EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

[Inflames626]

So recently I'd recorded some stuff with a Dinky with HZ3s and HZ4s. I really can't figure out why everyone hates them so much. They sound very similar to the 9 volt active versions, only with softer transients, which you could say lends them to the 18 volt version.

Are there better pickups? Yes. But I covered Judas Priest's "Beyond the Realms of Death" with them recently (Jazz JB on left HZ3/HZ4 on right) and they complimented each other very well, with the JB getting the body and the HZ4 getting the upper mid crunch.

On top of that, you can split HZs and play with the wiring, whereas the active versions require the rather awkward 89 and 81tws. And, in my experience, they almost always come with quick connects stock, whereas I've yet to see many Duncans come with Liberators.

They also sound fine on bass. Not outstanding, but like most EMGs, very consistent, and they fit well in the mix if you like that sound.

Anyway, I definitely prefer them to the Duncan Designeds. The worst pickup I ever heard was a DD copy of a Jazz in the neck of my KV3. It was like playing a bass.

Thoughts?

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

Compared to either active or passive pickups, I find that EMG-HZ (and Select-by-EMG before them) lack dynamics and high frequency detail. For a distortion pedal user, this would probably not be much of an issue. For an old Skool, medium gain, valve amp abuser such as I, it is unsatisfying.

I do not rate the -HZ bass pickups much either - even through powerful active EQ.

 

[dominus]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

I like the H4 and H4A. Both make great bridge pickups, and they are pretty close to the 81 and 85.

 

[Inflames626]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

As usual, Funkfingers with a very good reply. Thanks.

I can see how one would think they don't have highs. I think that's what I meant when I said the transients are warmer. The actives cut through slightly better to my ear, but if you consider the actives sterile already, the passives might do the trick.

I remember the 2-2.5k mid bump that EMG 81s have being very prominent in the HZ4. I had never tried a 60/HZ3 in the bridge. The HZ3 seemed much more balanced, although it would need a lot of saturation to help it squeal.

Are the H1s, H2s, or their passive singles anything to write home about? I can't imagine using anything with much less gain than a 60/HZ3.

I thought about trying out their SV/SAV/SLV line because I'm not entirely happy with the SA/S, but people have told me SV line is awful. I thought perhaps their passive singles would be a better choice.

The next SSH guit I get, I am putting Fender Fat 50s, SSL2s, APS2s, or Lace Sensor Golds in. I need a real 50s Strat sound, not just a half volume humbucker in a single coil housing.

 

[KBliss]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

when i first tried one as a swap to metalize my gio & sg, i thought, wow, so easy to palm mute; & i can pick lighter & shred with ease: the left hand could play by itself. & the pinch squeals are so pure & easy, i see why Zakk can't restrain himself- what a must have heavy metal pickup.

but then i let a chord ring out... underwhelming.

my theory is that EMGs accelerate the harmonics while reducing everything else. in my hands, i find them uninspiring, but if it makes you pick it up & play, i don't knock it. "Balls to the Wall", "No More Tears", .... a good composition with EMGs rocks. i thought Vinnie Vincent did them justice tonewise.

my beef is head to head: i have some dvds of Dokken w/ Reb Beech, Testament; when they switch from passive to EMGs, the blandness is significant. while i can't fault the compositions of Master of Puppets or South of Heaven, 3 seconds of the albums preceding them (Ride/Reign), i hear a vitality & upper grind, and wonder "why?". ...i dunno...i guess for some situations, less is less-in-the-way.

i try not to knock em, just point out obvious differences,.... so as far as letting a chord ring out, the actives are rounder, richer, better, even passable... not SO schquawrky...

 

[Inflames626]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

Might this be Mr. Khriss Bliss? Your videos are great. Thank you for them.

I've never used a DiMarzio Super Distortion, but to me the EMG seems to have a lot in common with it in terms of an aggressive midrange, whereas the JB is more compressed. Would you agree?

YouTube isn't the best showcase for tone, but whenever I hear an 81 and an SD, they sound similar to me.

To me classic Slayer (up to Seasons) IS the EMG sound more or less--all mids, very little bass, somewhat brittle--more overdriven than distorted. It sounds as bleak and dry as the Egyptian desert in which they recorded the video for Seasons. I much prefer their 90s and 2000s tone, which has added on bass and lowered tunings with much more success than other bands of their vintage.

For me though, the benefit of EMG tone is more about being consistent and sitting well in the mix than the guitar sounding great by itself. Some people hear that as sterility, but it also means I don't have to deal with Duncans' really strong EQ curves. I never have to tweak an EMG 81 as much as I have to roll the flab off a JB so the JB doesn't sound boxy, for example.

But it depends a lot on the guitar, too. If only I had the time to try every possible combination...

And I used to think EMGs were hot and trebly too until I looked at their frequency band in my DAW and playing something like a Duncan Distortion. The Distortion was a full 6 db higher on the meter. And EMGs' lows and highs are almost completely rolled off, so they sound piercing when they're really choked as far as frequency width.

