Alternatives to EMG's 81/85 in ESP Guitar

CG Guitar

New member
Hi everyone.

I'm just wondering if anyone had some advice and recommendations on pick-ups to replace the EMG 81 & 85 in my ESP Ltd MH-1000 Deluxe FR. I've popped what I'm looking for below. Any advice and recommendations would be greatly welcomed and appreciated.

Looking to get a set with similar output but more of a dynamic and tonal range. A set with punch but I can still get tonal variety when rolling back the volume knob on my guitar and switching pick-up positions. Would of course look into passive options and not just active.

Many thanks, Charlie
 
Welcome to the forum!
Can you let us know what kind of music? And if you could tell us what you don't like about the current pickups..that would be helpful, too.
 
I have played an MH-10007 ET, and thought it'd be much nicer with a set of Fishman Fluence Classics. I'd probably try swapping the bridge EMG 81 with the neck 85 first, though. I find the 81 has a bit too little bass/low mids in the bridge, and the 85 seems like it'd be more flexible in the bridge.

I suspect I'd still wind up with a pickup swap, but I'm particularly not a fan of the 85 in the neck, or the 81 in the bridge. And particularly in a seven string, I prefer more attack and punch on the low strings. The 81 is bright on the high strings, but oddly smooth attack. Too compressed. And yes, I tried a battery swap.

Fluence Classics can flip from a punched up JB-like tone (tighter bass, and more present high end, but a lot of that famous upper mid bite) to a more PAF-like tone, to a single coil tone. Neck is more PAF variations to single coil, from what I gather. Fair number of people like the "PAF" modes into a hot amp for tight metal tones, too. But the Active JBish tone works for a wide range of blues to metal. And has a more open, less compressed feel than the EMGs, despite having extra output available.

Duncan has some great actives, too. I've always been partial to the Live Wire Metal that Jim Martin used in his Flying V with Faith No More. He got some pretty crushing sounds with it, though a lot of that was with a particular Boogie that lit on fire while recording "From Out of Nowhere"...
 
GFS actives and Blackouts are both compatible with EMG's wiring system. I believe Fishman's are also compatible. The GFS actives are excellent pickups at a great price and I have a guitar with a GFS bridge and EMG neck and they mesh perfectly.
 
You need to be more specific when describing what you want. Without knowing what you play and what kind of sound you want to end up with, it's effectively impossible to make relevant recommendations. "Punch and tonal variety" can mean one thing to a jazz player, something different to a classic rock player, something different again to a classic metal player, extreme metal, country, pop, surf... you get the idea.
It helps too if we know what the rest of your rig is: amp, speakers, pedals, anything, and how you set them.

All that said, as a general rule active humbuckers already reproduce a wider frequency range than any passive pickup can—that was the original point of their invention—so when it comes to 'tonal variety' you can't really beat the wide-and-even frequency response of common active humbuckers. The 85, in particular, is good for nearly any genre (okay, maybe not surf or country) and what tones you get out of it mostly depends on what you're plugging it into. It'll do classic rock with a plexi and death metal with a 6505. I'll once again use my stand-by example of Prince at the Montreux Jazz Festival, using a HS Floyd Strat with an 85 and SA, to illustrate the range you can get out of the standard 85; the words "Prince" and "Jazz Festival" should clue you in to the 85's versatility.
So on that basis, without yet knowing what the rest of your rig is and what you play or are trying to achieve exactly, I'll second Despair's suggestion of simply swapping the current pickups around. You'll find the 85 more balanced and flexible in the bridge than the 81 is, while the brighter tone of the 81 is really more suitable for the neck in the first place, as long as you back the pickups away from the strings. That's a good thing to do with any active pickups, really; lower them further from the strings than they were when you got the guitar, since ESP typically install pickups as high to the strings as possible for maximum output, which significantly reduces the flexibility of the instrument. Since active pickups have quite weak magnet fields their tone is affected more drastically by lowering or raising them than passive pickups usually are, so you can change the tone significantly (usually for the better) just by lowering the pickups a little. An 85 far from the strings is pretty much the most versatile, general-purpose bridge humbucker you can get. (Arguably only beaten by the 89, which is a similar tone but adds a single coil split option.)

So do try just swapping the pickups over first, and lowering them. Without knowing the rest of your rig, that's as good a place as any to start, and it won't cost you a penny.

