EMG 81 - fell out of favor (for me)

State of Epicicity said:
How are those Parallel Axis pickups on there? I'd love to know how well that particular neck pickup balances with the bridge.
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I like the neck pickup a lot. It's fat and clear with good bite. Takes gain very well. I'm not really sold on the HB though. It's the Original version. Not bad, just not my kind of thing in the mids with this guitar -- hard to say why exactly. It may work better in another guitar though, not giving up on it yet.
 
LeftyLoungeLizard said:
In my 40+ years of playing, I haven't been 10ft near any EMG pickup (that I know of).

Ever.
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I avoided them for years, wasn't interested. then I got a used guitar for 100 bucks that had 81/85 in it, thought ehhh lemme see what these are about for myself, now I have several with emgs in them, i also kept some with passives just so I have options in the studio
 
The only EMG experience I had was with the 81/60s in a Jim Root tele with the 18v mod. My perception of them is that they translated a lot better with tube amps than modelers. Playing them through a gained up Friedman or Mark series amp was pure magic. Just something about the mid voicing and clarity that pushed those amps to another level. It was unique and I definitely miss that! Using them with a modeler, they sounded good and I could hear what they were trying to do, but it never hit that next level.

Right now my favorite active pups in the Fishman classic open core. Have them in a Charvel and they sound great into everything. Much different vibe than the EMGs I had, but killer in their own way.
 
TheTrueZoltan! said:
Why would anyone not put EMGs in all of their guitars?

Feels Episode 1 GIF by THE NEXT STEP
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cause they only know EMGs via the tone-sucking solderless modular system they come with. dupont connectors. when you have 6 fucking quick connects and a $0.10 bleedy bus between low impedance pickup and output jack your tone is fucked before it even gets out. a regular real 25k pot and a hearty bright cap is all you need for EMGs to shine like they're meant to, no extra battery bullshit. advertised active benefits of zero noise, minimal magnetic string damping, weather sealed, and a fuckin bonus, oh now they actually sound really really good all of a sudden. I thought you needed an OD808 for that. no. just remove the trash between true source and true amp.

1000194381.jpg
 
0XI0 said:
cause they only know EMGs via the tone-sucking solderless modular system they come with. dupont connectors. when you have 6 fucking quick connects and a $0.10 bleedy bus between low impedance pickup and output jack your tone is fucked before it even gets out. a regular real 25k pot and a hearty bright cap is all you need for EMGs to shine like they're meant to, no extra battery bullshit. advertised active benefits of zero noise, minimal magnetic string damping, weather sealed, and a fuckin bonus, oh now they actually sound really really good all of a sudden. I thought you needed an OD808 for that. no. just remove the trash between true source and true amp.

View attachment 34342
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Interesting; I had never heard this. Thanks for the tip! So that is a 1nF you're using for the bright cap?
 
State of Epicicity said:
So that is a 1nF you're using for the bright cap?
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I think it's a 1uF? 0.1uF?? I have no idea. it was in a cir-kit diy pedal kit bag of parts.

1000194394.jpg


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============================

I got a breadboard and a bunch of cir-kit diy pedal kits from stompboxparts.com and i just started plugging away at random with the 25k pin pot and whatever caps were in the kits.

stompboxparts.com

CIR-KIT™️ Components

Top Quality Parts for Guitar Effects Pedals and DIY Music Devices. Knobs, Pots, Switches, Kits, LEDs, Enclosures, Jacks, Wire, Resistors, Capacitors, Semiconductors
stompboxparts.com stompboxparts.com

went to the store and picked up a bag of random similar value candy and went through them all, the white plastic .1J63 still sounded best. I never have a problem with EMGs solderless tone at full volume, but factory pots rolled down sound so dead. 0.1J63 with a 81 and regular 25k pot makes it so loud and bright rolled down. beyond usable, I compare it to factory PRS bright cap characteristic, IYKYK. EMGs opposite of dead rolled down. spicy in fact.

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I want to say it's one of these out of the 3-band EQ kit

1000194401.jpg
 
Oh, that's a massively large value; very cool. I never considered that you could use regular old caps and resistors on active pickups to shape the signal like you would on passives, just with different values. I actually have an EMG 85, a Duncan Blackout AHB-1, and the Duncan Blackout AS-1, which is their "single coil." Now I'm wondering about what I could do with those.

Recently I've gotten into shifting the resonant peak of passives, and I just assumed you couldn't do that with actives, but now I wonder. Since you're brightening the signal on rollback with the cap, I guess it's probably the same as a cap only treble bleed on a passive pickup, where it blocks lows at a certain cutoff point.

With passives at least, if you go to really low cap values, like below 100pF, the same bleed that was just blocking lows starts actually to shift upward the resonant peak! This is a really cool effect, and you can tame it's effect with a resistor. So I wonder on an active if that's possible.

But bigger than that, I'm interested if you can shift downward the resonant peak on an active. I do this now on my passive bridge, which is very harsh, but I run a 2.2nF cap in parallel with a 220k resistor between the output lug and ground of the volume pot, to have a big downshift of the resonant peak when the volume is at full, then for that shift to go away as I roll back; it works with a treble bleed too.

Anyway, you got my wheels spinning here. Thanks for the inspiration!
 
Anyone compared the older 81 to the newer version?

I have a 2000s 81 that is pretty bland and compressed. I also have a late 80s to early 90s 81 that I don't remember sounding like the newer model. Plan to swap it in the same guitar.
 
State of Epicicity said:
Recently I've gotten into shifting the resonant peak of passives, and I just assumed you couldn't do that with actives, but now I wonder.
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afaik the output of EMGs is from the opamp preamp circuit, i don't think the actual coils would ever see a load on the other side of the preamp circuit. I think the only way to change the output resonance of a opamp is to tweak the feedback circuit. (and that's gooped)

ElectroSmash - EMG81 Pickup Analysis.

EMG81 Schematic, Voltage Gain, Frequency Response, Electronic Humbucker Unbalance, Bajaman Active Pickup.
www.electrosmash.com www.electrosmash.com

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passive cap on the volume pot is just vanilla bass roll off / treble bleed. I was stoked af to find it works, i got a $99 EMG Pi2 phase pot on the 81 and a pull split pot on the 89, it's way too much choreography to get to a sound. Just the little plastic .1J63 cap on a 25k pot sounds better than both combined imo. I get better out-of-phase tones with really aggressive EQ cut combinations from the paraEQ pedal

1000194412.png
 
0XI0 said:
cause they only know EMGs via the tone-sucking solderless modular system they come with. dupont connectors. when you have 6 fucking quick connects and a $0.10 bleedy bus between low impedance pickup and output jack your tone is fucked before it even gets out. a regular real 25k pot and a hearty bright cap is all you need for EMGs to shine like they're meant to, no extra battery bullshit. advertised active benefits of zero noise, minimal magnetic string damping, weather sealed, and a fuckin bonus, oh now they actually sound really really good all of a sudden. I thought you needed an OD808 for that. no. just remove the trash between true source and true amp.

View attachment 34342
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yeah I've noticed a difference between the soldered in pick ups vs the solderless kits, not a massive difference but there is, even still I have about half of mine installed using the solderless kit, the difference isn't a deal breaker for me
 
James Freeman said:
Okay, I'm back to loving EMGs, that didn't take long.
Now I'm a sworn PAF hater.
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FuzzyAce said:
I'm back to using them again... in a few guitars. It reminds me of why I loved them in the first place. They just a certain clarity that is very nice.
I like an 81, but really prefer an 85 in the bridge position. The new 85X I recently got is working out well too.
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Happy Season 5 GIF by The Office
 
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