As far as being hot and having high output, they don't saturate like my Duncan Distortion or Alt. 8 either, and the Duncan magnets are way stronger since they are passive. I have my Alt 8 down to 7/32" and it's still a bit much.

Overall, though, I still vastly prefer EMGs and Blackouts. I just go passive when I want a Marshall sound in E and not a scooped, detuned tone, because I think passives have way more mid textures whereas actives are designed to be very even and consistent.

 

[KBliss]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

yes, I'm Khriss- just an amateur- & respect- right back at you: clearly your imagination & ears are exceptional.

You're right about EMGs sitting in mix reliably. (and whereas lately, I do confess a weakness for isolated gtr tracks.)
RE:Slayer- Kerry King uses a "reverse frown" mid boosting EQ pedal- VERY coloring. so his tone on Reign & previous is a Dimarzio MegaDrive. EMGs kick in 87-88. (i think)


JB/compressed: yes, absolutely. and sometimes flabby.

I think ALL 3 high gain pickups- EMG,JB, DSD- make the signal less bright, and the mids less wide, more targeted- ...compared to a vintage Gibson type sound.
That's a function of hotter output signal, ... (and thus less strings & wood.)

The Super Dist might be less tight, but through tube amps, it has more highs & chaos than EMG81.
(But you're measuring these freq's admirably better than me.)
the JB's big double ceramic brother, the SH6 Distortion is more like EMG81: less chaos, more control.
- so sez me, fwiw-

my new email is swankfm@yahoo.com - if you wanna share youtube vids & highlight what you're hearing, I never tire of this tone talk, & clearly, you have some insights I want to grasp.
\m/, KB

 

[Inflames626]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

Khriss, funny you mention a PAF tone. I've never considered myself a PAF guy but my best rhythm sound right now is a Hamer Scarab XT with Gibson 57 Classic+/498t in the bridge.

I'm normally a ceramic guy in the bridge and not many of my guitars are warm. I purposely made this a poor man's Paul for rhythm work and it sounds good to me, although many here would argue that Duncan PAFs offer better tone for less price. I've never tried Duncan PAFs, though.

I've sent you an email and look forward to our further chats.

 

[El Dunco]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

my beef is head to head: i have some dvds of Dokken w/ Reb Beech, Testament; when they switch from passive to EMGs, the blandness is significant. while i can't fault the compositions of Master of Puppets or South of Heaven, 3 seconds of the albums preceding them (Ride/Reign), i hear a vitality & upper grind, and wonder "why?". ...i dunno...i guess for some situations, less is less-in-the-way

I don't think any of the albums you mentioned are EMG tone. Master of Puppets IIRC has DD and Invader on it and South Of Heaven is DMZ and it's one album later for both where they switched to EMG (Justice and Seasons).

 

[Inflames626]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

Wow. One of my old threads I had forgotten about.

I think Beer$ is right here. I associate the EMG tone with when these bands became successful around 88-90.

Distortion I think hits it pretty well for the early Metallica sound. I know James and Kirk used Invaders at some point but I don't know how they got any high end out of them. Those are some super dark pickups to my ear.

Usually though I most associate the EMG 81 with dry, almost brittle mids, with Slayer, especially the clean tones, which are very 81-in-bridge. I think the 85 was an attempt to fix some of the shortcomings of the 81 but I've never liked it as much due to the looser bottom end.

In Metallica's case, I think switching from Marshall, or even the Mark IIC+'s, to Rectos altered their sound a bit. The scooped saturation of Justice gave way to the rounder tone of their 90s albums, which was quite similar to their live tone.

 

[jmh151]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

I don't think any of the albums you mentioned are EMG tone. Master of Puppets IIRC has DD and Invader on it and South Of Heaven is DMZ and it's one album later for both where they switched to EMG (Justice and Seasons).

I don't think the problem is necessarily EMG's - for the most part bands of that period switched to EMG's to reduce noise,and they probably also switched to rack gear that reduced noise as well but also thinned out the tone at the same time. A pickup alone doesn't lead to the thinner tone you describe, it's the entire rig

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

Hetfield did all the rhythm work on everything up to Black because it was easier for him to double his own parts. Some of Kirk's solos used EMGs (whenever he used the Rhoads or his Hamstercaster) but with all the other studio stuff going on, it's doubtful one could accurately point to any track on Puppets and say "EMG for the solo right there". He has stated that he uses the Rhoads with an EMG 60 in the neck for Fade To Black, but as far as I know, that's the only time he's ever gone into detail about what guitar/pickups were used on what track.

As for the HZs, I do like the HZ-3 but only with the AfterBurner/TurboCharger boost (whichever one had the knob - I think one was just an on/off switch). You can set the boost to about 3 and get the pickups singing nicely while still retaining their PAF voicing.

Here's a 3.2MB video I did with a set of HZ-3s some years ago. Backing track is by Chad Coggin.
http://newcenstein.com/Video/NewcKaizen.wmv

Warrior MG (alder) body with maple neck and board, OFR, ADA MP-1 preamp and Digitech TSR-12 for EQ and FX straight to the computer.

 

[Inflames626]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

DrNewcenstein is right--Load and ReLoad sound looser because Kirk is also doing rhythm.