Staying active, if the 85/81 doesn't do what you want, the next thing to try would be two 89Xs (or an 89X/89RX) since those add single coil options and the X preamp opens up the output range of the pickups, making the guitar's volume less compressed/limited. If having single coil modes doesn't interest you then I'd suggest the Jeff Loomis Blackouts, which are a very balanced bridge pickup (kind of halfway between an 85X and an 81X) and a very clear neck (halfway between a humbucker and a single coil). If neither of those pairings appeals then I'd suggest the EMG Hot 70 set which is as close to passive pickups as actives get, though for my money that does rather defeat the point of staying active.

Other than that, for a Floyd MH that wants some versatility, the passive selection that springs to mind first is a Custom bridge and Jazz neck. The Custom is as do-anything as a passive humbucker can get and the Jazz is always a solid neck humbucker no matter what bridge pickup you have it paired with. Again, we really need to know what the rest of your rig is and what you're playing, but without that information, a Custom and Jazz is the general-purpose passive combo I'd suggest you look into. Do bear in mind if you go passive you'll need to run a bridge ground wire; this is very easy, but it is critical and something a lot of people forget to do, then wonder why they have so much noise.
 
Thanks a lot everyone for your input. I really appreciate. I play in a Metal band called Harbinger. You can check out the kind go style I play in the link below. But I'm also a keen prog rock and metal player and teach guitar so I play many styles often. But my forte is heavy rock and riff lead metal.

I use an Axe Fx II direct when playing live and at home I have it running into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 and to my Prosonus Eris 5 Active Monitors.

I was looking at the Alpha Omega set and also the Nazgul/Sentient set and Pegasus Sentient set since it seems they might be tailored more towards the progressive contempoary metal player. So lots of tonal variety and dynamics.
 
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To me, if you play many styles, the Pegasus/Sentient set is really versatile, and more so than the other choices, which tend to do super-gain really well. The Pegasus/Sentient does progressive metal with a tight chuggy bass, but also cleans up well, and has a really great clean sound.
 
Okay, for that degree of metal and with Axe FX (I'll own up to not being familiar with using active monitors for anything other than... well, studio monitoring), but with some versatility for prog rock, in the active world I'll reiterate that it'll be worth you trying the 85 in the bridge (though I would now say the 81 won't be right in the neck, for you). Its mid focus and wide frequency response makes it really appropriate and, hey, you've already got it right there so it's free to try.
A slightly more appropriate active selection would be the Jeff Loomis Blackouts. They also mostly push the mids, which is great for that kind of fast single-string modern metal riffing (not so great for classic metal-style powerchord chugging) on the bridge and listening to the lead parts in that song, the neck pickup is ideal. Just to really seal the deal, the JL Blackouts were designed specifically for working well with high-end modellers, which I'd consider the AxeFX II to be. If you're not familiar with them, the easiest way to check out a relevant sound clip of the JL Blackouts would be to look up Arch Enemy's album 'Will To Power' – not quite the same type of metal overall, but in terms of his guitar parts specifically, quite similar to what you've got going there.

For passives, I'll second the Sentient for the neck. Very similar to the hyper-versatile Jazz, just a little beefier to keep up with higher-power bridge pickups. Great for any kind of progressive [insert genre here] you can name.
For the bridge I'd recommend the Black Winter. It may be advertised only for extreme metal, but as many people on here found out when it first launched, while it has the response needed for modern metal it's got a very balanced tone so it's actually very appropriate for less aggressive playing, too. Some people on here even swear by it for blues. Personally I feel its range stops at classic rock, but that's still more versatile than most high-output modern pickups.
The Nazgul would be my second passive pick for the bridge, over the Pegasus, as I feel the Pegasus is a touch too calm for modern metal and its extra brightness comes out sounding a little thin with modellers. (I also use modellers, though no specific one; Kemper, Bias, Line6, I go through phases of enjoying them all.) The Nazgul has similar treble response but since it has more mid power it doesn't come off as being so bright and I actually find it to be the more versatile of the two, with the volume control in particular getting more range than with the already-quieter Pegasus. FWIW in a 7-string I use for both death metal and symphonic metal (for the uninitiated, that's more of a prog rock kind of tone) I swapped the stock Pegasus for a Nazgul (neck is a Sentient) and it was significantly more appropriate, though do bear in mind that was a hardtail 7-string so the requirements were a little different. (If it was a 6-string I'd have changed to the BW.)
 
Based on that video... Dimarzio Titan is my first choice. Maybe Custom (might not be tight enough) or Distortion (might have too much high mids). Or maybe Full Shred with ceramic magnet (might have too much treble). All just depends on your amp / speaker / guitar.

However, I've heard great things from the Alpha/Omega and Nazguls. Never tried personally though.

Also, IDK if any of these really sound like EMGs; I never really found anything quite like them, as least with passive humbuckers.
 
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