Guitar Pickup Comparison

Dave Z

Dave Z

Inspired
Here's a comparison I recorded of a bunch of my guitars. I'm using the same patch ("Ride The Lightning" Tone Match from Silent Underground Studio) on my Axe-FX II for all of these guitars to eliminate that variable.
A lot of people say that an EMG pickup sounds the same in any guitar. In this recording, I have 5 different guitars recorded with an EMG 81 pickup to see if there is any difference.

I have a total listing of all guitars used and their specs on the Soundcloud page located here - https://soundcloud.com/guitardave123/guitar-pickup-comparison

Enjoy!



Dave Z
 
Now load that 81 into a Baseball bat, string it up and see what you get... :lol JK, All have the same edgy tone that an 81 brings with some very slight differences between guitars. It works for a certain type of music so they are not a bad Pup just specific. Back in the mid 80's I was a hard core 81 user for a few years there was no other pup that anyone could convince me to use.
 
The first three are very similar through my computer speakers, however I definitely can hear the difference between those and the 7th and 8th guitars (Steinberger, Fender Blacktop).

I'm a huge fan of EMG's for metal. Passives are great too, but I haven't found one yet that really did it for me like the EMG's do. Cleans especially. I absolutely love "sterile" EMG cleans. There are pickups that I like better for mid-gain stuff, but I don't play that too often.

The down side that I have noticed about EMG's is that they are missing some dynamic compared to passives. I'll be installing a set of EMG X pickups into my V and I hope that they'll have the dynamics that the standard EMG's are missing.
 
The reason I recorded this was due to the fact that I've been using EMG 81's for years in most of my guitars, and I want to install a different passive pickup set in the Fender Blacktop Strat. I'm considering either an Aldrich or a Bareknuckle pickup in the Blacktop Strat, so I wanted to see if I could hear the differences between the pickups I currently use.

The two Warlocks actually have the 18v mod by using two 9V batteries. I think the Warlock in the 5th clip has a very different tone on the Low E string palm mutes as compared to the Warlock in the 2nd clip. In addition, the Warlock in the 5th clip is the same exact guitar as the STIII in the last clip (besides the body shape difference), but the STIII is using Blackout active pickups.

I find it funny that the $100 Hello Kitty guitar with an EMG 81 sounds very close to guitars that are much more expensive......

Dave Z
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom