Johnny the Kid
Shaunofthedeadologist
So I got the pickups in this weekend.
I always thought that Seymour Duncan made the best actives on the market when they designed the Blackout series. They were like if someone had put a Tubescreamer boost in front of a set of passive pickups. They were organic and rich sounding and you didn't have to live in the same black epoxy covered box of EMG for your active needs anymore (albeit, this new black epoxy covered box had a cooler name on it).
As sad and painful as this is to say, I don't think Seymour Duncan makes the best actives on the market anymore.
So where do I start with the EMG's?
The neck pickup may be my favorite neck pickup I've ever played. It's so versatile! Keep the tone up and you've got a great full pickup for chording and clean tones. Roll the tone down and you get nice jazz tones that still retain the note definition. Turn on a distortion and there's a great pickup for those thicker leads. Roll the tone down and you're playing a Moog synth, particularly when you play on the upper frets.
With the bridge pickup, brightness and articulation were clearly the dominant genes. The pup keeps up with you for those fast runs and every note is heard when you play chords. Yet it's also refined. It's a lot like a mafia hitman. He'll sit politely and drink his scotch like a gentleman, but say the word and he'll axe someone quicker than you can say "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse."
I don't know what kind of evil, black Lucifer magic I've invited into my guitar with these pickups, but clearly someone has sold their soul, because this set is beyond just a good set of pickups. In my opinion, it's the best set that EMG has ever produced. Maybe it's the combination of magnets (Alnico 5 and ceramic polepieces on the neck and an A5 with steel polepieces on the bridge). Maybe it's the wood combination (mahogany neck and body with a solid maple top) and the pickups brought out the best in my guitar. Maybe I actually have some sort of medical issue that's messing with my hearind and that these pickups actually suck major goat balls.
Whatever it is, I'm not changing these out unless they die. And I'll probably put in a new set of the 57/66 again.
Now I'm not saying that I'm swearing off passives and changing out all my guitars as soon as I get the chance (too much money and I like my SD's too much). But I will say that if some some reason SD goes out of business tomorrow and in order to settle their debts they're pulling all the pickups out of people's guitars to sell for scrap, I can rest assured knowing that I could get a really quality set of pickups in my guitars without going on a massive hunt through space and time to find the last remaining Duncans, nor would I have to go through every other pickup manufacturer's catalog in order to find one that I like.
In short:
10/10 would bang again.
I always thought that Seymour Duncan made the best actives on the market when they designed the Blackout series. They were like if someone had put a Tubescreamer boost in front of a set of passive pickups. They were organic and rich sounding and you didn't have to live in the same black epoxy covered box of EMG for your active needs anymore (albeit, this new black epoxy covered box had a cooler name on it).
As sad and painful as this is to say, I don't think Seymour Duncan makes the best actives on the market anymore.
So where do I start with the EMG's?
The neck pickup may be my favorite neck pickup I've ever played. It's so versatile! Keep the tone up and you've got a great full pickup for chording and clean tones. Roll the tone down and you get nice jazz tones that still retain the note definition. Turn on a distortion and there's a great pickup for those thicker leads. Roll the tone down and you're playing a Moog synth, particularly when you play on the upper frets.
With the bridge pickup, brightness and articulation were clearly the dominant genes. The pup keeps up with you for those fast runs and every note is heard when you play chords. Yet it's also refined. It's a lot like a mafia hitman. He'll sit politely and drink his scotch like a gentleman, but say the word and he'll axe someone quicker than you can say "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse."
I don't know what kind of evil, black Lucifer magic I've invited into my guitar with these pickups, but clearly someone has sold their soul, because this set is beyond just a good set of pickups. In my opinion, it's the best set that EMG has ever produced. Maybe it's the combination of magnets (Alnico 5 and ceramic polepieces on the neck and an A5 with steel polepieces on the bridge). Maybe it's the wood combination (mahogany neck and body with a solid maple top) and the pickups brought out the best in my guitar. Maybe I actually have some sort of medical issue that's messing with my hearind and that these pickups actually suck major goat balls.
Whatever it is, I'm not changing these out unless they die. And I'll probably put in a new set of the 57/66 again.
Now I'm not saying that I'm swearing off passives and changing out all my guitars as soon as I get the chance (too much money and I like my SD's too much). But I will say that if some some reason SD goes out of business tomorrow and in order to settle their debts they're pulling all the pickups out of people's guitars to sell for scrap, I can rest assured knowing that I could get a really quality set of pickups in my guitars without going on a massive hunt through space and time to find the last remaining Duncans, nor would I have to go through every other pickup manufacturer's catalog in order to find one that I like.
In short:
10/10 would bang again.
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