EMG 81 - fell out of favor (for me)

James Freeman

James Freeman

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Went from my Cort X-TH EMG 81/85 guitar to my Edwards with Seymour Duncan JB (SH-4) and 59 (SH-1) for a year.
Today I pulled my Cort, installed fresh 9v battery and.... I don't like what I hear.

The EMG 81 is flat and dull sounding to me now. 😐
The JB in comparison, chugs, snarls, bounces and responds to "digging in".

WTF? I used to like the EMG 81 very much.


EDIT:
Recorded sounds doesn't do justice to what I feel when playing. 🤔

JB Clean (DI track)


EMG 81 Clean (DI track)


JB Dist


EMG 81 Dist
 
Last edited:
You're wrong.

Err GIF
 
I've never got along with the EMG humbuckers. I like the old Mastertones I have in my LP copy much much better because they sound more like passive pickups, just very high output.
 
I have one guitar left with EMGs. 85 in the bridge and a 60 in the neck. I had put it away for probably 8 years and when I got it out it sounded dull with no top end. I used some deoxit on the potentiometers and it came back to life. Maybe those 25k pots are sensitive to humidity or just sitting around.
 
James Freeman said:
Went from my Cort X-TH EMG 81/85 guitar to my Edwards with Seymour Duncan JB (SH-4) and 59 (SH-1) for a year.
Today I pulled my Cort, installed fresh 9v battery and.... I don't like what I hear.

The EMG 81 is flat and dull sounding to me now. 😐
The JB in comparison, chugs, snarls, bounces and responds to "digging in".

WTF? I used to like the EMG 81 very much.


EDIT:
Recorded sounds doesn't do justice to what I feel when playing. 🤔

JB Clean (DI track)


EMG 81 Clean (DI track)


JB Dist


EMG 81 Dist
Click to expand...

The 81 is less hyped, more neutral with a dry midrange which makes it a flexible choice imo. I used to love it years ago but just got tired of dealing with batteries after so many years. I had multiple single sets as well so that just compounded the battery thing.
(i still have all those pickups though, can't get rid of stuff lol)
 
The 81 has always been my least favorite EMG. It’s too focused and narrow

I love the 85x and 60ax. I also like EMG single coils better than their humbuckers
 
Fresh string on both? I have a similar experience though. Have to adjust the settings to fit each.
 
Very similar situation: I had the Gibson Shred V, which had two 85s, and I liked it in the bridge (installed an HA-X to the neck), but some time after I got rid of that guitar I tried that 85 again, and I could hear the preamp hitting its ceiling and hated it.

Instead, eventually I went for a Blackout AHB-1 bridge and AS-1 neck in my last superstrat, and that had all the natural attack I could ever want, with no compression. Too bad the Blackouts are not so popular; to me they fulfill the promise of actives: no noise for the humbucker or Strat pickup (because of their balanced input preamp), full dynamic range (from the preamp's appropriately designed headroom), high output, which of course you could easily pad down with a resistor if you wanted, and the Strat pickup had equal output level to the humbucker.
 
Interesting. I was thinking about checking out the EMG 81/85 combo after only playing lower and medium output passive pickups.
 
all 81 is missing is the mechanical high resonant peak, just takes the slightest pre-gain high-mid boost to make it up, compare again. JB is an amazing pickup tho. supposedly the closest to single coil sound they could get out of a true humbucker. the SH-4 Jeff Bezos
 
sleewell said:
85 in the bridge is better


But passives are still better lol
Click to expand...

EMG Pi2 on a bridge 81 is most better, middle 3-way position with 85/89 neck and 81 phase reversed is the revered PRS rotary position 4 tone. u didn't think that was possible did you. EMGs ARE NOT DULL
 
In some applications, they work great and that's obvious. Context and all that blah blah...

Here's a context where I'm not liking them on their own; the first 2x the riff plays through it's the Orville with the Suhr Aldrich in the bridge, the 2nd two times it's the 81 in my Edwards. 3rd time the Aldrich is on the left and the EMG is on the right. Amp is the Electra Dyne boosted with a Zendrive into Friedman V30 and GB DynaCabs.



Hmm, the Audius link isn't showing up for me so here's Soundcrap



If this were a tight, chugging song and a different tone, the 81 would fair much better, but I am not a fan of that thing for non-chugga stuff. On their own, I think the EMG sounds like shit in comparison to the Aldrich. And I dialed the tone in using the EMG's!
 
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