Active Pickups

[Rocco Crocco]

I like my Fishman Fluence pickups in my Explorer, but I usually prefer higher output passives.

 

[Iron1]

I have Fishman Classics in my Jackson HT7 Pro, and love them. Never gotten along with EMGs for whatever reason, though. Given the option, I gravitate to passives almost every time. But, I'd take another guitar with Fishmans in it and likely be happy I did.

 

[Deadpan]

I have a few sets.

Still have the original set I purchased in the late 80s.

I swear they sound a bit different from the newer version I have. Hard to say for sure with them being in different guitars. They are ok but I only use them for testing purposes.

They do sound great for leads though.

Also have a set of the original SD Blackouts. The bridge pickup has so much lows it makes it unusable. I put the neck pickup in the bridge and it sounds much better.

Overall they sound better than a lot of passives but there are great passive that I just prefer more.

 

[la szum]

I watched a ton of comparison vids earlier this week of the more popular EMG humbuckers, always felt the Het’s had way more midrange than I’d prefer to have in a guitar mostly aimed at metal.

Scoop them amp mids all to hell and maybe it all balances out.

 

[la szum]

Not really into them, but I will take SD Blackouts over EMGs any day of the week

My fave active pickups of all time are the Duncan Livewire Dave Mustaine set. Those were ridiculously good
for being active pickups.

Out of production now, and supposedly he has a "new" set from Duncan. Those Livewires were something
special. I had them in a Dean V. They actually had some nice passive like volume roll off and didn't get
thin and shrill like most active p[[ups do when you try and pull that move.

 

[Bruce]

I think I have one guitar only with EMG if we aren’t counting my bass. It’s an 87 (ish) charvel model 6 with EMGs and I think a Floyd. It’s a great sounding guitar but I never play it. I should check the battery isn’t leaking.

 

[SymphonicDischord]

I have the Fishman Devin Townsend’s in my Les Paul and a set of the strat single coils in my PRS SE EG. As Drew mentioned, I really like the tonal options that the Fishman’s offer with the push/pull. On the strat set, I get a modern and vintage voicing.

I also have a set of EMG 808s in my multiscale Jackson 7 string. In the past I’ve never been much of a fan of EMGs but they do seem to work well in the 7 string. In particular I like the sound of the neck pup with a clean. There’s a lot of clarity and definition on the lower strings.

 

[DrewJD82]

@DrewJD82 EMG 81 is the opposite of a smiley face EQ. Usually passive PUs are much more scooped (or „open“, as the passive PU aficionado would say). That‘s what the Het Set (and the 57/66) is about - a more „open“, passive-like sound with emphasized bass and highs.

Yeah, it’s been years since I used an 81 and it was always a certain midrange I attributed to it I didn’t dig. Once I got it working in my LPC Saturday night I heard it instantly but it sounds a lot better in the AxeFX tones I have dialed in than it did with the Digitech 2101 tones I was dialing in 25 years ago.

It definitely lets me use the smiley face EQ on the amp without turning into a mud fest. I barely got any work done on my song challenge yesterday, I found the “No More Tears” isolated guitar track and spent about an hour trying to recreate it then jamming along with songs off No More Tears longer than I should have.

 

[Piing]

I'd love to have enough Strats to have the DG20 set in one. Because it does do a "thing."

I've been swapping between the DG20 and the Fat'50/Fat'50/SSL-5 pickguards at my American Deluxe Strat endless times for about 20 years (I got the SA-SA-SA/EXG/SPC set before it existed as the "DG20" gilmour-sponsored thing), until I finally have two Strats, one with each. I couldn't live without both of them. When I get frustrated with one I swap to the other and think, oh! this is heaven! how could I've been playing with that other crap? Then the cycle is reverted after few months, but now I do not have to swap pickguards anymore.

The juice of the EMG SA, which was also used my Mark Knopfler and many others, is not just on the pickups but on the versatile EXG and SPC controls.

I've uploaded this now to YouTube - as unlisted, because it is just an unfinished and imperfect experiment - just to show one of these tones that I could get almost instantly with a couple of adjustments of the EXG and the SPC, but could get me a headache of tweaking with the passive pickups

 

[DrewJD82]

I've been swapping between the DG20 and the Fat'50/Fat'50/SSL-5 pickguards at my American Deluxe Strat endless times for about 20 years (I got the SA-SA-SA/EXG/SPC set before it existed as the "DG20" gilmour-sponsored thing), until I finally have two Strats, one with each. I couldn't live without both of them. When I get frustrated with one I swap to the other and think, oh! this is heaven! how could I've been playing with that other crap? Then the cycle is reverted after few months, but now I do not have to swap pickguards anymore.

