Who said emg's were extremely hot???????? hell no

[ranalli]

If you guys want that shred tone from the 60 you can get close to it....put the pickup very close to the strings....it will thicken up a lot.

I usually have it set real low for nice cleans and some distorted single-coil like bluesy sounds.

[Skarekrough]

I haven't played EMGs much, but have always associated them with real heavy sounds. Do they make any vintage sounding stuff?

I had a set circa 1991 in a Telecaster and I found the tone to not be very vintage voiced.

If they have changed their design and now offer more vintage sounding models since then I do not have an evaluation of those newer models. My experience is strictly from a Telecaster set circa 1991.

[vinterland]

Ok an example to really end this discussion. On my mesas clean channel I can distort it with my EMG with less gain than with say my Custom, which is only slightly less output than the distortion. With that said the emg has more output period its your ears that are percieving the distortion as hotter.

[italic zero]

I resent that remark. Age has close to nothing to do with hostility or logic.

I agree.

[itbepopples]

Distortion has much better tone too. When I was using a Zakk Wylde Set in one of my Schecters I quickly got bored with the one trick pony sound. And they are not versatile at all. Try playing something lower gain on them, yuck. They were good for a super clean jazz sound in the neck with the 85 though.

i had a schecter c1+ with two 81s and i thought it sounded awful. ive heard emgs sound great but every schecter iin the c1 line ive played has a very lifeless sound to it. they look and play great but i havent found that they sound all that good unplugged or plugged in. just my opinion tho.

[bryvincent]

the "hotness" in terms of sound depends on the frequency response of the pickup.for example the EMG 85 and 81, the 85 sounds hotter yet both have the same output in volts (about 1.25V i think, didnt say what freq. though)). maybe the EMGs have a flatter response curve than the DD. and the DD has hump somewhere in the curve that makes it sound hotter. just my 2 cents.

[Xeromus]

I think a 60 neck and 85 bridge would be a cool combo, but I never tried it.

[TheGZeus]

Folks, impedence matters alot more than you would think.
I'll leave it at that.

[Metalman_666]

Although I can't blame you; most people in the age range at hand are complete dumbasses.

whaaaa?

... I've already proven that at times I can be unreasonable and stupid, but it certainly is never fair to say a particular age range is associated with certain negative characteristics... personality is irrelevant to age. The important thing is being able to recognize these things, right guys?

Anyway, IMO the EMG 81 is a pretty good and plenty hot bridge pickup, and the 60 is great tonally, even in my Ibanez and through my SS randall! Leads sing, and the cleans are almost as nice as they can be with SS.

[Metalman_666]

I agree.

as soon as I read this post I looked over at your age to see it was 5...

[some_dude]

I think a 60 neck and 85 bridge would be a cool combo, but I never tried it.

I've got an 85 in the bridge of my Strat already.....one of these days I'll get around to sticking a 60 in there too.

I find that in the bridge the 85 has a fatter, more "rock & roll" type sound than the 81. The 85's also better for a more nu-metal type sound - if that's your bag.

[papersoul]

I've been saying this for a long while. They simply aren't as hot as a DD, at all. They pack about the same punch as a Custom or C5, to me.

Exactly, and that is part of what makes em so versatile!

[HarrisonDavid]

Im honestly thinking of trading my 81 for another 85 or 60......85/85 or 85/60 looks interesting enough.

[JoyDivision24Hours]

I've got a set of SA's for my strat with the SPC booster. This setup is similar to the Clapton strat in terms of versatility. Sure, it doesn't sound like a vintage-style passive pickup but I get a lot of different sounds I like. Plus they have no string-pull so you can set the pickups closer to the strings. Sustain is a little better, low hum and no noises as the strings are not grounded. It's a more responsive set than the old passive pickups and with the SPC I can get some fat distorted sounds if I want. Excellent for leads.

[MikeS]

Folks, impedence matters alot more than you would think.
I'll leave it at that.

By all means, continue. I love talking about inaudible yet mathematic differences in pickups j/k

[TheGZeus]

I've got a set of SA's for my strat with the SPC booster. This setup is similar to the Clapton strat in terms of versatility. Sure, it doesn't sound like a vintage-style passive pickup but I get a lot of different sounds I like. Plus they have no string-pull so you can set the pickups closer to the strings.

They have less string pull than passives, but there's still a fair amount of pull going on there.
Try it with a paper clip.
Lace sensors THOSE have virtually none.

[TheGZeus]

By all means, continue. I love talking about inaudible yet mathematic differences in pickups j/k

What?

An am has a nominal input imepedence.
A mismatch changes how it will respond to input.

You now have high voltage, lower amperage. I plugged a guitar with actives(not EMGs but no matter) into a JSX turned up the clean channel until it sounded good(the volume knob is a gain of course) and set the master to 'hi, I'm trying this out, but not buying it' level.
Then I switched to something with either a Distortion copy Designed or a JB.
There was slightly less volume, but it was distorting.
Had to plug into the low-gain jack and turn up the volume as it was too much for stage 1 of the preamp. (since it WORKED I'm guessing it's like a Fender in that the volume is post stage 1 of the pre).

Amps VS volts.
How things are designed affects how they respond to these things.

[DeadSkinSlayer3]

Lastwinj explained it to Bones and I on Yahoo once, as Bones was confused why his custom got more gain out of his amp than his 81. It had something to do with the harmonic structure of the pickup and how it hits the preamp.

[TheGZeus]

Lastwinj explained it to Bones and I on Yahoo once, as Bones was confused why his custom got more gain out of his amp than his 81. It had something to do with the harmonic structure of the pickup and how it hits the preamp.

......nah.

If anything, the increased odd-order harmonics in the EMGS(from clipping the internal low-headroom preamp) would create MORE distortion.

it's an impedence mismatch.

Older amps (the kind common when EMGs were designed) had a different preamp structure.

The gain knob on most amps nowadays is AFTER at LEAST one gain stage.

You're gonna get more VOLUME through stage one before you clip it with a low impedence input, whereas a high impedence signal will clip sooner due to the greater amperage and lower voltage.

stage one has it's own specific output impedence, so stage two doesn't CARE what impedence your pickusp are.
modern high gain amps will often require MORE gain out of lower impedence outputs.

not always, depends on the amp's design.