EMG 81-85 for other style of music

[arwanfarizi11]

I'm just wondering have anyone tried EMGs or any other active pickups to play different music styles other than metal??

How's that work out for you??
Do you guys think that active pups could handle other music styles??

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[dave74]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

I wouldn't really choose the 81 or 85 for a non-metal project. Just my opinion.
Plenty of other active models to pick from these days, from both main brands.

85 in the bridge of a good-sounding clear/bright guitar is IMO a good catch-all for various rock/metal styles, just roll-back the knobs as needed.

 

[arwanfarizi11]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

I wouldn't really choose the 81 or 85 for a non-metal project. Just my opinion.
Plenty of other active models to pick from these days, from both main brands.

85 in the bridge of a good-sounding clear/bright guitar is IMO a good catch-all for various rock/metal styles, just roll-back the knobs as needed.

Have you tried 85 on bridge position?? I have a plan to do that and pair it with a 60 on the neck like what Andy James did on his guitar

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[Shooter.556]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

EMGS are kind of a one trick pony to me. They do high gain but thats it. I used to use an EMG equipped guitar in a cover band but I didn't have any dynamics, it was strictly hot with that throaty midrange an 81 is known for. I went thru an active phase when they were popular and I was a metal head but honestly now, there are way more passive options that are better than EMGS for versatility.
Not saying I don't like them because I love that growl but if I was building an all around guitar that would be the last set of pickups I'd choose to put in it..

 

[GOB]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

I'm just wondering have anyone tried EMGs or any other active pickups to play different music styles other than metal??

How's that work out for you??
Do you guys think that active pups could handle other music styles??

Absolutely EMG's can handle other music styles! Just listen to all the work Steve Lukather did with active pickups. Not a lot of metal there, and tons of versatility.

I think it's one of the biggest myths in the guitar world that EMG's are only for metal. They aren't as high gain/high output as everyone thinks. The main thing they give you is tons of clarity and definition, plus a bit quicker pick attack, low impedance, and a wider frequncy spectrum.

EMG's new x-series are amazing. I've been using an 85x in the bridge and a 60ax in the neck of my main guitar and they might be my favorite humbuckers ever - and the most versatile. I've used those pickups to play jazz, country, pop, funk, rock, rockabilly, metal, and all shades in-between. I've never found any style they didn't work for.

I've got a strat with a EMG SAVX set in it and they are so touch sensitive and responsive, and have such good frequency reproduction. I've used that guitar to imitate an acoustic/electric before and fooled professional sound engineers into thinking it was a real acoustic.

I haven't used Duncan active pickups yet, but given how good their passive pickups are, I'd expect them to be stellar.

 

[Chad]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

I've used a super strat with an 85 in the bridge and an 81 in the neck for praise & worship style music at church. In that setting, I use a wide range of sounds....clean, grit, high gain, etc. That guitar isn't my first choice for that style of music, but at the same time it works fine.

 

[GOB]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

I've used a super strat with an 85 in the bridge and an 81 in the neck for praise & worship style music at church. In that setting, I use a wide range of sounds....clean, grit, high gain, etc. That guitar isn't my first choice for that style of music, but at the same time it works fine.

I remember hearing that the 81 was originally designed for the neck position and the 85 for the bridge position, but some of the metal guys switched them around preferring the tight and focused sound of the 81 for heavy tones.

I like the 85 a lot better in the bridge than in the neck. I think it's too boomy and dark for the neck.

 

[Chad]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

I remember hearing that the 81 was originally designed for the neck position and the 85 for the bridge position, but some of the metal guys switched them around preferring the tight and focused sound of the 81 for heavy tones.

I like the 85 a lot better in the bridge than in the neck. I think it's too boomy and dark for the neck.

In that guitar, I originally had the 81 in the bridge, but it just didn't work. 85 sounded WAY better. But it depends on the guitar. I've had other guitars where 81 bridge/85 neck works okay. But like you said, 85 can be too boomy sometimes.

 

[EDX]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

well, some time ago i tried a ibanez iron label rg wich came standar with emgs, 81 bridge and 89 neck, i tried it head to head against my v (bridge dimebucker only) and for my normal thrash riffage the emg's felt bland while lacking high and low end, one of the store guys even pointed out that my guitar really made the iron label sound soft by comparison on a metal setup, then i got around rock riffs, old school rock, and some blues licks with clean chords on 'tween, again the store guy pointed out how clean the ibby sounded by comparison, and a pair of guys there even pointed out that with dist whatever i had on my v sounded bigger and meaner than the emgs, by that experience i would go and say that if you're a really heavy player (gain on 11 is not enough, you need 15 to be happy) then the emgs will work for other styles, specially when you need some compression on cleaner settings.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

You cannot use the same amp EQ with EMGs that you do with passives. It's just that simple. If you've got your amp dialed in to sound great with a Duncan JB or Custom, then switch to actives that have a wider tonal spectrum, yes, you're going to notice a lack of dynamics. You have to fiddle with the knobs on the amp more than just "more this, less that". They reproduce a wider frequency range than "voiced" passive pickups. Derp.

As for other styles than Death/Black/Doom/Speed/Thrash/can't-tell-one-chord-from-another Metal, yes, they can. If your knowledge of EMGs is limited to the 81, you're short-changing yourself and need to stay out of it. The 85 can do Heavy Metal easily: Judas Priest (British Steel up to Turbo - Glenn Tipton used EMGs in his Hamers on Defenders of the Faith and Turbo), Iron Maiden (Number of the Beast up to the latest one), and a host of other similar tones without having "too much" gain. The 89 is an SA and an S in one housing that you select between with the push-pull. The 60 is the S (or SA) in a humbucker housing, so half of the 89.

