters rather than just be insulting for the sake of being insulting. I've bothered to listen to Malmsteen plenty. He was my fav guitarist for years and I own all his albums. But, as I got a more carefully tuned ear for timing, it became exceedingly evident that malmsteen is way off time with his runs. Just listen to the first simple minor runs of Far Beyond the Sun right after the big Eb to E chords. He arrives at the final note early every single time. That sort of thing is present ALL over the Concerto live DVD. Secondly, muddy means an excess of lows, mids, and gain for a tone that ends up not being well defined. Any time Malmsteen gets towards the lower strings it sounds like a huge blur. The Dimarzio site description of his pickups should be enough to comb that out. "We EQed the HS-3™ with a broad low-end while gently rolling back the top. The result is warmth without a glaring high-end" "The smooth tone curves of the HS-3™ produce a sweet over-drive tone without jagged edges." And the YJM he uses in tandem with the HS-3 is just an HS-3 with a different magnet. When you listen to Paul Gilbert, or Jason Becker, you hear EVERY note in a run with the attack of the pick sounding them all. Listen to the solo on Superheroes by Racer X. It's in perfect time and exceptionally well defined. OR listen to Viking Kong and hear what Yngwie would sound like if he were actually in time and playing on a guitar that had some real definition. Plus all of Yngwie's runs are the same, he's been recycling the same bag of tricks since the 80s. The 3 minor arpeggio forms up the neck, the diminished sweeps up the neck. The minor lick that utilizes the #4. All the runs based off the pattern for Trilogy Suite, which he does like 30 times a show. And the insesent resolve of just ending any run by sliding up the fret board all of a sudden and bending into key. I'd love to hear a well placed non-diatonic note out of him one day that actually relates to the the chord being played under it. Petrucci knows about those options and he dropped out of Berklee pretty early on so WHY should the man who has publically claimed to know "everything about music theory" not?
 
First off, your last post was not a troll one, good to see that. :cool:

Dude, don't blame the pickups for everything, they don't have a sound by themselves. It's the entire setup that makes the sound and honestly, the amp has WAY more effect on clarity than anything. I'm sick of seeing people replace their pickups and putting all the blame on them when they don't even have a descent setup! I mean, they are the cheapest link in the chain, but perhaps there's a reason for that, 'yaknow? :err:
 
thats how you should have posted in the first place, and i now respect your opinion. But i gotta agree with zax666, i have a cheap ass guitar with horrid pickups. I jammed a tube screamer on it and a better amp and it sounds 100x better. And i do agree that becker has better clarity than malmsteen, but malmsteens still a great guitarist none the less. Still like vai the most.
No wait the great kat is the best :worship: lol
 
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