I seem to remember Kirk saying he used Invaders on Puppets, especially during the little intro lead fill to Puppets before the first verse (where the string accidentally detunes a little). I can understand using super hot pickups for solos, especially with the less gain amps had back then, but they could easily be boosted. I have always found mid output pickups boosted to have a superior sound to overwound pickups straight to an amp.

One of the great revelations of my playing has been discovering a boost. I didn't use one for 15 years because I considered it to be thinning the sound of the amp. Why put a $60 DOD pedal before a $2000 amp? Then once I started experimenting with DAWs and their pedal emulations I realized that I was getting harmonics and saturation that I had been missing without the boost.

I have never tried an Afterburner or PA2. I did have a BTC control and, when cranked, it introduced unpleasantries. I assumed the Afterburner did the same, so I always avoided one, as well as most on board controls in general. In any case, my EMGs always needed a boost--my Duncan Distortion didn't.

I tried an HZ3 in the bridge and it sounded nicer than an HZ4 by itself--very even, but it didn't cut through a mix to me.

Very nice solo and melody. A maple board on a Warrior is interesting. Like a vanilla Oreo.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

I find they are usually less "broad" (EQ-wise) than most other passives, yet still not as focused or hot like their active counterparts. I have tried the H1, H3, and H4, but none of the Alnico variants. I have found them all usually surprisingly weak output-wise. Not to say that's a bad thing, but I found it surprising, and probably part of the reason why they're somewhat unpopular. I liked the H1.

I don't think they're bad... I just think they don't usually come stock in great guitars.

 

[Demanic]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

I played a friend's Jackson Soloist many years ago that came stock with a set. Great guitar but the HZ's were very unforgiving of anything less than perfect playing technique.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

 

[Dahla]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

I can understand using super hot pickups for solos, especially with the less gain amps had back then, but they could easily be boosted.

Mesa Mark II C+ (or some Marshalls) is not something I would put in the "less gain" category...

 

[Inflames626]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

I agree with Rex that EMGs have a narrow frequency response--this is why they sound so cutting in a mix when in reality the lows and highs are very attenuated. If you get a plugin like Voxengo SPAN and look at the EQ curve, you can see it.

I think the popularity for metal players is that the tight lows and reduced highs sit well in a mix and don't produce ear fatigue in the highs the way a Duncan Distortion would.

The expansion of the line to include HZ1s and HZ2s (which are not paralleled in the active line) is interesting. Via a Premier Guitar Rig Rundown, I believe Alexi Laiho has been using HZ2s lately through a Marshall JVM (and if anyone does solos with high end it's him)--and yet he has a PA2 for solos, which seems like an unnecessary step if he would just go with a hotter pickup or an amp boost. But maybe having the gain boost on the guitar sounds different than in a pedal.

I've also noticed the HZ1s and HZ2s have their own dedicated bridge and neck sets now, as opposed to stand alone variants. Has anyone tried them?

Regarding Demanic's comment, this is my bias and preference as well, but I've rarely found a pickup to be too unforgiving, save perhaps a Screaming Demon. Anything that reveals my playing is fine by me if it makes me play better and provides more listening clarity to the audience. I don't usually drop tune and just chunk around with one finger. That said, I have found some pickups too bland and flat--the Lace Alumitones and Deathbuckers might be some of these.

Given the amount of gain in pedals and amps made over the past 35 years, I've thought a lot lately about how the pickup output debate seems pointless--whether you measure that by volume, gain, or saturation. Our ears are tricked into thinking louder=sound better. For example, a pickup I really liked for metal was a Gibson Classic 57+ in the bridge, although it did need a lot of boosting and help in the DAW.

Ultimately, output is more about feel than tone, I think. If you're digging in too hard and it's making you make mistakes, then something with more output might be better. I've often had to dial back hotter pickups beyond the 14k mark or so. All that high end grit is why I only use my Distortion for tracking solos.

In short, a cleaner, lower output pickup may give us something cleaner to work with that we can boost later in the signal chain, which of course sounds different than an up front boost on the instrument.

If you had told me when I was 20 that I would later prefer lower output pickups, I would have thought you were crazy.

 

[Inflames626]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

Mesa Mark II C+ (or some Marshalls) is not something I would put in the "less gain" category...

Nor I, but then along came Diezel and Engl and other mid-late 90s and 00s amps.

 

[Inflames626]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

Something else is, we're not at all sure whether Kirk used his wah as a stationary filter during some solos. Before I discovered boosting the front end of an amp, I often used to do solos with my vanilla Crybaby full toe or nearly so, because it provided more high end cut at the expense of thinning out the tone.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: EMG HZs: Why do they get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

It's a given they were using JCM800s for Lightning and Puppets, which by today's standard is low gain, as well as the IIC+, and Scott Ian has said numerous times that all of them (Slayer, Anthrax, Metallica) were using a Big Muff Pi and a Rat. Having run those pedals through my JCM800, I can point out pretty accurately where Kirk was using a Rat, and James was definitely using a BigMuff for the rhythms.