What pickups shall I buy?
What pickups shall I buy?
I'm going to get destroyed for this but I highly dislike teh emgzzz...Don't get me wrong, if you're going to play JUST Metal or butt metal crap emgs are #1. But if you want to play other genres too... there's not enough versatility in the 81/85, 81/81, or 81/60 IMO... ( I have not tried any emg models past 2005) at one point in time I had all my guitars switched out to the various 9v emg products, then I compared just stock gibson or stock prs hfs vintage to the emgs and I will never go back, they now (except for my kh-2) all have various passive humbuckers.
Honestly, if you ever decide to play an open chord, no matter what your settings are, its going to sound like butthole on EMG, you tell an EMG pickup to do more than 3 strings at once and so much clarity is just lost. With just basic high end passive humbuckers, you will be able to play so many more styles, blues, jazz, rock and even metal well if you set your amp up right. That's just where I stand, I hated being pigeonholed into only being able to play Metal. Also, the passive high end ones are cheaper...
well, I had that set up(minus the 81tw it was just 81 bridge then the rest was the same) plus I had the EMG EXG control. talk about versatile. of course I had this all dropped into a squier, an alder bodied squier at least. :lol so it didn't really sound bad, but if you dropped it into a better guitar, it would sound better.
and no, for this guitar, i'm suggesting he look into dimarzio's.
possibly Evo2's....
i also have the invader/59 combo in a guitar and they do sound great.
the invader compensates for the lack of bottom end of the cheap wood.
but for me, i just like overall emg's better.
for crunch and clarity, and they're also realy quiet.
in the end, it's just a matter of oppinion, that's why i've suggested a torough research before making a decision.
EMG's tend to produce too much "woof" in the studio. By that I mean the level constantly goes high on the board and needs tweaking, where passives generally keep an even keel. They do sound good for live gigs. I think active pickups really excel on bass guitars where you want to cut through and be heard.
emgzzz