Wasn't David Gilmour using EMG singles for a while? Don't recall much face-melting "Metal" fretboard hysterics or chuggidy chug from him. Ever.


And hey, did you know you can use a Gibson Les Paul to play Jazz? Yeah, it seems the guy it's named for was a Jazz player.
:facepalm:

 

[AlexR]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

^ But We're talking the 85/81 in this thread, not whatever Glimour used.

And his rig was pretty complicated.....lots of effects. I'm sure that was a live option to cut down on a lot of the hum inherent with that setup.


OP - you can play any style with any pickup. Whether the tone is to your liking or not is another thing entirely.

 

[rjudo]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

I have an old Ibby artist that has a 60 in the neck and an 85 in the bridge. Seems to cover quite a bit of ground, not really a metal guitar. As GOB and Dr Newc pointed out, there are some very not metal EMG plyers.

 

[EDX]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

as an interesting side note, the emgs were also designed for jazz originally, yup the 81, 85, and something they called the 58, the pickups were intended for jazz due to their wider freq range, also the jazz picks were intended for jazz....... odd but it seems like rock/metal players tend to take jazz designed gear and utilice it for their means.......

 

[dave74]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

Have you tried 85 on bridge position?? I have a plan to do that and pair it with a 60 on the neck like what Andy James did on his guitar

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IMO it's good in alder, ash, full-maple,,,,,,,bolt-ons mainly. Clear and bright/tight guitars. Jackson Dinky-pro is a good match, and those Caparisons like KSE uses.
I've also tried it in maple/ebony/basswood neck-thru, and maple/rosewood/poplar neck-thru and it was just a bit loose and round in the lows for my taste.

 

[GOB]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

as an interesting side note, the emgs were also designed for jazz originally, yup the 81, 85, and something they called the 58, the pickups were intended for jazz due to their wider freq range, also the jazz picks were intended for jazz....... odd but it seems like rock/metal players tend to take jazz designed gear and utilice it for their means.......

I heard a story once that when James Hetfield first put EMG's in his guitar he got teased about it because they were supposed to be jazz pickups

 

[dystrust]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

The 89 is an SA and an S in one housing that you select between with the push-pull. The 60 is the S (or SA) in a humbucker housing, so half of the 89.

Wasn't David Gilmour using EMG singles for a while? Don't recall much face-melting "Metal" fretboard hysterics or chuggidy chug from him. Ever.

Hate to say it, but you've got those EMG models completely mixed up. The EMG-89 is an 85 and SA in the same housing that you can switch between. The 60 is its own pickup, while the EMG-S in a humbucker housing is the EMG-H, ditto the SA and HA.

David Gilmour used EMG-SAs pretty much exclusively from the early/mid 80s until bringing the Black Strat out of retirement for the Live 8 performance in 2005.

 

[GilmourD]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

Hate to say it, but you've got those EMG models completely mixed up. The EMG-89 is an 85 and SA in the same housing that you can switch between. The 60 is its own pickup, while the EMG-S in a humbucker housing is the EMG-H, ditto the SA and HA.

David Gilmour used EMG-SAs pretty much exclusively from the early/mid 80s until bringing the Black Strat out of retirement for the Live 8 performance in 2005.

Yes, Gilmour used SAs with the SPC and EXG controls and I believe they still sell the DG-20 set as such.

Prince used an 85 bridge and SA neck.

Vince Gil also uses a set of S with an SPC.

Claudio from Coheed used to use an 81/85 set sometimes with a 60 in the neck.

Bela Fleck uses EMGs in his banjo.

Wolfgang Van Halen has some EMG loaded basses.

 

[stratguy23]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

Steve Lukather, David Gilmour, and Vince Gill are the first names that come to mind for non-metal EMG users. I don't hear them and think, "EMG". I just hear great tones because great hands are using high-quality products.

As for the specific question of, "Can 85/81 do things other than metal", the answer is yes. By definition, since I don't play much metal, if I have 85/81 in my hands, they're not doing metal. Whether or not they're the best tools for the task at hand is another matter.

85/81 are essentially just very warm/round and thick high-mid spike humbuckers, respectively, with high outputs. If you seek that voicing and want to hit your preamp hard, that's the route you take.

Usually, though, for applications like blues or roots rock, the playing skews towards lots of dynamics, digging varied tones both out of the pickup and amp. Feel-wise, such a player might not appreciate how compressed 85/81 are, where the attack is almost just on-off. You can pick really lightly with an 81 and let the pickup/amp produce a mighty roar as a result. That might not be desirable in more rootsy setting where if you pick lightly, the expectation is that the result is a light sound.

As a generally rootsy player myself, I like the sound of EMG's - they are great at their job - but prefer passive pickups in terms of feel in response to pick attack. This is probably only perceptible to me, the player, as opposed to any audience. Recently I played a Strat copy loaded with EMGs (don't know which ones), and I couldn't help thinking simultaneously, "These are some of the best Strat tones I've ever gotten", and "I hate how this feels".

I just randomly recalled playing an Ibanez Iron Label RG (marketed towards metal players) with 81/60 pickups, and discovering, to my pleasant surprise, that the middle position yielded a very usable funk guitar clean tone.

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

I remember Buddy Guy having an EMG loaded Guild. Dunno if it had the 81/85 set though.

 

[NjuiMusic]

Re: EMG 81-85 for other style of music

EMGs are versatile is frig! Tosin Abasi used to use 808xs and they sounded great! I use a set of 808s in my 8 string and they definitely do nice cleans, the thing people always say about active pickups is that there is no clarity, and to much compression. I mean yeah there is some compression but no more then a 17-18k output passive and they can be very clear if you dial right.

David Gilmour uses EMGs. I use active pickups a lot and prefer them especially in single coil guitars since due to the compression they even out the tone between strings nicely and they sound great if you dial right