The juice of the EMG SA, which was also used my Mark Knopfler and many others, is not just on the pickups but on the versatile EXG and SPC controls.

I've uploaded this now to YouTube - as unlisted, because it is just an unfinished and imperfect experiment - just to show one of these tones that I could get almost instantly with a couple of adjustments of the EXG and the SPC, but could get me a headache of tweaking with the passive pickups



View attachment 3621

Yeah, I definitely enjoy having one Strat with the EMG’s and one Strat with some more vintage-spec’d pickups to do the classic Strat thing. That said, I find myself gravitating towards the Gilmour Strat more than the other one, mainly because of the boosters and just being able to fine tune a tone right there from the guitar. I’ve got a couple presets where it sounds AWESOME with them rolled off and just gets more awesome as you add in the bass/treble boost (I always forget which one is which).

 

[andergtr]

i have an EMG set in one of my partscasters and it sounds great. sometimes you need that sound. mine has the SA/SA/89 configuration, and my tech wired it so that it autosplits the 89 when used with the middle pickup.

 

[Piing]

Yeah, I definitely enjoy having one Strat with the EMG’s and one Strat with some more vintage-spec’d pickups to do the classic Strat thing. That said, I find myself gravitating towards the Gilmour Strat more than the other one, mainly because of the boosters and just being able to fine tune a tone right there from the guitar. I’ve got a couple presets where it sounds AWESOME with them rolled off and just gets more awesome as you add in the bass/treble boost (I always forget which one is which).

For lead tones I always have the SPC (Mid-booster) between 8 and 10, and the EXG (V-Shape EQ) between 0 and 2, or slightly higher for a more crispy rhythm tone.

 

[Stone]

I've been swapping between the DG20 and the Fat'50/Fat'50/SSL-5 pickguards at my American Deluxe Strat endless times for about 20 years (I got the SA-SA-SA/EXG/SPC set before it existed as the "DG20" gilmour-sponsored thing), until I finally have two Strats, one with each. I couldn't live without both of them. When I get frustrated with one I swap to the other and think, oh! this is heaven! how could I've been playing with that other crap? Then the cycle is reverted after few months, but now I do not have to swap pickguards anymore.

The juice of the EMG SA, which was also used my Mark Knopfler and many others, is not just on the pickups but on the versatile EXG and SPC controls.

I've uploaded this now to YouTube - as unlisted, because it is just an unfinished and imperfect experiment - just to show one of these tones that I could get almost instantly with a couple of adjustments of the EXG and the SPC, but could get me a headache of tweaking with the passive pickups



View attachment 3621

Beautiful playing and love that tone, but tone is often in the player itself

 

[Piing]

Common generic misconceptions about actives:

- They are all for high gain
- They shape the tone
- They compress
- They are not "organic", "articulated", "expressive"... whatever BS
- They defeat the "Vintage" (whatever that is) characteristic of passive pickups
- They are less versatile than passive pickups

There are cases, but they are not all like that. The EMG SA is an example that contradicts all that.

Just think what happens when you connect your guitar cable to a pedal: they all have a preamp or buffer of some kind inside, so you are already making your pickups signal "active", no matter how "passive"and "vintage" you think they are. The only difference is that with active pickups that buffer circuit is inside the pickups, while with the pedals it is at the other side of the guitar cable (plus the noise accumulated at the cable).

 

[ChangelingIX]

I have never tried Blackouts. How would you describe them, compared to EMGs?

Yep, what Piing posted above mine is relevant and correct. Something to also add to this as well is that pickups like the Blackouts tend to be discussed in a very general way, like people saying "Oh I tried Blackouts and didn't like them" or saying "Oh Blackouts are my favorite actives" etc.....the problem with this is that there's a variety of different Blackouts from SD that, in my experience, all sound and respond considerably different from each other. Like speaking for myself, I never really cared much for the original Blackouts. As someone else mentioned in this thread, the bridge pickup was too boomy for my needs and I just couldn't click with them. However I am currently using a set of the Jeff Loomis Blackouts and find that the low end is actually much better balanced, with considerably more bite and responsiveness in the upper-mids when compared to how the o.g. Blackouts were. And I found the same applied to the Mustaine Live Wire Blackouts and the EMTY set, all of them sounded and responded differently from each other, so keep that in mind if you're ever listening to or trying out a set of Blackouts, they're not all the same.
And truthfully I can say that about EMG pickups too. While I think the EMG's do tend to have a more uniform kind of tone and response across the board with their active pickups, there is still some signifcant differences to be found between them as well.

So it's kind of difficult to compare the two brands (SD Blackouts and EMG actives) because there's a lot of variety there.
If you ask "How does the original Blackouts compare to an 81/85 set" or "how does the Loomis Blackouts compare to the GTV set", etc., that's a little easier to explain :)

I apologize if this seems nitpicky, not meant to be at all, just wanted to point this out for people who might not realize the differences and just assume that all active pickups from these brands all sound & respond the same, because most often they do not.

 

[laxu]

I have a set of Mastertone active pickups in my Fenix LP copy. They sound like nice vintage voiced, high output pickups. Which I suppose is a bit of an outlier for active pickups where most models are marketed towards metal.

That said, I don't see a reason to buy active pickups these days. Let's look at the benefits:

• Less noise. Well, that's nice for sure but I don't find the difference to be that big vs passive humbuckers. A noise gate is more effective for most situations.
• Low impedance. Sure, helps avoid cable related signal loss and could mean you don't need an input buffer on your pedalboard. But if you have any "always on" pedal then it's not much of a factor.
• High gain. You have so many pedals to choose from as well as high gain preamps in amps that having more output in the pickups is irrelevant.

Needing a battery is an inconvenience though.

I think basses do it better, by using passive pickups with a preamp you can toggle on/off and having an onboard EQ. That makes it different enough to be worthwhile as its own thing. But with guitarists being so conservative, it's hard to get traction for that now.

 

[la szum]

I've been swapping between the DG20 and the Fat'50/Fat'50/SSL-5 pickguards at my American Deluxe Strat endless times for about 20 years (I got the SA-SA-SA/EXG/SPC set before it existed as the "DG20" gilmour-sponsored thing), until I finally have two Strats, one with each. I couldn't live without both of them. When I get frustrated with one I swap to the other and think, oh! this is heaven! how could I've been playing with that other crap? Then the cycle is reverted after few months, but now I do not have to swap pickguards anymore.

The juice of the EMG SA, which was also used my Mark Knopfler and many others, is not just on the pickups but on the versatile EXG and SPC controls.

I've uploaded this now to YouTube - as unlisted, because it is just an unfinished and imperfect experiment - just to show one of these tones that I could get almost instantly with a couple of adjustments of the EXG and the SPC, but could get me a headache of tweaking with the passive pickups



View attachment 3621

You know when you are experienced enough to know when someone feeds you a meal
and you really enjoy it and are perfectly sated, but then you can also feel the GAS building??

Yeah, you just did that to me right now.

 

[Stone]

So Further Tweaking for my Plush preset I'm Finding that Actives are not the best choice for this tone
I experimented with my Passive Lindy Fralin P-90 while still not what i want it did demonstrate that passives seem to be the better choice
I'm thinking Ill have to purchase my Revstar II sooner than i expected and put in my Sweet PAF pickups in it
Shows also how Important pickups are in the chain no matter how much tweaking one can do with any modeler
Now I have to sell the wife isn't gonna be easy I tell you

 

[fretworn]

I have a set of Mastertone active pickups in my Fenix LP copy. They sound like nice vintage voiced, high output pickups. Which I suppose is a bit of an outlier for active pickups where most models are marketed towards metal.

That said, I don't see a reason to buy active pickups these days. Let's look at the benefits:

• Less noise. Well, that's nice for sure but I don't find the difference to be that big vs passive humbuckers. A noise gate is more effective for most situations.
• Low impedance. Sure, helps avoid cable related signal loss and could mean you don't need an input buffer on your pedalboard. But if you have any "always on" pedal then it's not much of a factor.
• High gain. You have so many pedals to choose from as well as high gain preamps in amps that having more output in the pickups is irrelevant.

Needing a battery is an inconvenience though.

I think basses do it better, by using passive pickups with a preamp you can toggle on/off and having an onboard EQ. That makes it different enough to be worthwhile as its own thing. But with guitarists being so conservative, it's hard to get traction for that now.

I use LR Baggs piezo electric pups which always require a battery and generally a preamp on board.

I have one currently in my PRS p24. I used to have them in a pair (sequentially) of Godins. (I have a story about the development of the pick-up but another time.)

In fact, I used the piezoelectric pup on the TGF week #1 submission, satisfyingly emulating 12 string guitars w/ the Ric O Twelve patch.

 

[shanesiegle]

I have a set of Fishman Fluence Classics in an EBMM Luke and another set in one of my PRS guitars. I love them both, lead tones are out of this world and the clarity and feel are superb. I would have no issues having them in all my guitars other than having to remember batteries!